Study Sotah folio 11B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
with rigor [befarekh]” (Exodus 1:13). R' Elazar says: The word befarekh is a conjugation of the words: With a soft mouth [bifeh rakh], as the Egyptians enticed the Jewish people into slavery, gradually subjugating them until they had lost their freedom completely. R' Shmuel bar Naḥmani says: The
The next verse states: “And they made their lives bitter through hard service, with mortar and brick, and with every laborious service in the field” (Exodus 1:14). Rava says: The verse mentions specifically mortar and brick and then all forms of labor, as initially the Egyptians had them work with
The verse concludes: “In all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigor” (Exodus 1:14). R' Shmuel bar Naḥmani says that R' Yonatan says: The meaning of befarekh is that the Egyptians would exchange the responsibilities of men and women, giving men’s work to women and women’s work to men
§ Rav Avira taught: In the merit of the righteous women that were in that generation, the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt. He tells of their righteous actions: At the time when these women would go to the river to draw water, God would materialize for them small fish that would enter into th
And they would then take what they prepared to their husbands, to the field, and would bathe their husbands and anoint them with oil and feed them the fish and give them to drink and bond with them in sex between the sheepfolds, i.e., between the borders and fences of the fields, as it is stated: “