My Yiddishe Mama and the Jewish Mother: Sarah’s Tent Revisited
D’var Torah for Parashat Chayei Sarah
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
As I turn 70, on the 57th Anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah, B”H
An important part of our prayer service, said three times daily, is called Avot, “Fathers.” A few years ago, the Reform Movement added Immahot—“Mothers”—to the title, to emphasize the relevance of mothers in the birth and preservation of the Jewish people. After all, it wasn’t only through the natural laws of procreation that the Jewish People came about; it was also to no small extent because of the cultural and social—not to mention gastronomical—guidance provided by Jewish mothers.
And so, as part of that prayer, we list alongside the names of our three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, also the names of the four Matriarchs of the Jewish People—Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.
And yet, despite the honorary mention given these great women, I am not sure that many of us actually know what they did to deserve being included, other than providing progeny to the Patriarchs. The important role actually played by the four Matriarchs has faded from our memories. Moreover, in the past few decades, a familiar stereotype, that of the Jewish Mother, has served to downplay and even mock this role, diminishing it even further.
Maybe it’s sexism, a general malaise of modern society; or perhaps there’s more to this stereotype than meets the eye.
To anyone who’s even somewhat familiar with the Bible, we know that there are few enough references to women during Biblical times—and even fewer during Rabbinic times, the period when the Talmud and Midrash were composed. There are, however, some notable exceptions: Miriam, Moses’s sister, who played an instrumental part in saving Moses’s life and in leading the people; Deborah, who led the Israelites to a decisive military victory over the Canaanites; Esther, who saved the Jews of Persia; and Hannah, who appears in the Book of Maccabees as the mother willing to sacrifice herself and her seven sons rather than even pretend to worship the pagan god Zeus.
It is the heroic aspect of Jewish mothers that this tradition celebrates. Sarah, who fiercely guarded her son Isaac from the influence—and possibly abuse—of Ishmael; Rebecca, who did not hesitate to manipulate Isaac into bestowing his blessing not on Esau, but rather on Jacob; Rachel and Leah, who were engaged in ardent competition for Jacob’s love, each eager to provide progeny, to increase the size of their tribe, to give birth to a great and mighty nation.
So how did this tradition of heroism turn into a caricature? The portly, ill-dressed, loud, nagging, manipulative, controlling person that we meet in Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and Goodbye, Columbus; in almost every Woody Allen movie; as well as on television—whether as Rhoda Morgenstern’s mother, Kyle’s mother on South Park, or Howard Wolowitz’s mother in The Big Bang Theory? She may be loveable, but irritating; funny, but exasperating. She may be well-intentioned, but she is also the last person we want to walk in the door and announce her imposing presence.
Somewhere there, between the 1920’s and the 1950’s, “My Yiddishe Mama,” the tearful ode to motherhood that was sung by nearly everyone, from Sophy Tucker and Connie Francis to Neil Sedaka, Tom Jones and Ray Charles, turned into the comedic nightmare of the Jewish Mother, a control-freak who wields food and guilt as her weapons.
There might be some anti-Semitic elements to the caricature, certainly misogynistic facets as well. But there are also some distinct differences. For one thing, this Jewish stereotype—so prevalent in our culture that it has its own Wikipedia entry—has been, and continues to be, spread and circulated mostly by Jews.
But God forbid we should be accused of hating our mothers! No, it isn’t that at all! The Jewish Mother stereotype isn’t about any specific mother. It’s actually much bigger than that. It’s really about Jewish ethnicity; it’s about Jewish tradition and its supposed chokehold, particularly on American Jews of the second half of the 20thcentury.
So what happened? How and why did this transformation take place?
One can ask a similar question about Jews in America. The great wave of Jewish immigrants that arrived in America from Eastern Europe in the early part of the 20th century was mostly impoverished and ignorant. Countless sacrifices were made by the first few generations to ensure not only our survival, but also our advancement. What Jewish parents told their children was never, “If it was good enough for us, it’s good enough for you.” Instead, it was always, “We are undergoing tremendous hardship, willing to make every sacrifice, so that you can have a better life.”
And I know that to be true. The early 1950’s in Israel were a time of great hardship and need. Food—even the most basic staples—was being rationed among the population. I remember having to share a hard-boiled egg with my brother every few days—while my parents never had one. That was all you got. I will probably never know the many other sacrifices my parents made for us during that period.
But then things changed. Jews in America became successful and entered the middle class. To fit in, we learned to speak English without an accent and changed our haircuts and the clothes we wore. Religious school turned from five days a week to maybe two, replaced by sports and other middle-class pastimes. In our religious practice, we turned from Orthodox to Conservative, and then to Reform. From Eastern European Jews we became American Jews, and then Jewish Americans. We moved to the suburbs, where we made real for us the American dream that we could now share with all of our neighbors: A house of our own, with a green lawn and a white picket fence, and an Oldsmobile or Chevy in the driveway.
But even with that transformation, something still stood in our way. Ivy League schools had a quota on how many Jewish students they would accept. Prep schools accepted none. And country clubs, where the leisured class mingled, remained closed to us.
Because we were Jewish.
It took several more decades for Jews to realize that we had equal rights. But until then, many of us felt ashamed of our background. And whom did we have to blame? Why, of course, our mothers. They were the ones who insisted on lighting Shabbos candles, on keeping kosher, on getting the family together, come what may, for those special holiday meals for which they went all out.
That’s when our first Matriarch—Sarah—turned from protective, to threatening; when Rebecca turned from manipulative to meddling; when Rachel and Leah turned from self-sacrificing to guilt-tripping. In rejecting the hold our tradition had on us, we turned the tragic into the comedic, the typical into the stereotypical.
And as the traditional family unit broke down even further, we blamed our mothers even for that. We took the guilt we felt inside us, and placed it on our tradition instead.
And our fathers? They too became caricatures: henpecked, weak, ineffectual, weary of their wives’ nagging—think Tevya in Fiddler On The Roof and you get the picture.
But with our role models gone, whom could we turn to in order to understand our own role? If entire generations can be grouped, as we have done to baby-boomers, millennials and the x-generation, then American Jews of the 20th century could be characterized as the lost generation. Orphans with no home to call their own, with no tradition to fall back on, floundering between a past we rejected and a future without purpose or goal. What, then makes us Jewish?
The situation isn’t very different from the picture we find in this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah (“the Life of Sarah,” Genesis 23:1—25:18). With Sarah dead and following his near-sacrifice experience on top of Mt. Moriah, Isaac, our second Patriarch, is lost in the wilderness of Paran. Afraid or unwilling to come home, he wanders about, seeking meaning and direction for his existence.
It will be Rebecca, arriving from the east on camelback, who will give him these. Rebecca offers Isaac more than just love. She shows him the way home. Together they come back to Sarah’s tent, left empty since Sarah’s death. Together, they will rekindle the nearly extinguished promise of the Jewish People. Together, with steadfast and unfaltering faith, they will withstand all the challenges that will come up—from within the family as well as from outside enemies. It is through Isaac and Rebecca that the tradition of heroism of our mothers and fathers will continue.
To me, the symbol of this heroism will always be my grandmother, Paula, of blessed memory. During the Second World War, my grandparents found their way to Hungary, which at the time was not yet occupied by the Nazis. In my grandmother’s kitchen, a pot of hot soup was always on the stove, providing food for the countless refugees who came by every day. “Paula,” the neighbors would say, “you can’t go on feeding everybody; you have to think of your children!” But my grandmother’s response was always the same: “They are all my children.” And that, my friends, is what Jewish mothers really are all about.
May we all learn from the example set by all our heroic mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, who let no one and nothing stand in their way in raising us to be good people. May we learn from those who came before us how to fill our tents with the knowledge and understanding of what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. And may our tents always be blessed by the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and Rachel and Leah, throughout our generations. Amen.
© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman
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