Shemos - Shifra and Puah: The Power of Feminine Redemption

1:59 Or Florida, even Florida, if you find yourself yearning for the warm temperatures of Eretz Yisrael, you're certainly welcome to come. My wife and I were walking on the Tayelit in Netanya, and we were discussing this year. I just want to start off by saying it's hard to know at this point what's mine and what's my wife's, but Chazal tell us that we bring Mashiach if we quote the people who taught us this Torah. So it could very well be that what I'm sharing today is basically all from my wife. These parshas are so special to us because learning these parshas already gets us in the modality of Pesach. Every year we spend so much time working on the Hagada, working on these inyanim. So I want to try today, just for a couple of moments, to look at one aspect of the story of Geula, and maybe see it through a deeper lens—a psychological lens, a growth-oriented lens—one that I'm deeply hopeful will make a big impact on us.

2:59 So we'll read a couple of psukim with some Rashi's. So Paro has decided that he's going to deal wisely with Klali Yisrael. How does he deal wisely with Klali Yisrael? So he does as follows. Paro Melach Mitzrayim is now speaking to these mialdot, to these midwives who are called mialdot haevrios. We'll see what that means soon, but let's assume for a moment that means the Hebrew midwives. So there are two midwives. The first one is called Shifer. The second one is called Puah. Rashi tells us, and we're going to see even. Rashi is quoting a piece of the Gemara. Rashi tells us a Gemara that most of us are familiar with. Shifra Yochaved. Shifra was actually the mother of Moshe Rabbeinu, the wife of Amram. And why was she called Shifra? Al shteim shem esaperes es avlad Because she was mesaper the vlad. She would improve the physical condition. She was the one that took care of the physical needs of the baby. Wiping the baby clean, etc. After the birth.

4:12 Puah, who was Puah? Zimriam, who was Miriam, the sister of Moshe Rabbeinu, the daughter of Yochaveh. Why? Shepoa u'medaberes v'hogalavlad, Because she would call out, she would speak, she would croon to this new baby born, this newborn baby. Kederach hanashim u'mefaisos tina kaboche, Puah loshon saaka. So Rashi says this is the way that women do it. They soothe crying babies. Pua is an expression of crying out. So she would deal with the baby as they were crying out. So that's usually what we know. Shifra and Pua are actually Yocheved and Miriam. Yocheved would take care of the physical needs of the baby. Shifra would soothe the baby when she was crying. The Gemara actually tells us that was all the shita of Rav. The Gemara actually tells us that there's another opinion as well, the opinion of Shmuel. That says that Pua was actually Eli Shava Eli Shava, the wife of Aaron Cohen.

5:17 That's interesting. And Rabbi Yehuda HaChassid says not like the Gemara at all. Not that it was Yocheved or Miriam or Eli Shava, but actually these were in fact Egyptian women And he says they were righteous converts. They were righteous. I'm sorry, not righteous converts. Righteous Gentiles. And what would these righteous Gentiles do? They went against the decree of Paroas. We'll soon see. But they were not, in fact Jewish women. They were miyaldos haevrios. They were the midwives for the Jewish people. But in fact, they were not Jewish at all. This is very interesting. Let's look at what Paroas says. Va'yomer. So he said to them, when you deliver from these Jewish women, you have to look at the birthing stool. If it's a boy, kill him. If it's a girl, let her live. Rashi tells us, what is this of Naim? What is this birthing stone? Moshe of Haisha Hayoledes. Bemakamacher koromashber. This is the place where the women would sit when they were giving birth. It's also known as a mashber, which we're going to see is going to be very important.

6:38 So what did these miyaldot do? Matirena hamiyaldos esalokim v'lo lashukasher diberalei melech mitzrayim. But chayena sayeladim. So the midwives feared God. They fear. They were God-fearing women. And they did not do as Paro wanted them to do, and in fact, they v'tchayeneh sayyaledim. They actually helped these Jewish boys live. Rashi tells us what does v'tchayeneh sayyaledim mean? They actually gave the children food and water to make sure that these children lived. So not only did they go against Paro's decree, but they actually helped these Jewish boys live. And we know that the Gemara tells us that when Paro came to these miyados evrios, and he said to them, "What's going on over here?" They said, "You have to understand, these Jewish women—they're not like Egyptian women." Egyptian women—they go into labor slowly; it takes time, 48 hours. You get a call, they send you home. Then you go back. As one of my daughter's best friends growing up, she was sent home. I guess Jewish women today are not like back then. This girl was sent home from the hospital. As soon as she got home, she had the baby at home. Like one of these cases. So the Miyal dos Ebreos said, you have to understand, Jewish women give birth in a hurry. They're very quick. They're very, very quick.

8:06 By the time we get there, the baby has already been born. So we can't kill the Jewish male children like you're asking us to. That's the story. The story we all grew up with. We all know the story. Paro wants to kill the baby boys. These miyados sevrios. If it was Yochvevet, if it was Miriam, if it was Zeliyshteva, if it was actually Egyptian women, somehow they refuse. And Paro is frustrated with them because they're not listening, because they're God-fearing women. And ultimately, they help these children live. And they say, Jewish women are not like us. They give birth too fast. We don't have the opportunity to kill these babies at birth. There's so many questions. When we look at this story, questions that perhaps we've never thought of before, because since we grew up in the Orthodox, we like we know these stories, so we never actually take the opportunity to unpack them deeply.

8:59 And I want to take a moment today to think of this story in a brand new way. Everything in the Torah is for us. Everything in the Torah is for us to grow from. So we should start off by asking ourselves a question. When we say Paro Melech Mitzrayim, what does that mean to us? We're not reading a story about Paro. We're not reading a story about the babies that were being born in that time. Torah is written for every single generation. What does this story mean to us? What does the character Paro mean to us in our life? And why does this Paro, for us in our world What does it mean that he only wants to kill the male children? He doesn't want to kill the female children. And what does it mean that Shifra and Pua tended to these children in their unique special ways? That Shifra took care of the body of the child, Pua would soothe the child. What does that mean for us in our lives? And then what is this machlokas about Pua?

10:01 What's like? What does that mean? Was she Miriam? Was she Eliezer? Everything in Yiddishkeit means something. If the Gemara tells us it's a machlokus, if it was Miriam and Eliyeva, they're not just tossing a coin. They're not just maybe it was her. It means that Miriam means something, and it means that Eliyeva means something. What is the inner meaning of Shifra and Puah vis-a-vis Miriam and Eliyeva? And obviously, what is this Yehuda Chassid out of nowhere telling us that in fact they're not even Jewish women at all? These are God-fearing Egyptian women that rebelled against their own king. What does that mean to us? What's the significance of the fact that Paro Dafka tells these Mialdos Ivrios, whoever they are? You have to look at the birthing stool. You have to see right away: is it a male baby or is it a female baby? If it's a female baby, let her live. But if it's a male baby, you have to kill. What's the significance of this birthing stool that the pasuk puts an emphasis on it? Rashi is letting us know that it's called a mashber. That birthing stool is called a mashber.

11:10 And then, how did these midwives help the children live? They fed them food and water. What does this actually mean? Okay. In other words, in a nutshell, if you just wanted, I think that was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven questions. If you wanted to sum up these seven questions in one question, it would basically mean. What does this story mean to us in our lives? All of these seemingly insignificant details enrich the texture of the story in such a way that it opens up the entire story for us. Who is Paro? Let's start there. Paro is the part of us that is obsessed with control. Obsessed with self-preservation Obsessed with continuity Because Paro is our ego. And the ego lives from the perspective of self-preservation. I'm gonna die. There's a threat that's on the horizon. Paro is the part of us that's always anxious and obsessed with what's coming next? What threat is coming up? Remember, at this point in the story, right? Paro is coming to these miyados eivrios, and he's saying, 'Avinu shachmolu. We have to deal wisely with the threat of Klal Yisrael. Klal Yisrael had been there for a while.' And we had not possessed a threat to him.

12:30 But now Paro's reading the tea leaves, and he's saying, "Egypt is a mighty place, but we have people on the inside that are not like us." And we do this in our lives. Everything could be going fine, but there are parts of us that come up and go. 'But what happens if everything falls apart? What happens if things in my life start to spiral?' And we plan. My wife makes fun of me sometimes because I'll tell her my whole plan for the next six weeks. First I have three more weeks of being in yeshiva, and then I'm going to LA, and then I'm going to Chicago, and then I'm going to New York for a week in New Jersey, and then I'm coming back, and then two weeks later I'm going back to NCSY New Jersey for a Shabbos at the end of February. And then I'm coming back, and before Pesach I have a Talmud's wedding, and I hopefully will be in Toronto that Shabbos. I was like, what are you talking about?

13:20 It's the beginning of January. Why are you giving me this whole detailed list? Of everything that's to come, there's an anxious part of me that's like, if I only know what's happening, if I only know how everything is going to roll, then everything is going to be just as it is, and everything is going to be good. So if you're on team anxiety, and you're always just working things through, just to make sure I know everything that's coming up, and I'm just safe. That's the pyro part of ourselves. What do his astrologers predict? A future redemption A future redemption is going to occur. Paro, your position as Melech Mitzrayim is tenuous, because after all, that's what the ego fills. So what does he want to do? So Paro needs to stay in a state of dominance. And in a state of dominance, our ego always fears transformation.

14:16 That is the depth of this entire story. The entire story of Itziyas Mitzrayim is we are cling to our ego, cling to this need for continuity, cling to this need for self-preservation, for control. I'm dominating. I'm in the powerful position. And any hint of transformation is threatening. That's why sometimes in our marriage When we start to transform You ever notice how your spouse starts to get nervous? It's like the whole bedrock of your marriage could start to shift because you're making moves. It doesn't even need to be in your marriage. Sometimes it could be with friends, right? As you start to show up differently in the world, you'll know who your real friends are. Because your real friends will be the ones that are like, 'This is good. This I'm really happy for you. It seems like you're really working on yourself. It seems like you're making significant moves.'

15:15 And then there's always those people that they're terrified. What happens if this transformation happens? What will it mean for our relationship? And that's what's happening outside of ourselves. Imagine what's happening inside of ourselves. As you're thinking about what do I want my life to look like? What do I want to go to work on myself? What do I want to look like next year at this time when I'm thinking about who am I and how am I showing up in the world? What are the things that I would like to be able to say about myself? That are fundamentally different a year from now, and you'll start to notice that there's feelings that come up in your system of don't do that. Don't do that, don't go to that place because if you do, what's going to be the negative impact of that? There's a feeling of a loss of control, which is why change and transformation are so vulnerable.

16:09 Half the time we don't even want to use the word change or transformation because of how vulnerable it is. So we talk about growth. But what we really mean is transformation. I would like—I mean, I'm 45 years old now. I'm a grandfather. I sincerely hope that in 10 years from now, I'm really different. I really hope that about myself. But also, there is a part of me that when this thought of, I don't know where I'll be in 10 years from now, there's something scary about it. What will I lose about myself if I transform? So the pyro part of ourselves, which is our ego. Our need for self-preservation, our need for continuity Our need for control. Why is it so afraid of transformation? Why does it need to dominate? Because we don't know what will happen if we transform. I don't know where this whole story is going.

17:00 So there is a nation that lives in Mitzrayim. They currently represent no threat. They've never represented a threat. But the future, the astrologers are saying, you don't know. You don't know what the future is going to look like. Maybe these internal people are going to get in cahoots with those external people, and maybe this whole thing is going to fall apart. So this is a mussel in a certain sense for the nimshel that is our personal lives The ego fears transformation because it means a loss of dominance and control. So why only the boys? Why do the boys represent a threat to Paro and not the girls? If you look at the pasuk, it puts an emphasis. It says, 'Kill the boys. The girls can live.' Why doesn't it just say, 'Kill only the boys'? The Torah is so careful about every single word. And here, the Torah is saying, "No."

17:53 It's not just kill the boys. The girls could live. The Torah is like telling us, 'The girls could live.' Why don't women represent a threat to Pharaoh? As somebody who grew up Jewish, I know the biggest threat to Pharaoh is women. But Pharaoh doesn't seem to be afraid of the women at all. He's almost like encouraging, Jewish women, bring Jewish women into the world. What's the message here? When we speak about male and female in Yiddishkeit, we don't mean gender. We mean energy. There's masculine energy. There's feminine energy. Some women have masculine energy. Some men have feminine energy. We're speaking about energies now. The male child. Represents the concept of differentiation of a future-oriented consciousness, where the direction could be totally distinct from what I am today. That's the male energy that Paro is afraid of. Paro doesn't fear life. Paro fears a life that will grow beyond him.

19:06 The notion of male, of masculine energy, is the creation of something other, distance. There's a male energy that when it confronts Paro, when it confronts that controlling ego in our life, the masculine energy says, "I'm going to kill Paro." I'm going to change. I'm going to get rid of that part of myself that's holding me back, that's keeping me in this state of restriction, of self-preservation, of the need to dominate. The male energy says, "I want to destroy that part of myself." That's why the notion of a boy coming to yeshiva and really going to work on himself has a certain aggressive type of feel. It's like I'm killing off that thing that I was. I'm walking out of my year. I've been reborn like a phoenix rising from the ashes. So you see these boys, they come back after a year or two from Eretz Yisrael, and it's like you can hardly recognize them because it's that masculine energy of I'm going to kill the past. And I'm going to create something new in the future, and this is terrifying to Paro.

20:10 The idea that I will be killed off in this dream of what we could possibly be—that I won't be limited to this shell of self-preservation anymore. Self-preservation is safe. Staying small is safe. You might think that Paro represents power because he's the Melach of Mitzrayim, and it's true. But we find people in our world. We see this. People that are massive, and they're dominating their fields, but in truth, they're terrified. They're very small people occupying very big positions from a deep place of fear. CEOs that have hundreds of millions, billions of dollars, but they fire anybody who's a threat to them. They think in a very small way because they're constantly bombarded by this fear of what will happen to them. Literally five minutes before this year started today, a friend of mine messaged me and said he lost his job. I said, 'What happened?' He said the CEO got tired of the ideas that were radical, radically changing the company, not coming from him.

21:13 So what happens? He's CEO of a company, and he's terrified of the people that work for him. Female energy is completely different energy. Female energy is the nurturing of what already exists. So Paro's not afraid of women. Other Abba, Paro's like, keep the girls, let them live, because what's the nature of the female energy? It's not a threat to me. Life will continue. There's nothing that's going to stop Paro. If women are around, I'm going to be enhanced. I'm not going to be replaced. I'm going to be nurtured. So Paro is not afraid of this female energy. He's afraid of the masculine energy because the masculine energy seeks to kill him. And his perspective of female energy nurturing him—it's like they're going to give me what I need. They're going to take care of me. What does this look like? It's a modern psychological example of this. Let's say Chassidishalom, a person grew up in a home with parents that are very controlling.

22:16 This family subconsciously allows for caretaking. It allows for emotional bonding. It allows for loyalty. You always hear from these very controlling parents that you always stand with family, like the mafia. You're always family is everything. You stand with your brothers and sisters no matter what. There's this very emotional bonding that exists in the family. But any time a child in that family starts to become a little bit more independent, maybe starts to like build their own boundaries a little bit. Have a different vision for what their life should look like, right? All of a sudden, the reaction is very harsh. All of a sudden, it's like, oh no, that's not what we're doing here. We're not even thinking about that. This is what our family does. And what does a child learn in that environment? A child learns I can be loved, but only if I don't become myself.

23:17 So that child might grow up, even though that child has every child. I saw this line recently. Every child has wings. It's just that for most of us, our wings are cut off. Some of us, very few of us, get to keep our wings. But most of us could still feel where the wings were growing before they were chopped off when we were young. We still feel like there's a wing underneath there, and it makes us feel like why can't I fly? We have this vision. I should be flying. Where did we get our wings chopped off? Sometimes we got our wings chopped off by people that told us In the name of what appeared to be holy, it's like no, stay in your lane. But it really was control. It was those parents that they themselves were fragile, so they didn't have the ability to let that child discover their inner creativity, because that inner creativity was frightening to them. And that female notion of like Nurturing and staying within the family feels very safe.

24:21 So the ego is not concerned with that feminine energy. It's the masculine energy of like I'm doing something different. That's terrifying to the ego. But the truth is that Paro He didn't know what we know Which is that redemption is always feminine. That every single gollus we've ever gotten out of in our lives has always come from feminine energy. And in fact, there's an irony here. Paro is telling these mieldos aevrios, no, let the women live. He doesn't realize he's literally undoing himself with that one line. It's not the men that are going to unseat Paro; it's the women that are going to unseat Paro. Why? Because what Paro doesn't know about feminine energy is nurturing. But what does it nurture? The feminine energy nurtures life that ultimately becomes the authentic self. The feminine energy can't nurture ego because we're not designed to play the game of life small.

25:28 So feminine energy will actually have the greatest possible transformation, whereas masculine energy will try to kill Paro. And we know anything that you suppress, you give power to. Feminine energy is like a Chinese finger trap. It's like you pull that ego in and nurture it into its deepest, most authentic self. And so Paro had the entire thing wrong. He said, "I've got to be afraid of the war that the Jewish men are going to wage upon me." No, man, you got it wrong. You have to be terrified of the women. Because when women see ego, they recognize there's just a trapped child in there that's seeking to become something larger. What women know about Paro, what women know about Mitzrayim, is you're deeply unhappy being Paro. What's it like to sit at the top of the podium pole? Terrified that somebody is going to push you off, and the landing is going to be epic as you shatter every bone in your body?

26:27 Women know that Paro doesn't want to be Paro. They know that Mitzrayim doesn't want to live in this constricted state. Sometimes it's not about doing anything. That's masculine energy. It's just about being there, nurturing that Paro into what it's ultimately meant to become. And remember that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Bo el Paro" Meaning Hashem is telling Moshe Rabbeinu, 'Come to Paro,' because I am within Paro. Underneath the layers of all of that ego and all of that fear and all of that need for control and self-preservation, there is an authentic self that's yearning to come out, and it requires that feminine energy to nurture it into being. Which is why Paro tells these Mialdos Efrios. Pay very careful attention to the moment of birth. Because that's where everything happens. It's called psychic rupture. Rashi identifies it as a mashber. What does a mashber mean? It means the breaking The breaking is where the growth occurs. That moment of rupture, where something explodes onto the scene, that's where real transformation occurs, where there's that breakdown. In that moment, the old psychological structures can't hold new life.

27:45 Which tells us a very deep thing: birth and breaking are the same exact moment. What we feel is breaking is actually birth. And Paro understands this. Paro understands the seed is going to break. The acorn breaks down in order to become the oak tree. So Paro says, when you see that acorn starting to break, that's when you have to kill that male Jewish child, because what you think is breaking is actually birth. That's this Jewish nation coming onto the scene that's going to have this transformational impact. So Paro is telling us a deep psychological principle, which is the moment of rupture. The moment of breaking, that's the ultimate moment of birth. Paro says new consciousness is most vulnerable at the point of emergence. When are you going to kill the baby right away? It's like you see this in yeshiva. A boy starts getting inspired, right? But he's still very fresh. He's breaking, but he's birthing. It's a very vulnerable time. All it takes is one not nice word from a friend, one less than encouraging word from a rebbe, and the entire structure falls apart.

29:03 Because in that moment of breaking, it's true. There's this great psychic rupture. There's the mashber. Everything is falling apart. We, as the adults, know something amazing is happening. But we also know that this is the most vulnerable time. You're not yet strong enough to stand by yourself. And so, what do we have in this moment? This is when Shifra and Pua enter the scene. Shifra and Pua represent two types of healing. That we need to go through when we're in our space of being birthed through the breaking of our lives. Let's look carefully now at who they were. So we know that Shifra was Yochabit The mother of Moshe, and Pua—that's a machlokas. Let's see what Shifra represents. Remember, we said she was Mishaperes; she cleaned off the baby. She's the healer of the body. What it means is as follows. And again, now in psychological terminology, now in 2026, these things are almost obvious to us. The Torah was teaching us these messages way before Freud.

30:11 There's something called somatic healing. You have to heal the body. That book, "The Body Keeps the Score." For those that have their screens on, you can just nod along if you know the book, "The Body Keeps the Score. Where do we hold trauma?" We hold trauma in our body. So Shifra represents, in our moment of breaking, as we're unfolding and we're being born, he represents this somatic repair, restoring the safety to the body after the rupture has occurred. Helping our nervous system settle down. Regulating, grounding. This is all called bottom-up healing. It's healing that starts even before the conscious process of the mind. It's just healing in the body, learning to settle yourself, learning to breathe, learning that you are deeply okay in your body. Not as a voice that you're cultivating within yourself. It's a deep intuitive knowledge that gets to the body that says Even though I'm going through this process of being born, and there's this unbelievable mashper that's occurring.

31:23 In my body, I know that I'm okay. That's what Shifra represents. What does Pua represent? So Pua, as we said, Pua is the voice. She soothes the child. She cools with the child. So if Shifra is about somatic healing, then Pua is much more like the therapeutic voice. It's about language. It's about attunement. It's about being able to express yourself. The baby is crying. And I know how to settle that voice. I know how to lean into that voice and let's establish what's the meaning of what's happening? What does it mean to you? What could it mean to you? So that's how Pua settles the crying child that's going through this mash bear. As we're going through this unfolding, it's terrifying. I don't know where this is taking me. And it's about so let's reframe this. What are you afraid of? Let's give it a voice. What would a courageous voice look like?

32:19 PUA tends to the voice. The conscious mind processes what's happening, and Shiver represents the body, the somatic healing. And it makes a big difference now. Machlokas Ravin Shmuel Who is the healing of the voice? Rav says it's Miriam. She's a part of the family. Meaning it's internal. It's not someone who marries in from the outside. There's that internal voice that we all have. It's a voice of Miriam. She's part of the family. Yochved, Amram, Aaron, Kohein, Miriam, Moshe. That's the family. As we're going through this moment of birth. What Rav is telling us is this unbelievable psychological insight. And the insight is As you're breaking There is a voice inside of you that's healing. There's this emerging prophetic voice. You might feel like, oh no, where is this taking me as I fall apart and go through this transformation. Remember, Miriam is always the voice of hope.

33:25 She's the insider voice of hope that says "I wonder how this is going to turn out because it's going to turn out great." Remember, she's the one that walks alongside the Tevah Moshe just to see how this story is going to unfold. It's Miriam that's packing the tambourines as Kallah Yisrael is going out. To Kriyas Yamsuf, because she knows a miracle is going to occur. And so, what we're learning from this is when a person goes through this psychic rupture Okay, we think that we've lost our internal voice, that we're okay. But in fact, it's just the opposite. That's when we have to tap into that internal Miriam family voice, the child who's speaking inside of us, who can name our pain, but also can anticipate our redemption. That's the voice of Miriam. And Shmuel comes along and he tells us not an argument, but another side. Machlokas doesn't mean an argument. Vikua means an argument. A machlokas represents a chelak.

34:24 So Rabbis tell us the chelak of the internal voice. Shmuel tells us the chelak of the external voice. Remember that Eliezer is not a mother and she's not a sister. She's a sister-in-law. She's from the outside, right? That fully-formed adult from the outside. Who is now in a relationship with our fam? Think of it like the voice of the therapist. Sometimes you have to borrow the voice of your therapist that lets you know that you're okay until you can find that voice within yourself. So it's an unbelievable voice that Elie Shava has. And obviously it's not an accident. That this external voice of Elie Shava, who is she? She's the one that marries Ariana Cohen. Meaning, what does she attach herself to? To seeing the beauty of every single Jew, to judging favorably, to being the voice of kindness and compassion. It's that unconditional positive regard.

35:21 So Eliezer comes in from the outside, attaches herself to Arnaud Cohen. She's the voice that as we're breaking Says, "I see that this is really hard for you, and I just want to remind you, you're okay, and this makes sense what you're going through." You're understandable, even if you don't understand yourself yet. Because sometimes it's difficult for us to generate that healing voice on our own. And we need to borrow it from the outside. Rav says redemption begins because the inner world still has a voice. And Shmuel says redemption begins because we can meet someone who's trustworthy. And we can share with them our journey. They can treat us with kindness and compassion, and they lend us their voice so that we can learn to speak again for ourselves and find our inner Miriam. It helps us regulate when we have difficulty regulating ourselves. Puah as Elisha is the soothing voice, either internally or externally, that comes through a relationship with ourselves or a relationship with someone outside of ourselves.

36:32 And what is the bottom line here? You can't kill the future if either you speak for yourself or someone else speaks life into you. Because that's what Paro is attempting to do. Paro is attempting to kill the future of Klal Yisrael. Any transformation, Paro says, we're not doing transformation. I'm going to kill the future. I'm going to stay like this forever in my lane. I'm going to be totally safe. Everything is going to be okay. The future is going to look exactly like the present. There is no future. But if you have an internal voice that says you're okay Or you're borrowing someone's external voice that's treating you with kindness and compassion, then you can't kill the future. The future will always unfold because that's the nature of what it means when you're living from that place of self. If you have a voice that says I'm okay, either from internal or external.

37:26 Ultimately you will change. Change is inevitable, and you can't kill that future. Comes a longer view, Da'achasid, and he adds an even more beautiful layer onto this. He says, "It's Shifra and Puah. It's not who you think." They're not Me'aldos ha'Evyos. It's not Yochaved. It's not Miriam. It's not Eliezer. These are actually complete outsiders. These are righteous. Women who were Egyptians and they crossed over, meaning they're choosing to go against their own civilization. They're the insider that refuses the system, and they're going to expose the falsehood of the system. And what this means to us is sometimes that healing begins when an entirely different moral imagination enters into our psyche and it defects. It's an unbelievable thing to think about. What changes us? I once heard this line many years ago. The addict that finally goes into rehab He doesn't go into rehab because his godly soul has finally convinced him to go into rehab.

38:39 He goes into rehab because his animal soul is so tired of being an addict from the Egyptian culture itself. Comes these women who are described in the pasuk as God-fearing women. It means that at this point the ego is tired of being the ego. These women don't fear Paro, they don't fear their culture, they don't fear their gods, they don't fear their people. What do they fear? They fear not living aligned with the truth. Meaning, this is the part of the ego that aligns itself with the self. Even if it means it's going to cost me my identity. Even if it means it's going to cost me my safety Even if it means it's going to cost me my belonging Sometimes our ego gets tired of being our ego. Sometimes our ego gets tired of playing this game where I just have to constantly keep up with everybody else, working at a frenetic pace that's not working for me at all.

39:38 And then it's actually—not paro, but that nito, that spark within paro that's saying we cannot do this anymore. This is simply not working for us. And so the shi'ita of Rabbi Yehuda HaChasid is redemption does not only come from the oppressed. Sometimes redemption comes from the oppressor. When the oppressor's world starts to crack, that's when redemption starts to come. And if you put all of these things together It looks something like this. I told you this is a deep var. I think my wife said the entire thing. The sinner, what is that guy's name? The Sirinot de Bergerac of my wife. I just happen to be the guy that's saying it, but I'm pretty sure most of this comes from my wife. Either your soul still has that inner voice called Miriam Or there's that trustworthy other who sees you with kindness and compassion. That's Elisheva.

40:36 Or we can survive tyranny when the system itself refuses to kill the future. And that's why I believe Rav Yudah Chasid says that these miyaldo seivrios eventually converted to Yiddishkeit. Meaning that Paro himself ultimately becomes repentant. And by the way, we know that's what happened. Paro is standing there at Kriyas Yamsuv and he loses everything. When's the next time we see Paro? He becomes the Melech of Ninve. And this is why Yona is so afraid to bring the prophecy to Ninve because he knows Ninve will repent. How does he know that Nivei is going to do tshuva? How does he know that Nivei is going to realign itself? Because who's leading Nivei? It's Paro, the ultimate bal tshuva. If anybody's going to inspire Nivei to change, it's going to be Paro. It's like the addict who's an old timer getting up, saying to the newbie who just walked into the room, "Going Dude, don't go down this path. Let me tell you how to walk.

41:35 That old timer is so inspiring because they lived it. So Yona understood if I go to Ninveh and tell them to do tshuva, it's going to look terrible for Klal Yisrael because they have the ultimate bal tshuva who's sitting on their throne. Paro already discovered from within himself that when he instructs those miyados eivrios, when he tells his psychic energy go kill the future, his psychic energy rebels and it actually becomes the agent of change. There's an irony that within Paro himself, he's sprouting the redemption that he's seeking to destroy. And it's because he seeks to destroy the future. The future refuses to allow itself to be destroyed. What's Paro's failure? Paro, despite his absolute Paro, despite his absolute power The midwives fear God. And they don't do as he commanded. Why? Because authentic life cannot be permanently suppressed. You can only live in a state of Mitzrayim for so long.

42:38 But eventually, Klal Yisrael must break free. And these Miyadosa Ivrios, instead of killing the boys, help the children live. The life has a way of saying You can't keep me down. You could try. You could cut off my wings, but eventually, I'm going to turn around. Maybe I'm going to be 25. Maybe I'm going to be 30. Maybe I'm going to be 40, or maybe I'm going to be 50. And at some point, I'm going to say, 'This is not my life.' I don't want to live this way anymore. I don't want to be hiding. I want to be in honest relationships, even if it means I'm going to lose some big relationships. I'm ready to be authentically myself. When you do that It's an unbelievable thing if you're doing it authentically. A lot of times people do it and they're not authentic at all. It's in the name of change, but it's really just more paro.

43:26 So what do the midwives say? They say to Paro, these Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They give birth before the midwife even comes. What does that mean? They weren't lying. These Miel dos Eviros, they weren't lying. I'm confident that Paro had a CIA who was working for him. I'm absolutely, he must have had spies all around Mitzrayim. He knew things that were going on. After all, eventually he found out that Moshe Rabbeinu killed the Mitzri. Paro could have verified it if they were actually helping these children be born. So then, Paro would have killed them. They were telling the truth. The way that Jewish women have babies is not with midwives. So what does it mean? What role do the midwives actually play here? Life emerges on its own. You do not need someone to guide life to being born. Life will emerge by itself.

44:28 But what happens when life emerges? It requires safety. The Hebrew women, these Jewish women, can give birth on their own. But birth alone does not guarantee that this emerging self is going to survive psychologically. The midwives are not needed to create life; they're needed to protect life at that point of threat. Life always emerges. But it might not survive the oppression. Paro says, if I control the moment of birth, I control the future. Paro's partially right. The future will be born. But the question is, what happens when the future is born? The self doesn't require the ego's permission to change, to emerge. New consciousness is always inevitable. People are always changing. But what's born without protection can still be killed. What did these miel dos cerebros do? So we spoke about the fact that they were— they did that somatic healing. We spoke about the fact that they were the internal voice or the external voice, or the voice of the oppressed from within the system itself. But remember what Rashi says: if you are not a tzadik, you cannot be a leader. Remember what Rashi says: they gave these children food and water. What does that mean?

45:47 They gave them the aftercare. Water represents that emotional nourishment. Food means identity. In this state of this emerging self, these miados hevrios protected these precious children. This emerging self. It's okay. You're going through this. I'm with you. We were loved into being by the people that loved us most. The fact that we had this emerging self, there were parents that were next to us and they were guiding us through this process, or there were camp counselors, or teachers, or rabbis, or whoever it was. They were guiding us, telling us you're doing good. They were giving us that emotional nourishment. They were telling us be courageous, go out, be yourself. This is what you're looking for. You're looking for meaning. You're looking for identity. We don't need these people to initiate our life. What we need is for these people to accompany us on our journey. And by the way, if you think about it, they do.

46:44 Think about the voices that live inside of you. That emotionally nourished voice that lives inside of you. Think about whose voice it is. For me, it's my parents. It's my grandmother. It's my rebbe. They're voices that are living inside of me. They gave me that emotional nourishment, that feeling of identity, when I was going through my emerging self, when I was a child, and then a teenager, and then in my 20s. And I'm still going through it today. It's quiet. We may not realize that these voices are inside of us But they are, and that's how healing works. Growth survives not because these midwives confronted Paro But simply because they cared about those children that were being born. Redemption does not depend on the emergence of life. Redemption depends on whether somebody is willing to accompany life once it begins. And this is how geula begins. Geula does not begin with Moshe Rabbeinu.

47:42 Geula does not begin because Moshe Rabbeinu was born. Moshe Rabbeinu was born because geula has already begun. And who began geula? Those meyaldos haevrios. Those people that accompanied that emerging life when it was born. Now that we have Shifra and Puah, those miados efrios on the scene. Now Moshe Rabbeinu can be born because there are people that are choosing life. There are people that are refusing to cooperate with destruction. There are people that are nourishing that vulnerable future. So these two women who refuse to assist the ego as it is intent on murdering the future. These two women that say. I'm sick of silencing myself. I'm sick of silencing this part of me that's yearning to be born. Adaraba, I'm going to nourish that part into being. That is the first act of geula. That's what redemption really means. That's what starts our redemption. I don't know how many years I've been a part of the Chizuk Mission. I'm not good at counting.

48:53 I want to share what it's been like to be a part of the Chizuk Mission. We are living in a state of Mitzrayim today. That's what's happening in the world psychologically. People are feeling so restricted, so constricted. Women are walking around today, wondering where their wings went. Wondering when they got cut off and why I am living so small? And Barry Feld. Started this thing called Chesed Mission, and Baruch Hashem, she has her Robin, Aviva. We don't know what we would do without you, Aviva. The perfect combination, Barry and Aviva, Batman and Robin. They came onto the scene and they said, okay, so we are seeing these women yearning to be more. They were there at the moment that the child was born. That's what happened. And they said, "This emerging self is happening one way or another. Klali Yisrael is heading towards Geula." But it requires a system, a program that's going to be accompanying us throughout our lives. Something that's going to be there to get us into that place where we know that we're deeply okay on the level of our body.

50:04 Somatic healing of Shefrah, and on the level of that internal voice. Learning how to re-narrate our lives so that we could come close to Hashem. Shefrah and Poa, Barry and Aviva. And so many women who have come on the Chizik mission. When I say come on the Chizik mission, I just want to be clear: I do not mean coming to Israel. Coming to Israel is always a special treat, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ridiculous amount of weekly shiurim that are being hosted every single week. I'm talking about the events that are going on all over the country. The fact that Chizik mission communities are literally like cropping up all over America—it's an unbelievable thing. Everywhere I go now, people are involved with the Chizik Mission. I'm like the Menahel of Mevaseret. But people know me more from the Chizik Mission than they do from Mevaseret.

50:56 It's because so many women are yearning to be released from this restriction of para. It's the miyados ebrios. I can't handle this anymore. This isn't working for me. We literally have even on this Zoom call, but come out every single week. I know I make fun of her every single week, and I see that she's in her car now. But it's not unusual to see women joining a she'er while they're driving somewhere. This isn't like I'm on Spotify listening to a she'er. I'm on Torah anytime listening to a she'er. This has become the oxygen tank for so many of us. And that's a very, very special thing. And I have tremendous gratitude, honestly, to all of you who have joined us for so many of these programs, both in Eretz Yisrael and outside of Eretz Yisrael. The fact that whenever I'm coming to the Five Towns, it either goes to me. Rebberg, you have to let us know when you're coming next because we have to start doing programs. By the way, I'm coming next on Zoom. I know I totally forgot to tell you until just this moment, and it's totally inappropriate to say it now.

51:54 The Chizik mission is important because it is part of this process of Geula, of people that are yearning to break free of Mitzrayim. Moshe Rabbeinu will be born because Jewish women insist. We are going to nourish this ego into its true self, deeply connected to Hashem. That's what's happening in the world today, and it's absolutely what's happening on the Chizuk mission. There are a lot of great institutions in Kalla Yisrael. Baruch Hashem, we're very blessed. But we should not on any level For any moment Take the Chizuk mission for granted. On two levels, one, we have to have unbelievable karzatov to bury into Aviva for all the work that they put in. And to all the people that are putting in work to making the Chizuk Mission happen But also we have to have a deep appreciation for this object called the Chizuk Mission. We have to there's a real living entity, and it's going to live beis Hashem past Barry and past Aviva, and in a hundred years from now there'll be the next iteration of Chizuk Mission.

52:59 But we also have to remember that we are the Chizuk Mission. The Chizuk Mission is not limited to two people. The Chizuk Mission is every one of us. It's not just something that we benefit from. We're not just consumers of the Chizuk Mission. We're partners of the Chizuk Mission. And it's really important to remember. You remember when COVID hit and there were people that stopped paying their membership to shul because they said, "Why should I pay membership to shul? I'm not going to shul anymore." And then there were people that said, "How can I double down on my membership because the shul needs me now more than ever before?" Those people that were consumers of the shul left But those people that were partners in the shul When the going got tough, they stood with their partners. We are the Chizuk Mission. Supporting the Chizuk Mission is not supporting Barry and it's not supporting Aviva. It's supporting ourselves. This is our company. This is our future. This is our Klal Yisrael.

53:55 And tons of women need to be. I don't even know how many people know about the Chizuk Mission. With you, I don't know how many people know what the Chizuk Mission is offering every single week to sustain us through this difficult mashber that is this Geula Ikhves of the Mashiach process that we're in the middle of. It is oxygen. I was just looking at the promo video for this new campaign that's going on, and I'm like, look how many unbelievable rebbeim and teachers are all the time coming on the Chizuk Mission. Of course, because the Chizuk Mission is giving us exactly what we need in these precious moments before Mashiach is born. Remember, Moshe Rabbeinu is born into a context of Geula. He's born because we create the context of Geula. Mashiach will come because we create the context for his redemption to occur. I want to encourage all of you to give generously. Barry and Aviva can't say it because they're too close to it. I'm an outsider a little bit, so I can say it.

54:56 You're not supporting the Chizik mission. You're supporting yourselves. You're supporting your daughters. You're supporting your community. You're supporting Geula. This is what the Chizik mission is about. And any time you can ask Aviva, can you do a shir here? Can you do a shir there? What can you do? Barry gets on the phone with me. What can we do? Let's do this. Let's do that. Barry's the biggest dreamer in the world. I'm in. I'm in. My time is very, very precious. I really don't have a lot of it to go around. But if Barry and Aviva need I'm always going to pick up the phone because they're doing something very special. I know you know it. That's why you're here today. So I just want to encourage you. As we begin this campaign This campaign is not for the Chizuk Mission. It's for you. It's for every one of you, and for those that don't know that the Chizuk Mission exists. Bez Hashem, at the end of this campaign, we're going to have an incredible level of success, and we're going to take all the money and put it right back into more shirum and more growth, not just to come to Israel in every community and every single week and everything that's going on. So that be'ez Hashem we can cultivate a life that is worth living, a life of dveikus to Hashem and ultimately to Mashiach Tzidkenu that will lead us into the ultimate redemption.