Mother’s Day - A Jewish Perspective
Mother’s Day is a time to show appreciation through buying a gift or sending a card. It is a day to stop and appreciate our mothers, the ones who carried us for nine months, who nursed us and brought us up. Our parents have done so much for us that we certainly owe them a debt of gratitude.
Honouring our parents is a central tenet of Judaism, it is the fifth of the ten commandments and is at the basis of all Jewish family life. Rather than being a relic of a patriarchal society, there is a very powerful message here for all of humanity. The medieval work Sefer HaChinuch explains that there is a very important principle that lies at the root of this mitzvah, the idea of hakarat hatov. This term translates literally as ‘recognition of the good,’ and is the polar opposite of a debt of gratitude. Debts have negative connotations and are the kind of things we like to get rid of as soon as possible.
The idea behind hakarat hatov is to recognise and appreciate all the good that someone has done for us, this appreciation in turn leads us to make the most of all that we have been given. Our parents have given us the gift of life. Whatever our relationship with them may be, no one can ever take this away from them. Without them we simply would not be here. Rather than try to pay off this debt, the Torah is telling us to live with a sense of gratitude. Of course all relationships have their challenges and these need to be worked out, but they ought never to take away from this appreciation of the gift of life.
This explains why the mitzvah of honouring our parents is on the first of the two tablets of stone. This first tablet deals with commandments between man and God and the second, between man and man. The reason why this mitzvah is on the first side rather than the second is so that we can internalise the concept and in so doing, develop a sense of appreciation to the Creator of all life.
Once we appreciate the gift we have been given, the best way to show that appreciation is to make the most of it and to use it to the best of our ability. Our parents gave us the gift of independent life, by making moral choices and by making the most of opportunities that come our way we are showing our appreciation for this gift of life.
Honouring parents is therefore not limited to cards gifts and flowers, neither is it a burden that we should seek to cast off as soon as we are able. In fact as a friend of mine once said, ‘I spent the first thirty years of my life trying to get my parents off my back, only to realise that they were actually the only ones who had my back!’.
Happy Mother’s Day, go and make her proud!
