"Remember the Mothers!"

Louise Strait
May 14, 2024

On Mother’s Day 2024 I received an email directing my attention to the CNN report "Strapped Down, Blindfolded, Held in Diapers: Israeli Whistleblowers Detail Abuse of Palestinians in Shadowy Detention Center. Several days later, I have yet to steel myself sufficiently to finish reading it. 

With a nod to Abigail Adams' 1776 plea (unanswered) to her husband to "remember the ladies" in the formation of the new North American republic, I ask that we remember the mothers Sarah, the mother of Jews, Israeli and otherwise; Hagar, the mother of Palestinian Muslims, and Mary, the mother of Palestinian Christians. Let's extend our gaze to take in the Civil War mothers immortalized in Julia Ward Howe's 1870 Mother's Day Proclamation,  Jewish mothers who were breastfeeding their babies on the way to what they were told were showers in Auschwitz, and mothers in Gaza whose lack of drinking water has dried up their breast milk. All the prisoners in the Sde Teiman Detention Center have mothers, as do their Israeli guards. Hamas operatives and IDF soldiers are not motherless children. Israeli hostages in Gaza have mothers and also are mothers. 

A serious reading of these words of Mrs. Howe must lead at least to the consideration of a cease-fire:

Arise then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts
Whether your baptism be that of water or tears!
Say firmly, "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies."

We women of one country 
Will be too tender of those of another
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom  of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own,
It says, "Disarm, disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.

​Mother God’s Heartbreak, and Her Quandary

Andrew Wilson
May 14, 2024

​What is a mother to do when her beloved son whom she raised from birth and invested so much in his education to become a good and productive member of society instead turns to a life of crime, even including murder and violence? She would be heartbroken, of course. What is she to do? Turn him over to the authorities to be tried and punished? Or shelter her beloved boy and give him another chance to straighten out his life? 
 
Suppose this mother decides to shelter her son, but instead of showing gratitude for her merciful efforts, he continues to commit murder. Now the mother has to contend with the fact that other mothers have lost their children on her account. They would accuse her of being complicit in their children’s deaths. Considering that possibility, she might have second thoughts about not calling the police in the first place.
 
Now, apply this hypothetical to the situation of Mother God looking at the behavior of Israel in making war on Gaza. Might some of these thoughts not be on Her mind?
 
There was no issue with Israel striking back during the days immediately after the October 7 massacre, when it had every right to pursue and eliminate the Hamas attackers who perpetrated that atrocity. Israel had good cause to defend itself and destroy those Hamas fighters in the name of justice.
 
But the continuing war on Gaza for more than seven months now, ostensibly to defeat Hamas, has brought death and destruction on a whole population, particularly innocent women and children. The entire world is appalled at Israel’s behavior. Yet has Israel considered that God is also appalled?
 
Consider what God has been teaching the Jewish people for nearly four millennia. First, Abraham instructed us that indiscriminate killing is an evil to be avoided if at all possible. When God told Abraham that he would destroy Sodom, he prevailed upon God to stay the hand of destruction for the sake of fifty righteous men who might be living there:
 
Then Abraham drew near, and said, “Will you indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you still destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18.23-25)
 
Were there not, among the more than 30,000 souls who have perished so far in the war on Gaza, mostly innocent children and the mothers who loved them, at least fifty righteous people?
 
Also, consider the verse in the Mishnah,
Only one single man [Adam] was created in the world, to teach that, if any man has caused a single soul to perish, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had caused the whole world to perish, and if any man saves alive a single soul, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had saved the whole world. (Sanhedrin 4.5)
 
Note that this teaching doesn’t say “if any man has caused a single Jewish soul to perish.” It says “a single soul.” Our sages understood that the value of a human life is not conditional on race or religion. Every human life is precious, and this applies to the children of Gaza as much as the children of Israel.
 
God is more than deeply disturbed; He-She is truly appalled at what the State of Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Not only are cries of the people of Gaza for justice ringing in God’s ears, but God is extremely disappointed that all the investment and education given the Jewish people throughout their 4,000 years of history has been for naught. That the most basic commandment, Thou shalt not kill, means so little to the people of Israel today.  It is a miserable, sinking feeling in the heart of God to see that this is the measly result of all His-Her efforts to raise the Jewish people to be righteous and peace-loving people, an example to the world.
 
Yet Mother God also blames Herself for not teaching the Jewish people Her feminine heart. The Mishnah doesn’t express the truth that God’s love is also as a mother’s love. Today God’s heart is the heart of a mother bereaved of Her children. Are there Jewish women who can taste Her bitter tears and weep with her? Would they have the strength to prevail on their menfolk to stop this senseless killing?
 
What do you think God our Heavenly Mother should do? Continue to shelter Israel under Her wings, or give Israel up to judgment? 

Israel’s leaders may not fear the opprobrium of US President Biden or even world opinion. But the more serious issue that should weigh on their minds is what God might do. 
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