Episode 4: Shemot: Civil Disobedience and the Path to Redemption

This week we begin the book of exodus in the Torah Portion Shemot (Exodus 1:1–6:1). The Israelites are slaves and we follow them from slavery to freedom and then redemption. As we begin this journey through Exodus, Let us consider the midwives Shifrah and Puah The process of redemption does not begin with divine intervention, but with the first recorded act of non-violent civil disobedience. The Torah says that a King arose that did not know Joseph. This Pharoh did not like the increasing number of Israelites. He ordered the midwives, Shifrah and Puah to kill the Israelite male babies as they were born. Midwives did not comply. Their act of civil disobedience makes it possible for the next act and then another and then finally freedom and then redemption