YOUR Mother's Day
By Rabbi David Baum
I wonder if the mothers in the room know how hard it is to buy a mothers day gift. Fathers will be happy with a tie or a gift card, but mothers…oy.
Mother’s Day is a big holiday in our secular calendar, and I’m sure almost all of you have plans one way or the other, but some of you may not; I’ll get back to that.
It is interesting to think, but why do we need a Mother’s Day? Shouldn’t everyday be mother’s day?
Perhaps it is because our mothers’ do not always get the credit that they truly deserve. Did you know that if a stay at home mom were paid for her 94 hour work week, she would make $113,568 a year? Working moms don’t have it any easier. They spend more time multi-tasking than dads, working a 48 hour work week as opposed to a 39 hour work week for dads, and get paid less on average than men.
Like Rodney Dangerfield, mothers get no respect!
But there’s also another holiday that get’s no respect, or very little respect, from many Jews: Shavuot. The third pilgrimage holiday comes after people mothers have slaved over their kitchens for Passover, and when they are busy getting their kids ready for the end of school and summer.
Actually, Mother’s Day and Shavuot have many similarities – one, the creator of both holidays were insistent that they were not holidays, but Holy Days, and two, both holidays try and make up for what seems to be neglected on all the other days of the year.
Making the case for Shavuot as a holy day is an easy one, I mean, it’s in the Torah, but does anyone know the story of the Mother of Mother’s Day?
Anna loved her mother deeply, and when she died in 1905, she started to push for this day working hard by lobbying politicians and writing letters to leaders across the country to establish a day devoted to YOUR mother celebrated by writing a heartfelt letter to our mother and giving them a single white carnation. By 1908 she had succeeded in arranging two ceremonies for Mother’s Day and soon after, the idea became a movement, and the following year, Mother’s Day services were held in 45 American states and Canada and Mexico, the symbol of the white carnation already entrenched. As we know, Mother’s Day grew to become much bigger into a whole industry! For Flower shops and card stores, this week is their Black Friday! But this is not what Anna wanted - in fact, she tried to sue companies who tried to market the day. There is one story where she ordered a Mother’s Day Salad from a restaurant, and once she received it, she dumped it on the floor and stormed out.
Halevi this should happen to Shavuot! Halevi Shavuot should be marketed – but there is a problem with Shavuot that her companions don’t have – ritual. What is the ritual of Sukkot – you sit in booths, Pesach – the seder – the most widely observed holiday. There’s no Sukkah kit to sell, no fruits to hang in your Sukkah, no decorations, and the food is just as cheap as it is the others days of the year unlike on Pesach! Alas, Shavuot won’t ever be a moneymaker like her counterparts.
Rabbi David Tzi Hoffman, a famous 19th century German Rabbi, had the following observation about Shavuot: “No symbolic ritual was instituted for Shavuot to mark the Siniatic revelation, for the reason that it cannot be translated into the tangible symbol…”
What’s Shavuot holy ritual?
Eating cheesecake?
I feel bad for Shavuot – sure, it’s called a ‘holy day’ in the Torah, but if no one is there to make it holy, then how holy is it?
Shavuot and Mother’s Day also have another similarity – Torah and our mothers are constants in our lives. Even those who have lost their mothers long ago are reminded of them everyday with every breath you take, because without them, you wouldn’t be here.
It’s the same with Torah, without Torah, we Jews would not be here today.
Shavuot is one of my favorite holidays, and I think our mother and father in heaven needs us to observe it. Shavuot used to be primarily an agricultural holiday – where our ancestors would bring the wheat harvest to the Temple and their first fruits. It was a day of extreme gratitude and thanksgiving, a truly beautiful holiday; but as we shifted from agriculture – we lost this meaning of the holiday.
Our rabbis wisely connected the holiday to Matan Torah, the moment of the revelation of the Torah at Sinai. It was during these days, 49 days after slavery, when our people were changed forever. We were free, but freedom meant responsibility and a new destiny – to become God’s people and live by God’s Torah.
On Shavuot, our rabbis teach us that every Jewish soul, past, present and future was present at that moment – it was an everlasting covenant.
God will always be our mother and father; God gave us life, so too did our mothers, and that will never change; but sometimes, we need to remind ourselves of this fact. To all the mothers out there, yes, everyday should be Mother’s day, but, it isn’t. We should also celebrate the giving of the Torah everyday, but alas, we sometimes take the most important things in our lives for granted.
Mother’s Day, and Shavuot, are times to remind ourselves of the most important gifts in our lives, but just going to shul for an hour of Yizkor, or buying a piece of jewelry for your mom, isn’t enough.
On Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis wanted you to do something personal for your mother – to write her a note to tell her how much you mean to her. It isn’t all mothers’ day, it’s YOUR mother’s day, it needs to be personal.
When I was in rabbinical school, I remember writing a paper on rabbinical students who converted to Judaism. I interviewed around five rabbinical students, asking them, when did you feel ‘Jewish’? They all had the same answer, they turned to us the first time they had a great learning experience; and for many, it was after they learned their first page of Talmud. In order to accept God, they had to have a personal experience.
I think God wants the same thing from each one of us– for each of one of us recognize how special God and Torah are to you, personally.
To show God that you love him/her, you can write your own Torah scroll, a mitzvah we learn about in the book of Deuteronomy; that’s a tough task, kind of like finding the perfect piece of jewelry for your mother – but you can learn Torah, make it a part of your daily or weekly life, or in the very least, come celebrate Shavuot – because learning Torah on this night might not be like living in a Sukkah or having a Seder, but God will be just as pleased; and you will be better person for it.
On the 2nd day of Shavuot, you can come to remember the mother’s who are no longer with us during Yizkor, those who you cannot buy any gifts for, but being present is the most valuable thing you can do.
And on the first day of Shavuot, when you hear the Torah read, and the famous words of the Ten Commandment – Kaved Et Avicha V’et Imecha – Honor your father and your mother, you will know that you have fulfilled your part of the relationship – because you are present, just as you were present thousands of years ago at Sinai.
My blessing for us all is not to take the constants in our lives, our mothers and God, for granted. But ultimately, we will, so at least once a year, let’s dedicate our time to them, and of course, to make it holy.
Afterall, they both gave us life, and are with us everyday; it’s the least we can do.
Shabbat Shalom.
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