Women – the True Heroines of Pesach

By Adina Gres

It happens every year. As soon as I put the last of the Shaloch Manos away, the troubling feeling starts to creep up. The one I have been trying to ignore for days now. It was persistent yet I told myself not until after Purim, "then worry". So here I am, just days after Purim is over, and that feeling I tried to push away is right here at the very front door. Pesach is coming; what to do?  What to clean first and where to start? Should I have really started before? It felt good to excuse it by saying not until after Purim. It felt right in fact to suggest to myself that one holiday at a time is the best way to go.  But now I feel my heart palpitating as I pick up the broom and cleaning supplies.

For most of the frum female population, the upcoming month brings us all to very similar conversations. We obsess with what room we started or what room we finished. I am fascinated by the way our mode of communication changes so drastically from one week ago when we were consumed with which candy was the best to put with our Purim theme, to now, which is what to keep and what to get rid of from our cabinets. Then I get the phone call that I dread the most – my friends ask if I made a menu. We take a recipe that is chometz and remake it for Pesach, even though we know it never will taste the same.

There has to be a way to approach this Yom Tov with grace and flare, with class and dignity instead of anxiety because after all we, the women, are the true heroines of this story. 

Learning the parshios of the mishkan recently one is reminded how highly regarded the women were. The copper mirrors of the women were questioned by Moshe upon acceptance into the mishkan.  Chazal teach us that Moshe asked Hashem, "How can I accept these mirrors? Weren't they used to entice their husbands?" Hashem answers Moshe, "No, on the contrary, these mirrors are chaviv – dear to me, because they represent the continuity of the Jewish family life." Further Hashem says that "it restored the faith in continuity of klal Yisroel." Mitzrayim was a terrible place physically emotionally and mentally for any human being. Mitzrayim can only be compared to an Egyptian Auschwitz. Under these circumstances who would ever expect or even imagine that women would want to raise children, let alone bear new ones as well.  Miriam saw the demise of a nation right before her eyes. She acted quickly with brilliance and perseverance.  One woman, one strength, one force to change the face of a nation.  With her encouragement her father went back after a brief separation with her mother and others reunited with their spouses. The women restored the faith in the miserable conditions that existed among the men in Mitzrayim. A neglected nation begins to re-establish its roots and finds the power to grow.

Reminding myself of the role women play in the Pesach history, and internalizing what the implication really is, reduces the anxiety. I know that I am getting ready for the Yom Tov where somewhere in history I helped create.