Yisro

The Jews arrive in Midbar Sinai, the Sinai desert, three months after they left Egypt. Moshe goes up the mountain where Hashem gives him the conversation he should have with the Jews before they will receive the Torah: how He took us out of Egypt & how the Jews were going to be the chosen nation. Hashem starts by saying כה תאמר לבית יעקב ותגיד לבני ישראל , so shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell to the sons of Israel.

Rashi tells us that בית יעקב refers to the women while בני ישראל refers to the men.  ‎מהר"ם שפירא מלובלין asks ‎why doesn't it refer to the women as בנות יעקב which would be a consistent terminology with the men as בני ישראל? 

The Bais Halevi & others ask another question here. Why did the women merit to be told about kabbalas Hatorah before the men? 

The Midrash Rabba explains that women do mitzvos with zrizus, alacrity, so they merited being mentioned first. The פרקי דר"א ‎says that it's natural for men to follow after the wants of the women, so if the women want the Torah, the men will too. 

Rabbeinu  Bachya has a different reason. He says it's because the woman has the power to influence her sons to make them want to go to learn; she's the one who is home with them, the one who gives them all sorts of things to influence them to learn Torah. He adds, that's why a woman should pray for her children when she lights candles Friday night, for it’s her mitzva to influence her children to be illuminated with Torah.  Prayers are more accepted when doing a mitzvah, so at her mitzva of lighting the candles, she prays that her children be illuminated with the light of Torah. 

The daughter of the Chafetz Chaim ‎reported that when the Chafetz Chaim's mother was getting on in years & it was becoming known throughout the world that her son was the Gadol Hador, she was asked by some family members what merit she had that her son was so great. She answered them, “don't ask me; I don't know that I did anything significant that would merit this “. 

They kept asking that there had to be something. She kept saying, “no, no. nothing that I can think of.” They didn't let her alone so she said, “all I can tell you is what my mother told me right before I got married. She said ‘my daughter, we were commanded to raise our children to Torah & Yiras Shomaim. Therefore, I'm asking you for one thing. Whenever you have free time, take this siddur that I'm giving you now & daven to Hashem that you should merit to raise your children to Torah & Yiras shomaim. Don't forget to cry tears when you daven’. Then she handed me a siddur with tehillim. That's it; that's all I did” continued the mother of the Chafetz Chaim, “whenever I had a spare moment, when I finished the house work or waiting for the potatoes to cook, I took out my siddur & cried to Hashem that my son should grow up to be a Talmid Chacham & Yirei Shomaim”.

This demonstrates the power of a mother’s te‎ars & prayers. When a mother davens for her child, the sky is the limit.  That's why the Torah calls the women בית יעקב for the women set the tone for the house; the purity of the house starts with the woman; if the woman ensures that the home is an oasis for purity then the men will follow her lead.  When she davens for her children, they will follow too. This shows us how important the woman's role is in Judaism.  We must take this message to heart and not forsake this opportunity to strengthen our own commitment to Torah & Tefila,  thereby meriting  to bring our children closer to Hashem!