Dear Friends,
This Shabbat we read Parshas Chayay Sarah, and one of the main great personalities is the first mother of the Jewish people, Sarah Imeinu.
Sarah faced numerous challenges in her life including being kidnapped, suffering from infertility, and together with our father Avraham, constantly (spiritually) battling an immoral and corrupt world. Together they opened all four doors of their tent and invited people in to eat and learn about the one G-d and the ethics and values that He desires humans to uphold and transmit to the world. They quite literally transformed the fabric of the world to become a place where goodness and kindness are valued and upheld.
Yet, Sarah was much more than just a teacher, a hostess, and the voice of G-dliness. She was a Jewish mother, the first one, and the woman who personified passion, dedication, and burning love that as any Jewish mother knows is what drives our every thought and action. In the words of the famous song, “A Yiddishe Mame” – “Oh I know that I owe what I am today…To that wonderful Yiddishe Momme of mine.”
After years of infertility, at the ripe old age of 90, “G d remembered Sarah” and blessed her with a son, Yitzchok. This perhaps was Sarah’s most treasured life’s mission. She invested her heart and soul, in fact, her very essence, into her son. Sarah raised Yitzchak in a home imbued with purity and holiness. She instilled love, warmth & G-dliness into her home and ensured that negativity and bad influences be kept out.
Sarah transmitted this dedication and selflessness to all Jewish mothers that followed her.
Last week, a group of mothers started a Facebook group called: “Mothers Against College Antisemitism (MACA), and within 48 hours there were 42,000 followers. Reading the posts, it exemplified the power and strength of the Jewish mother, the single-minded dedication and resoluteness to stop the negativity and hatred resounding on college campuses. Just like our first mother Sarah, and straight out of her child-rearing playbook, these committed mothers are banding together and investing all of their energy, love, and enthusiasm to protect the hearts, souls, and minds of their precious children and to try and make this world into a more G-dly, more peaceful and more beautiful place.
In honor, of Sarah Imeinu, all the IDF soldiers fighting, the hostages, and all of our brothers and sisters in Israel, all women should light Shabbat candles. This Mitzvah transmitted to us by our mother Sarah, will bring more light into this world and brighten up the darkness with the blinding light of our Shabbat flames.
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom and a week of good news ahead!
Rabbi Fishel & Ettie Zaklos