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Mother's Day 5785
Gd Our Mother
Let me ask you what may seem like a foolish question: According to Jewish Law, should we observe Mother’s Day tomorrow? Answer: Of course! We should observe Mother’s Day tomorrow and the day after and every day. It’s a mitzvah to honor parents—a mitzvah of the highest order. It’s so important that it’s found in the 10 Commandments and again in the expansion of the 10 Commandments found in the 2nd of today’s Torah portions, Kedoshim: Ish imo v’aviv tira-u (Each of you shall revere his mother and father).
The sages were struck by the order of mother and father in this verse as compared to the 5th of the 10 Commandments where it says, Kabeyd et avicha v’et imecha (Honor your father and mother). Father is mentioned 1st in connection with honor in the 10 Commandments, while mother is mentioned 1st in our verse in connection with reverence. Why is that? The Talmud (Kidushin 30b) teaches it’s because a child naturally feels more honor, love and closeness to the mother, and therefore the Torah stresses the father 1st. With regard to reverence, one has a greater inclination to revere father and therefore it mentions mother 1st. The intent is to balance honor and reverence for both parents.
The emphasis of today’s parsha is in giving reverence to mother. Why is mother deserving of our reverence? To answer this, let me share with you the story of a young mother who was renewing her driver’s license at a rural County Clerk’s office. She writes: I was asked to state my “occupation,” I had hesitated, uncertain how to classify myself.
“What I mean is,” explained the interviewer, “Do you have a job, or are you just a...?”
Sensing distain for being “merely” a mother I said, “Of course I have a job.” What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out. “I’m...a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.” I stared with wonder as my pompous pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
“Might I ask,” said the clerk with new interest, “just what you do in your field?”
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, “I have a continuing program of research [what mother doesn’t] in the laboratory and in the field [normally I would have said indoors and out]. I’m working for my Masters [which is the whole darned family] and already have 4 credits [all daughters]. Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities [any mother care to disagree?] and I often work 14 hours a day [24 is more like it]. But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are in satisfaction rather than just money.”
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk’s voice as I completed the form, I stood up, and she personally ushered me to the door. As I pulled up to my driveway buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants—age 13, 7, and 3. And upstairs, I heard our new experimental model [6 months old] in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt triumphant for I had gone down on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than “just another mother.”
Clearly motherhood is deserving of reverence if only because it is such an awesome job.
We have an amazing verse in our 1st Torah portion today, Achare Mot, where the Torah praises Gd as it describes Him—if you can believe this—as a mother! In depicting the Yom Kippur service in the Mishkan, the Torah (Lev. 16:16) tells us: “Thus shall he (Aaron) shall provide atonement upon the sanctuary for the contaminations of the Children of Israel … [and then it adds] that dwells with them amid their contamination.”
That last part of the verse is remarkable. Let me explain with Rav Yosef Soloveichik who notes that the word for “dwells” here, hashocheyn, also denotes the Shechina, the feminine, maternal side of Gd. Soloveichic writes: We know from daily experience that the father loves to stand beside his baby’s cradle and rock it when the baby is clean. If the baby dirties his diaper, the father will often immediately call to the baby’s mother to clean the baby while he stands aside. [Note Soloveitchik lived in the previous generation. Many of today’s fathers are very different.] The mother on the other hand is constantly ready to clean the baby and do all necessary unpleasant tasks.
So is it in the spiritual world. The creator relates to us as a mother relates to a child. He hears the cries resulting from man’s spiritual crisis and immediately appears to offer help. At that moment, the Holy One Blessed Be He does not make an accounting of previous sins ... When man finds himself in overwhelming distress the motherly Shechina strengthens her efforts. The Shechina Mother is present at that moment that man is in distress and suffers from spiritual crisis.
So, the father plays, has fun with his child until the diaper needs to be changed. Who steps up in the middle of the night, at any hour of the day, even for the worst diaper? In that moment of being defiled while feeling dirty, while feeling like a failure, that’s when Hashem’s motherly Shechina is there with us, no matter how far away we have gone or how deep we’ve immersed ourselves in sin.
At times Gd is Avinu shebashamayim (our Father in heaven)—Who provides for us, Who judges us, Who protects us. But Gd is also the Shechina—our Mother in heaven. And that maternal description, according to Soloveichic, teaches that no matter what state or status we’re in, no matter how defiled, how soiled, how contaminated we’ve become, no matter how big a failure, no matter what mistakes, no matter what poor judgment, no matter what our indiscretions … the Shechina Divine Mother never abandons us, never gives up on us and is always accessible and present. She believes in us, supports and helps us. This, Soloveitchik teaches is the meaning of this verse: “He [Gd] dwells with us, even within in our contamination.”
I think it’s amazing that the Torah gives praise to Gd as our Mother in Heaven, and in doing so, praises all mothers as being like Gd! But what about those of us who were not blessed with children in our lives? To that I would direct you to the Yiddish proverb: “One does not become a mother by giving birth; one becomes a mother through the process of raising a child.” One can be motherly to someone who needs a mother.
Let me illustrate with another story of Holocaust survivor Lena Kuchler Silberman. Her story was so inspiring, NBC made a movie of it shortly after her death in 1987. After the war she returned to her native town of Wieliczki, near Cracow, and found her home in ruins, her family killed, and she, now all alone in the world: Lena searched for others like her to share her loneliness. What she found was, a number of motherless Jewish children who had miraculously survived—starving, dressed in rags, roaming the ruins. She located others who had to be released, either by persuasion or struggle, from Christian homes, convents, and monasteries where they had been left for safekeeping by their parents. She succeeded in gathering 100 orphans between the ages of 2 and 15. They became her family and she became their mother. She later wrote: “I felt that they were my children. I fed them, taught them and raised them. Every child came to me as to a mother. I came to feel that I have 100 children, all mine.”
Her ultimate goal was to take them to Israel. With her resourcefulness and the help of others, she managed to smuggled her children into Israel, where they were warmly welcomed in Kvutzat Schiller. Most of her children eventually had their own families, but once each year until her death, in the week of Yom Hashoah, (Holocaust Memorial Day) all of them gathered together for a great reunion with their “mother.”
Yes, “One does not become a mother by giving birth; one becomes a mother through the process of raising a child.”
My friends, let’s use this Mother’s Day to remind us of how crucially important our mothers and wives are—as well as those who are like a mother to us. In a sense, the Torah teaches, they are like Gd! So, tomorrow, let’s hug and kiss them and tell them how we appreciate them, and let’s do it again the next day and every day. To all mothers everywhere, have the best Mother’s Day. Amen!
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