Jonathan Sacks on Civil Disobedience in the Book of Exodus https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/uncategorized/2015/01/civil-disobedience-in-the-book-of-exodus/

January 9, 2015 | Jonathan Sacks
About the author: Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is a British Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, author and politician. He served as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013.

At the beginning of Exodus, two Hebrew midwives refuse Pharaoh’s instructions to murder Israelite infant males. Jonathan Sacks explores this act of heroism and its legacy:

“The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live” (1: 17). This is the first recorded instance in history of civil disobedience: refusing to obey an order, given by the most powerful man in the most powerful empire of the ancient world, simply because it was immoral, unethical, inhuman. The Torah suggests that [the midwives] did so without fuss or drama. Summoned by Pharaoh to explain their behavior, they simply replied: “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive” (1: 19). To this, Pharaoh had no reply.

The matter-of-factness of the entire incident reminds us of one of the most salient findings about the courage of those who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. They had little in common except for the fact that they saw nothing remarkable in what they did. Often the mark of real moral heroes is that they do not see themselves as moral heroes. They do what they do because that is what a human being is supposed to do. That is probably the meaning of the statement that they “feared God.” It is the Torah’s generic description of those who have a moral sense.

Read more on Rabbi Sacks: http://www.rabbisacks.org/obeying-immoral-orders-shemot-5775/