“the first-born of the slave girl who is behind the millstones” (11:5). According to the midrash collection P’sikta D’Rav Kahana 7.9, Egyptian slave women were proud to work beside well-born Israelite women like Serah bat Asher, Jacob’s granddaughter (Genesis 46:17). Yet, despite their lowly status and their solidarity with Israelite slaves, the Torah makes clear that these women were still Egyptians—and their first-born children were not spared. According to midrashic tradition, Serah’s life spanned the entire period of Israel’s slavery in Egypt (see Numbers 26:46).
“This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months” (12:2). Based on this verse, traditional Judaism ordains the celebration of Rosh Chodesh, the new month. Since the Jewish calendar is partially based on the lunar cycle, this observance corresponds with each new moon, and it has special connotations for women. In ancient times, Rosh Chodesh did not have the elevated status of a full holiday, but it was celebrated in a festive, sacred manner. According to JT Taanit 1:6, women customarily did not work on the day of the new moon. Later rabbinic sources explain that the Rosh Chodesh holiday was given to women as a reward, since—according to midrashim on Exodus 32—they refused to participate in the sin of the Golden Calf (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer 45). The custom of special time for women on Rosh Chodesh, which persisted through the Middle Ages, has been renewed today in Rosh Chodesh groups for women and girls.
In the middle of the night יהוה struck down all the [male] first-born in the land of Egypt (12:29). Even though the Egyptians had already been tortured with nine plagues, they continued to force the Israelites to work as slaves. One of the well-known, back-breaking tasks of the slaves was making bricks (1:14; 5:7). This involved the treading of clay to mix it with water and straw in order to prepare it for placing into molds to form bricks. A midrash in Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer 48 recounts the story of a specific woman, Rachel the granddaughter of Shuthelah, who is not actually named in the Torah although her grandfather appears in a genealogical list (Numbers 26:36). At this late stage in the Egyptian bondage, Rachel was pregnant and was treading clay for bricks along with her husband. She spontaneously gave birth to her baby in the midst of her work, and the newborn mistakenly fell into the clay and was mixed into it. The new mother’s desperate cry was so great that it reached heaven. There, the angel Michael heard her, went down to earth, and took the clump of clay that had now been made into a brick with the infant inside it and brought it up to God’s Throne of Glory, where the brick served as God’s footstool. This outrage served as a reminder for God to proceed with the punishment of the Egyptians—and it was to that very same night that the present biblical verse refers.
That was for יהוה a night of vigil (12:42). A rabbinic opinion states that first-born Egyptian females as well as males were killed in the tenth plague. According to this view, Pharaoh’s daughter—who had rescued Moses and raised him as her son (2:5–10)—was a first-born and thus should have perished in this plague. P’sikta D’Rav Kahana 7.7 explains that Moses prayed for his adoptive mother, whose name was thought to be Bithiah. His prayer is said to have extolled Bithiah in the language of Proverbs 31, the biblical tribute to the “woman of valor.” According to a verse in this poetic passage, the woman of valor’s lamp does not go out at night (Proverbs 31:18). The midrash understands this statement as a metaphorical reference to the survival of Pharaoh’s daughter, whose soul was not extinguished on the fateful night of death. Evidence is adduced from the unusual spelling of the Hebrew word for “night” as written in Proverbs 31:18 (without the final letter heh), which matches the spelling of a form of the same word in Exodus 12:42. Insisting on the connection between these two biblical verses, the midrash teaches that Pharaoh’s first-born daughter was saved during the tenth plague due to Moses’ prayer on her behalf.
—Anna Urowitz-Freudenstein