You may have never heard the name of Irena Sendler (15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008), but hers is a name that deserves to live on and one that you should know.  Born Irena Krzyżanowska, Irena Sendler was a social worker who secretly served in the Polish Underground in Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II.

While continuing her normal everyday work for the Department of Social Welfare in Warsaw, Sendler also worked under the cover-name “Jolanta” and was responsible for helping to smuggle a great many Jewish children out of the beleaguered Warsaw Ghetto.  The Ghetto was an area about the size of New York’s Central Park that the Nazis established in 1943 and forced some 450,000 Jewish people to live cordoned off in this area.

By getting hundreds of Jewish children out of the Ghetto, then helping provide them with false identity documents and finding shelter for them with Polish families, orphanages, and other facilities such as Catholic convents, Sendler unquestionably saved the lives of those children and protected them from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.

Sendler was not alone in this activity, of course. She was one of dozens of Christian and humanitarian workers who participated in the effort to save the Jewish children, but what places Sendler apart from this group is the fact that she functioned as the “point woman” in the operation – single handedly getting the children out of the doomed ghetto.

The courage of this woman is evident in the incredible ways in which she performed the extractions. In addition to taking the children out of the guarded ghetto by means of sewers and other hidden routes, Sendler utilized methods such as hiding a child under a blanket in an ambulance or hiding a child in a suitcase, a sack, or other container of some kind.  She made a hidden compartment in a wheeled tool box that she took in and out of the ghetto and very small children and babies were smuggled out in that. The rescue of very small children was especially dangerous as they often began to cry. Incredibly, Sendler trained a pet dog that accompanied her to bark in order to cover the sound whenever a hidden child began to cry.  

Using covert methods like these, Sendler was able to rescue some 2500 children from almost certain death. But the Nazis became suspicious of her activities and in 1943 she was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo.  During the questioning she was tortured and beaten so badly that both her legs and feet were fractured.  Sendler’s courage came into play once again, however, and she did not reveal the names of her contacts and fellow underground workers. 

Nevertheless, someone had informed on her and Sendler was sentenced to death.  But in yet another amazing aspect of this story, the Polish resistance movement managed to bribe the individual assigned to execute her and she was spirited away on the day of her scheduled execution.  On the following day the German occupation forces publicly proclaimed her execution and Irena Sendler, in hiding, had the satisfaction of reading the posters that were put up with the news that she had been shot.

Almost all the parents of the children that Sendler saved died at the Treblinka concentration camp, but due to her efforts those people knew, at least, that their children were safe.   Not surprisingly, after the War, in 1946, Sendler was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit for her work in saving so many Jewish children and sometime later she was also awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest civilian honor.  In 1965, Sendler was also recognized by the State of Israel as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.”
​
But the incredible good that Irena Sendler accomplished must always be seen in the light of the amazing courage that this woman displayed throughout hundreds of missions in which children were saved and in undergoing torture rather than betraying her fellow workers.   Irena Sendler is a name that we should not only recognize among those who have courageously helped others, but also one we should never forget. 

​Puah and Shiprah were the two women mentioned in the Book of Exodus who were in charge of the midwives who delivered the Israelite children in Egypt.  Exodus tells us:

“The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives … “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live” (Exodus 1:15-17).
​
Because the two women placed their fear of God before their fear of the Egyptian king, Jewish tradition presumed that they were Hebrew-born women, but the traditions disagree.  While one links Puah with Miriam, Moses’ sister, and Shiprah with Jochebed, the mother of Moses,  another tradition viewed the women as Jewish proselytes who were not related to Moses at all.
​
The fact that they are said to be “Hebrew midwives” could mean  that they were Hebrew or that they were “midwives to the Hebrews.”  The names of the two women also seem to reflect underlying Egyptian names, and it is possible that they were indeed Egyptian converts.  This possibility seems all the more likely as we continue to read the story:

“Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”  The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.  And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own” (Exodus 1:18-21).

The fact that Puah and Shiprah could contrast Hebrew with Egyptian births suggests that they may have acted as midwives for both, and their excuse would be all the more believable if that were the case.  The ancient Jewish historian, Iben Ezra, states that the two women were in charge of “more than 500” midwives; if this was true, the  women were likely appointed by the Egyptian government and would almost certainly have been Egyptian women.

In any event, these women  acted with faithfulness to the law of God and demonstrated a measure of faith in doing so.  It is clear that  their faith was rewarded.   We are told not only that “God was kind to the midwives”  in the sense that they were spared the anger of the Egyptian king, but also we are told “the people increased…” (vs. 20), and “…because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own” (vs. 21). 
 
This last blessing may have been a particularly kind one, as scholars believe that midwives in that era were often women who could not have children of their own.  In the Hebrew of the Old Testament the expression “families” is literally “houses,” however, and Jewish tradition has it that these were “distinguished” houses from which many Hebrew civil and religious leaders descended. 

Whatever the case regarding the various traditions about them, it is clear that God did bless the two chief midwives, and the positive outcome of the story should not obscure the extent of their faith and faithfulness.

Historically, this is the earliest known example of civil disobedience in the face of a specific command by a powerful regime to disobey the law of God.  Even today it remains as a wonderful example of the power of faith in difficult circumstances.  The two courageous women did what they could to protect themselves, and others.  And in doing what they did Puah and Shiprah saved not a few, but a generation.

​
“Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies …‘Go, look over the land,’ he said, ‘especially Jericho.’ So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there  (Joshua 2:1).

In this ancient spy story, whatever else the two spies did in Canaan is not disclosed (if this were a modern intelligence report, the information might have been redacted!), but the Bible tells us the spies came to the house of the prostitute Rahab.  Perhaps God led them there because He was willing to save this woman of faith, but it is also possible that her house which was “on” or “in” the great wall of the city (some ancient “casemate” walls contained rooms in which people lived) was actually an inn. This tradition is mentioned by the 1st century historian Josephus, as it was not uncommon for inns to function as brothels in the ancient world. In any event, the spies came to the house of Rahab and were hidden there from the king of Jericho who was searching for them.  This was, as one-time CIA director Allen Dulles remarked, the first known “safe house” for spies in history – and it proved, of course, to be the only “safe” house when Israel destroyed the city!

The story of the Canaanite woman Rahab and her house is an interesting account at a number of levels – not least that of understanding the right kind of faith that we should all have. Rahab is included in Hebrews 11, the Bible’s “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter, for this specific quality: “By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace” (Hebrews 11:31, NKJV).

But we might question here exactly how Rahab exercised faith.  Certainly she believed that God was with the Israelites, but the Biblical account makes it clear that most of the inhabitants of Jericho felt exactly the same way.  Notice what Rahab told the spies:

“I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed … for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:9-11 and see also Joshua 5:1).

Clearly, the inhabitants of Jericho had human faith in the fact that God was with the Israelites. So what made Rahab different?  From the perspective of Jericho she was just a traitor who sided with the enemy, but from the perspective of the Bible it was precisely her actions to save the Israelite spies that made her faith real.  The other inhabitants of Jericho had the same information she had, but they reacted differently to the same knowledge. Once the Israelite army reached Jericho we see the people of Jericho’s reaction: “Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in” (Joshua 6:1).

Rahab not only protected and helped the spies when they were with her, but also exactly followed the command she was given to distinguish her house by a piece of red cloth (Joshua 2:18-19), perhaps symbolic of atoning sacrifice and certainly reminiscent of the Passover placing of blood on the houses to be spared (Exodus 12:13).  Her actions may have been simple ones, but they contrast starkly with those of the other inhabitants of Jericho: while they hardened their attitudes and shut themselves in, Rahab reached out and was obedient to what she was told to do. 

It is not that Rahab was physically saved by “works,” but by working faith – belief that was active – as Hebrews says: “Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe.”  Joshua 5:1 and Joshua 2:9-11 show that the other inhabitants did believe, but not with full, active belief – which is what Hebrews must mean. Unlike her believing but fearful neighbors (James 2:19: “…the devils also believe, and tremble”), Rahab believed with an active belief that was complete in its expression of obedience, and her story stands as a lasting example of faith that works as opposed to empty belief without action.

What became of Rahab? She evidently married Salmon – one of the two spies she had saved – and through him became one of the ancestors of  Joseph, adoptive father of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).  Her active faith not only enabled her to physically save the spies, her family and herself, but also to include her in the genealogy of the One who would enable the salvation of us all.

* This post was first published on our sister site, LivingWithFaith.org on 2/4/2014.