What Midwives See
Shabbat Shalom: January 9, 2026
Dear friends,
This Shabbat we begin the Book of Exodus—Sefer Shemot—and the story of Moses. But before Moses, there are the midwives.
Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives Shifra and Puah to kill every boy at birth. But the Torah says: “The midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them; they let the boys live.”
A contemporary midrash by Orna Peltz asks:
Where in the world did the midwives’ courage come from?
The midrash hears an echo between the Hebrew word for “feared”—vatiré’na—and the word for “seeing”—re’iyah. So the midwives’ fear of God is somehow connected to what they see at the birthstool.
Their courage, it says, came from seeing the mystery of a human being coming into the world, from seeing “the soft seal of God’s finger imprinted on their faces.”
I spent my Rosh Hashanah drash this year telling you my birth story (!), so I won’t go there again. But I do love the idea that the midwives’ fierce defiance came from paying attention to what was right in front of them.
This week brought news of a fatal shooting by an ICE agent in Minneapolis—a painful reminder to hold onto our seeing, especially in times like these. May we have the courage to look.
May this Shabbat bring you the gift of really seeing the seal of God’s finger on everything and everyone. And may that somehow strengthen you.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Zelkha
PS: Tomorrow Zachy Silber becomes bar mitzvah! Come witness his courage and say mazal tov!!
PPS: Speaking of seeing clearly—come see “The Next Dream,” a documentary about immigrant families facing deportation, this Sunday at 11am at EC. Panel discussion with National TPS Alliance members, led by Eitz Action, to follow.
