My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. -- Mark Twain
The first Jewish U.S. President calls his mother and invites her for Pesach. Characteristically, his mother immediately begins complaining.
“Oy, I’ll need to book a flight and it’s going to cost so much—it’s just too much of a bother.”
“Mommy,” her son counters. “I’m the President. I’ll have you flown in on Air Force One.”
“Oy, I’ll need to catch a taxi and carry my luggage. It’s just too much.”
“Mommy, I’m the President. I’ll have you picked up in a limousine and Secret Service agents will carry your luggage for you.”
“Oy, I’ll need to book a hotel.”
“Hotel? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the President. You’ll stay at the White House.”
The mother finally capitulates. “Okay, fine, I’ll come.”
Two minutes later her friend calls. “So, Miriam, what’s new?”
“Oy, I’m going to my son for Pesach.”
“Who, the doctor?”
“Nah, the other one.”
Jokes aside, Judaism has always extolled the virtues and importance of the mother—not just in her capacity as the one who trains the children to be kind, decent, well-mannered, and respectful, but also as the one who plays a unique role in transmitting the Torah’s teachings and traditions to the children, thereby guaranteeing our collective continuity.
A Russian immigrant to Israel once came to a Bais Din with the following problem. He knew that his mother was Jewish and that therefore he was too. But he simply could not recall ever being told whether he was a Kohen, a Levi, or a Yisroel.
The Bais Din asked whether the young man had any childhood memories that might offer a glimpse into his lineage. The man explained that while he remembered very little from his childhood, one thing did stand out: on the eve of every Yom Tov, his mother would take the children to a local dry-goods store to buy a new pair of socks for their father. He still remembered the radiant look on his mother’s face when she would buy the socks. They would go home, wrap the socks, and wait for his father to come home. When his father arrived, they would gather around and his mother would excitedly present his father with the new socks.
“I never understood why she always chose to buy him socks. Why not a shirt, or pants, or shoes? But we never questioned her. She always bought socks, and the glow on her face was always the same. I remember it as if it were yesterday.”
Without hesitation, the Bais Din ruled that the man was a Kohen. When a Kohen offers the priestly blessings on Yom Tov in the Diaspora, he is required to remove his shoes during the blessings. Surely, the Bais Din reasoned, this young man’s mother wanted to make sure that her husband was able to perform this commandment in a special way. So before each Yom Tov, she made it a point to purchase new socks for him.
The young man had no memory of his father actually reciting the priestly blessings, but he vividly recalled his mother’s enthusiasm as she went out of her way to make her husband’s mitzva special.
As Rabbi Moshe Meiselman once wrote: “The Jewish woman is the creator, molder, and guardian of the Jewish home. The family has always been the unit of Jewish existence, and while the man has always been the family’s public representative, the woman has been its soul” (Jewish Women in Jewish Law). Put simply, the Jewish mother is indispensable and irreplaceable.
So when Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to the Jewish people just before they received the Torah, it is no surprise that he addressed the women first (see Shemos 19:3). Moshe intended to inspire the women for the giving of the Torah “because the good woman is the catalyst for the Torah, for she is able to encourage her son to learn and she sympathizes with him” (Rabbeinu Bachaye ad loc.). Indeed, we are cautioned to hearken “to the discipline of your father and [not to] forsake the Torah of your mother” (Mishlei 1:8).
The mother’s role as the catalyst for Torah growth is the natural outgrowth of her dogged devotion to and sacrifice for her children. In this sense, Rochel, our matriarch, epitomizes Jewish motherhood.
R’ Dovid Biederman, the Lelover Rebbe, was a renowned personage of the old Jewish settlement in Yerushalayim, and was widely regarded as a righteous man.
Once, R’ Dovid decided to make the arduous trek from Yerushalayim to Kever Rochel. He set out early in the morning, the entire way contemplating and organizing his upcoming prayers. He wanted to be sure not to forget anything.
Upon arrival, R’ Dovid saw that he was not alone: a woman with several small children was making herself rather at home in the monument’s famous domed chamber. She spread out a blanket for her younger children and began unpacking food for the older ones.
R’ Dovid was incredulous. Has this woman no regard for the sanctity of the place? How could she busy herself with such mundane matters in so holy a place?
So R’ Dovid approached the woman and demanded an explanation. The weary woman looked up at R’ Dovid from her seat on the floor and explained, “I would like to think that our mother Rochel would be pleased that we are eating and resting here.”
And with that, R’ Dovid suddenly felt uneasy. He realized that he had been making the journey to Kever Rochel for many years but had failed to grasp what it truly represented; meanwhile this simple, unlearned mother understood its meaning and import so profoundly. R’ Dovid now understood that Rochel was more than just a righteous woman who begat noble descendants; she is the mother who wept and prayed for her children—and still does. And her sole mission—in life and after—was to provide her children with comfort and relief.
From then on, whenever R’ Dovid travelled to Kever Rochel, he made sure to bring food to share with others who came to entreat Rochel to intervene for them in the Heavenly Court.
Non-Jewish mothers are there for their children—but not in the same way. When Hagar’s son Yishmael was on the verge of death, Hagar couldn’t bear to be with him. “And she went, and sat her down opposite him, a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said: ‘Let me not look upon the death of the child’” (Bereishis 21:16). R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch contrasts Hagar’s selfish decision with that of the Jewish mother, who would never abandon her child in his time of suffering simply to avoid her own emotional discomfort. It is the Jewish mother who passes to her children their Jewish identity, and it is the Jewish mother’s name that is invoked when her child falls ill or is otherwise in need of salvation.
Yes, it is the father’s role to educate the child in the study of Torah and its laws, but it is the mother who creates the atmosphere that permeates the very walls of the Jewish home. The Jewish mother plants the roots so the tree might grow; she strengthens the foundation so the building may be erected.