After the miraculous Splitting of the Red Sea in this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, Moses leads the Jewish men in singing their praises of G-d, and Miriam, the prophetess, leads the women in their song of thanks.
The Torah tells us that the joy experienced by the women was far greater than that of the men. “And all the women went out... with tambourines and dances.”
In fact, the Midrash relates that when the heavenly angels wanted to add their voices to the “Song of the Splitting of the Red Sea,” G-d told them that they must wait until the women had finished.
The exile in Egypt was much harsher for the Jewish women than for their husbands. Of all Pharaoh’s decrees against the Children of Israel, the most pitiless was the one that broke every Jewish mother’s heart: “Every son that is born you shall throw into the river.” The pain and suffering experienced by the Jewish women was more intense than the hardships the men were forced to endure, and when salvation came, the joy they felt was therefore greater as well.
The stories in the Torah teach us lessons which apply in all generations. Pharaoh’s decrees against the Jewish people have appeared again and again, throughout history, in various forms. Their aim, however, has never changed. The Egyptian Pharaoh sought to kill Jewish babies by drowning them in the Nile; later despots sought to destroy Jewish souls in ways equally dangerous, although not always as obvious.
In our days, when most Jews, thank G-d, live in relative safety and security, the decrees of Pharaoh imperil the spiritual existence of the Jewish people. “Pharaoh” rears his head in the guise of popular culture and the winds of arbitrary and capricious conventional wisdom, which threaten to sever the Jewish people from the eternal and timeless values of the Torah. “Pharaoh” seeks to immerse and drown the minds of impressionable Jewish children in the waters of whatever is, at the moment, trendy and fashionable.
The threat is not all that different from the one faced in Egypt, because Jews cannot exist for long without their faith in G-d and the study of Torah. Jewish children need a solid Jewish education to ensure the continuation of our people.
Today, just as in Egypt, the main responsibility--to safeguard our greatest national treasure, our children, from negative influences--lies with the Jewish mother. Jewish women have, throughout the generations, been granted the power to set the proper tone in the home and make it a place where their children will flourish and grow up to be good Jews.
In this way Jewish women will see true satisfaction from their children and merit to sing G-d’s praises at the Final Redemption, speedily in our days.
Adapted from the works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Thursday, February 1, corresponding to the Hebrew date of Chof Beis Shevat, will be the 36th yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, wife of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The L’chaim Publication was established in her memory as indicated in the name, L’zichron Chaya Mushka.
Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was born on Shabbos, 25 Adar in 1901. She was the second of three daughters of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok. When she was born, her grandfather, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dovber, the Rebbe Rashab, was traveling abroad, and he telegraphed her father saying, “Mazal tov on the birth of your daughter ... if she has not yet been named, she should be called Chaya Mushka.” This was the name of the Rebbetzin of the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek.
From her earliest years, the Rebbetzin absorbed the purity and holiness that surrounded her, both in the house of her grandfather and that of her father.
In the autumn of 1915, during World War I, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka and her family left the town of Lubavitch and settled in Rostov.
Her early twenties saw the intensification of the Communist war against the Jewish soul and her father’s heroic struggle to sustain Yiddishkeit among Jews in the Soviet Union.
Cognizant of her wisdom and strength, her father involved her in much of his work. In Rostov at that time there was an underground Litvish yeshiva, “Beis Yosef” of Navaradok. It was a time of hunger, and the talmidim of the Navaradok Yeshiva were starving. The Rebbe Rashab and his son, the previous Rebbe, worried about how to supply food for the yeshiva.
The problem was a double one: How to get the food in this time of hunger, something that was achieved with great self sacrifice, and the problem of getting the food over to the Navarodok Yeshiva without attracting government attention. This too required great self sacrifice.
The Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was chosen for this task. She secretly transported the food to the Navaradok Yeshiva on a daily basis. The Rebbetzin was given this assignment with the knowledge that, with her discerning judgment, she could be relied upon.
Life became increasingly dangerous for the Jews of Rostov, and in the spring of 1924 the previous Rebbe and his family moved to Leningrad.
The persecution was relentless, and in 1927 the notorious Communist police came to arrest her father, the previous Rebbe, in their Leningrad home. Maintaining her composure, she brilliantly managed to alert the Rebbe (her husband-to-be) who was already standing outside the house, by calling out: “Schneerson, we have guests.” Understanding her message, the Rebbe was quickly able to notify others to take necessary precautions and to begin an international campaign for the Rebbe’s release.
Following his arrest and imprisonment in Leningrad, the previous Rebbe was exiled to Kostroma. Upon his request, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was one of only three people who were allowed to join him on the journey. On the 12th of Tammuz, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was the bearer of good news when she notified her family, by telephone from Kostroma to Leningrad, of her father’s release.
Chassidim tell that years later the Rebbetzin very strongly encouraged her husband, the Rebbe, to accept the nesius, leadership, of Chabad so that “the work of my father should not be lost.” Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka was selfless. Her life was totally dedicated to the Rebbe and her influence on the Lubavitch movement was enormous, but she deliberately remained outside of the limelight.
Shortly after the Rebbetzin’s passing in 1988, while speaking on the theme of “V’Hachai Yitein El Libo” - the living shell take to heart, the Rebbe launched a new initiative, The Birthday Campaign, a call for every Jew to celebrate and observe their birthday by hosting Jewish gatherings and adding in Jewish observance while making resolutions involving an increase in good deeds. The Rebbe added that doing so “will be the greatest Zechus for the Neshama of the Rebbetzin.”
