Lesson video

Hi everyone, my name is Rabbi London.

And today we are going to learn about the Jewish foremothers and other women in Tanakh.

Before we get started, try to find a place that will be quiet, or at least have the least amount of distractions.

Shut down any apps, or that might be giving you any notifications, if you're able to.

And finish up any conversations you might be in the middle of.

Today, you're going to need to have pen and paper or something else that you're able to write on and write with.

In today's lesson, we are going to learn about women in Tanakh, women in the Torah, The Nevi'im, and Ketuvim.

Primarily, we're going to talk about the foremothers, who are Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, and learn about their stories, learn about Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, and to learn about Devorah or Deborah, who was a prophetess and judge.

As I said, you're going to need to have a pen or pencil and some paper or something else to write on.

If you haven't already done so, please pause the video now and go get your stuff ready and click play again when you're ready to begin.

The foremothers and forefathers in Judaism.

The word, when we were learning about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, we spoke about forefathers.

The forefathers were, are seen as the founders or the patriarchs of Judaism.

Jews also believe that there were foremothers, that there were founding mothers and women within, for the religion.

These women were the wives of the forefathers.

So Sarah was the wife of Abraham, Rebecca was the wife of Isaac and Rachel and Leah were the wives of Jacob.

Today we're going to look at a little bit about the, of the stories that pertain to the women, see what do we know, what can we learn about them and how did they influence the stories in the Torah, which also influenced the way in which Jewish people practise or understand people's places today? So we're going to start with Sarah.

Sarah, just like Abraham, had her name changed from, by God.

Sarah's name was Sarai until God changed her name to Sarah.

Sarah was seen as a partner to Abraham.

In their travel to Canaan, when God told Abraham that he should go to the land that he will show him.

Sarah was also agreeing to go on this journey and to pick up her life and move to wherever God might be going.

As much as Abraham is known for having an open house and an open tent that welcomed any guest that wanted, that needed a space, Sarah was also known to be part of that, those morals and ethics of how to keep a good home and what is one obligated or what one should be doing in order to take care of the people around you.

The stories in the commentaries around the Torah say that Abraham and Sarah's tent was open on four doors.

That way, no matter what direction anyone was looking, they'd be able to see a traveller who might be lost or might need shelter or some food and something to drink.

Sarah was not able to have a child.

When she was, one of the stories is that a group of messengers, which turned out to be angels of God, came to the tent and they were talking to Abraham and promised Abraham that Sarah would give birth.

Sarah laughed out loud because she was 99 years old, way past the age that one could think that they were able to have children.

But a miracle, God granted or blessed Sarah with a miracle.

And Sarah was pregnant and gave birth to Isaac, who we saw was the second of the forefathers.

After Sarah, the next foremother would be Rebecca.

Rebecca also was known for her kindness.

There's a story about Rebecca, that when she came into Sarah's tent, once again, the tent felt open, and once again, a light that used to always stay lit during Sarah's lifetime became, was lit again, to show that Rebecca also had that inner ideas or feelings of love for other people.

And we can actually see that through the text.

We look at the verses in Genesis, we're going to read about when Eliezer, who is Abraham's servant, comes to find a wife for Isaac.

And Eliezer said, makes a plea with God while he's trying to do this and says, "Let me find a good woman who is kind." Well, he has lots of camels and goes to a well and here we see Rebecca say, "And the servant ran to meet her and said, 'Give me a drink, "'I pray thee a little water of thy pitcher.

' "She said, 'Drink, my lord,' "and she hastened and let her down her pitcher "upon her hands and gave him drink.

"And when she had done given him drink, she said, "'I will draw for the camels also "'until they have done drinking.

'" So to summarise these verses, what happens is Eliezer comes to Rebecca and says, "Can I have some water please?" And Rebecca says, "Drink, here, I'll give you some "I have in my pitcher, and I'll also give you as much "as you need," and then it was on Rebecca who noticed that the camels also needed to drink.

And she, although it's a lot of work to feed, a lot of water to camels said that, "I will make sure that your camels "will have as much water as they need." She was kind and considerate and cared deeply about the people that were around her.

Rebecca became pregnant and was pregnant with twins and the commentaries on the Torah say that it, she talks about how it felt like there were two nations that were growing inside of her.

And one can see when the two boys were born, the Torah talks that there about how their personalities or even how they physically looked was very different from one another.

Esau was seen as, had, who had red hair and was apparently very hairy, and he grew up to be a hunter and lived out outdoors.

Jacob, on the other hand, was known to be quieter and stayed inside.

Let's match the partners.

Who was Sarah married to? Sarah was married to Abraham.

Who was Rebecca married to? Rebecca was married to Isaac.

Who were Rachel and Leah married to? Rachel and Leah married Jacob.

Now let's match the mothers and their children.

Who was the son of Sarah? Isaac.

Sarah's son was Isaac.

And who were the sons of Rebecca? Esau and Jacob.

So we have already learned about two out of the four foremothers.

We learned about Sarah, and we learned about Rebecca.

The following two are Rachel and Leah.

Rachel and Leah were siblings, they were sisters.

According to the text in the Torah, Rachel was known to be very beautiful.

And Leah was known to have weary eyes.

Now the commentaries talk a lot about what does that mean? And it goes from her eyes were blue and delicate.

And so the sun would burn them, all the way to she cried all the time because she was very sad and a lot of different things in between.

What we do know is that Leah was the older sister and Rachel was the younger sister.

When Jacob came to their house, Jacob fell in love with Rachel.

Lavan or Laban, Rachel and Leah's father, made Jacob work for seven years in order to marry Rachel.

Laban didn't think that it was right for the younger sister to get married before the older sister.

And so at the very last minute, Lavan switched who was getting married.

And so Jacob married Leah instead of Rachel.

Jacob then worked another seven years in order to marry Rachel.

So the entire time he was married to Leah and then was able to marry Rachel after 14 years of working.

Jacob also married Rachel and Leah's maidservants, Bilha and Zilpah.

And between all four women and Jacob, they had 12 sons and one daughter.

Let's try and review a little bit of what we've learned so far.

What is the name of Sarah's son: Jacob, Isaac, Joseph or David? Isaac, Sarah son's name is Isaac.

How many sons did Rebecca have: Four, two, 12, or one? Two, Rebecca had two sons.

What is the name of Leah's sister: Miriam, Sarah, Rachel, or Dinah? Rachel is Leah's sister.

What was Sarah's home known for: being open to all guests, having very good food, being really messy or being very big? Being open to all guests.

Sarah's home was known to be open to all guests.

We were just looking and learned about the four foremothers: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.

We're now going to learn about Miriam.

Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron.

She also was known as a prophetess, a prophet in her own right.

When Moses was born, Pharaoh made a decree that all baby boys had to be killed and thrown into the Nile.

Moses' parents didn't want to kill him.

And so they put him in a basket.

Miriam, it is taught that Miriam stood over the basket and watched him while he was in the Nile.

While Miriam was watching the basket go down the Nile, she saw the daughter of Pharaoh take the baby, and according to Jewish tradition, Miriam went over to Pharaoh and said that she knew of a good nursemaid, someone who was able to nurse Moses, if she was looking for someone.

Miriam was obviously thinking about her own mother, who had just given birth to Moses.

So Miriam, at a very young age, was seen as the protector or one of the protectors of Moses.

After the Israelites left Egypt, they got to the Red Sea.

The Israelites were very afraid because they did, they had at the sea on one side and the Egyptians on the other side, and they weren't sure what was going to happen.

God create, had a miracle and the sea split, and there's a famous song that Moses sings, the Song of the Sea.

Miriam also sang and we're going to read the verse from Exodus.

"And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, "took a timbrel in her hand." A timbrel is a tambourine, "And all the women went out "after her with timbrels and dance, "and Miriam saying unto them, "'Sing ye to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.

"'The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

'" So it is Miriam who led the women and girls in singing and dancing and praising God during this really big, miraculous event, both leaving Egypt and being able to walk through a sea that's split in half.

Other ideas within Jewish texts about Miriam is that during the entire time that the Israelites were travelling through the desert, there was a well of water that followed them and that well of water is attributed to Miriam and to her abilities of leadership and spirituality.

Pause the video to complete the task.

Please explain with evidence in full sentences.

What did Miriam do when the Jewish people crossed the Red Sea? Please resume the video once you're finished So what did you write about Miriam? I'll tell you what I wrote.

According to Jewish tradition, when the Jewish people crossed the Red Sea, Miriam led at the women in song and dance.

This is shown in the book of Exodus, where it describes Miriam taking a timbrel and leading the other women in dancing and singing.

So it's Miriam, who was one of the Jewish leaders during the, and leaders of the women.

The final woman we're going to look at together today is named Devorah, or Deborah in English.

The story of Devorah can be found in the book of Judges.

The book of Judges can be found in the end part of Tanakh, which stands for Nevi'im or Prophets.

Devorah herself was a prophet and a judge.

According to Jewish tradition, she is the only female judge.

She is one of a number of female prophets.

The job of a prophet and a judge in the Tanakh was to teach the Jewish people the law, and to bring people back to God when they might have been doing things that were wrong or not totally the right thing to be doing.

In the book of Judges, and in these chapters, where we learn about Devorah, it is Devorah who leads the Jewish people into victory, because there were people that were trying to kill the Jews, kill them, and also brings the Jewish people back to believing and worshipping God in what was seen then as an appropriate way.

An attribute of Devorah was that she was known to sit under a palm tree out in the open so everyone can come and see her.

This is where she sat, where she was teaching, when she was leading, when she was answering difficult questions.

She sat outside so that everyone would be able to hear her, and that she was also easy to access, that it was easy to find her and easy to hear what else she had to say.

After the war, she sang a song, praising God and praising the Jewish people for all they had done and how they had accomplished this great task that she, that many people didn't believe was possible to happen.

She sang a song in the similar way that Moses and we just learned about Miriam did after crossing the Red Sea.

Please pause the video to complete this task.

I'd like you to write a short paragraph with full sentences.

Do you think it's important to learn about women in Tanakh? Why or why not? Press resume when you're finished.

And what do you think, do you think we need to learn about women in Tanakh? I definitely think that we need to learn about women in Tanakh.

It is so important to learn about all of the characters and to remember that women existed in Tanakh, too.

And we should learn about, from their characteristics, the way that they interacted with God and found religion, or how were they experiencing all the experiences that are spoken about? Today, we learned about women in Tanakh.

We learned about the foremothers, not just their names, that they're Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, but learned a little bit about their stories, too.

We learned about Miriam and how she sang and danced and brought all the women together to sing and dance during the crossing of the Red Sea.

And we learned about the prophetess and judge, Devorah, and looked at her leadership.

Before you finish today, please write down three things that you learned and feel free to share that with your parent or carer or your friends or teacher.

And finally, please now complete the end of the quiz.

Have a wonderful day and happy learning.