The Nation is founded upon the Israelite Women

In the Talmud, Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi announces several times that women are obligated in a number of festival rituals because "they too were included in that miracle." He says this of the festivals of Purim. Chanuka and Pesach:

1)      "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated in Megilla reading, for they, too, were included in that miracle" (Megilla 4a) 

2)      "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated in Chanuka candles, for they, too, were included in that miracle" (Shabbat 23a) 

3)      "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated in these four cups [of wine on Pesach eve], for they, too, were included in that miracle" (Pesachim 108a)

Rashi and the Tosafot disagree about what it means that they were included in that miracle.

Rashi: As it says (Sota 11b): “Through the merit of the righteous women of that generation they were redeemed.” This is also said regarding Megilla reading, for they were redeemed through Esther, and also regarding Chanuka candles." 

Tosafot: It seems to me that [it means] "even they were in that same uncertainty," implying in that danger.

Rashi's position is about agency - the women were central and instrumental in the redemption of Purim, Chanuka and Pesach. Tosafot's position is more passive, it is that the women were equally under threat.

After a recent Bibliodrama in which I asked participants to experience the events of the enslavement from the women's perspective, I got an insight that puts the women even more at the centre of things than even Rashi suggests. After all, during the years of the enslavement, we do not see the men acting in any fashion at all - there is no leadership, no attempt at resistance. 

The women, on the other hand, take vey active roles as mentioned in the midrashim. They make sure to keep their husbands attracted to them; they work to save the male children. As my bibliodrama participants indicated (and I particularly thank Joanne Yelenik Jackson), they did what women naturally do which is to band together and become as resourceful as possible, and this strengthened them considerably.

I remember when I attended a class called "Women in the Holocaust" with Professor Judy Baumel, the studies showed that women created small social cells with other women, for support, while men did not.

And it seems to me a possibility that this is not just some nice thing, and not even just the Talmud's "they were included in that miracle", but rather that this was precisely what G-d desired to happen as the nation was in formation. The nation would be founded upon women coming together to create strong bands of resourceful human beings who could resist external pressures.

This would later help to mitigate the damage at the Golden Calf [1], and also mean that the human beings who would enter the Promised Land were also, many of them, ones who had been the resourceful ones in Egypt - for an entire generation of men died out in the desert, but the women lived on.

We don't hear much in the Torah itself about these women's actions, but these women were right there, keeping the Israelite nation from falling apart time after time. They are the Jewish people's backbone.

-------------------------

[1] Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 45:4-5

…"And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden rings" (Ex. 32:2). The women heard (this), but they were unwilling to give their earrings to their husbands saying: “You desire to make a graven image and a molten image without any power in it to deliver.”

The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the women their reward in this world and in the world to come. What reward did He give them in this world? That they should observe the New Moons more stringently than the men, and what reward will He give them in the world to come? They are destined to be renewed like the New Moons, as it is said, "Who satisfieth thy years with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle" (Ps. 103:5).

The men saw that the women would not consent to give their earrings to their husbands. What did they do? Until that hour the earrings were (also) in their own ears, after the fashion of the Egyptians, and after the fashion of the Arabs. They broke off their earrings which were in their own ears, and they gave (them) to Aaron, as it is said, "And all the people brake off || the golden rings which were in their ears" (Ex. 32:3). "Which were in the ears of their wives" is not written here, but "which were in their ears.

Memuchan and Haman

The midrash likes to take two separate biblical characters and suggest they are one and the same person. This is also true of Memuchan, the advisor to King Achashverosh in Esther chapter 1, whom the Midrash declares is none other than Haman (officially, Haman only makes an appearance in chapter 3). 

Why conflate the two? Perhaps because we don't know why the King favours Haman and promotes him in Esther 3:1 - and Memuchan's advice was so appealing to the King that it would make sense that he would rise in the ranks. There are other lines of similarity as pointed out by Yaacov Bronstein here.

But it is also striking that both Memuchan and Haman both wished to disempower and destroy minorities. Memuchan wanted all women to obey their husbands, and never to show independent thought or rebel. Haman wanted to eliminate the pesky Mordechai who refused to obey the king's command and bow to him - and to take his stiff-necked, irritatingly different brethren with him. 

In the end, a woman, Esther, takes away all of Haman's power and brings about his death. And the Jews live on for many centuries and eventually return in joy to their ancient homeland, while Amalek has disappeared from the earth. 

* This insight arose while doing Bibliodrama, Adar 5782.