The Woman Who Made Me – A Tribute to My Mother
To My Mother, On This Day
Prepared by Rabbi Anchelle Perl
A Mother’s Day Meditation to Read Aloud
Mama — before I say anything else, let me say this: I see you.
I see the years you carried me before I could carry myself. I see the meals, the worries, the late nights, the early mornings, the thousand small acts of love I was too young to notice and, for a while, too busy to thank you for.
Our Sages call a mother akeres habayis — the root of the home. Not the decoration. Not even the manager. The root. Above the ground, the world sees the trunk and branches; underneath, unseen, is the root that holds it all. That is who you have been to me. Whatever I have grown into, I grew because you were holding.
You were my first teacher of Torah and Jewish learning. Long before any teacher or classroom, I learned from you how to bless food, how to whisper Shema before sleep, how a Jewish home smells on Friday afternoon, how to greet a stranger, how to forgive.
You taught me Torah Jewish knowledge without ever opening a book — by being the book.
In the language of Jewish mysticism, a mother is Binah — the one who takes a spark and turns it into a home a soul can live in. That is what you did with me. You took the raw soul G-d gave you and built a life around it, slowly, patiently, with your own two hands.
When the Torah names the first woman, it calls her Chava -Em Kol Chai — “mother of all life.” Every Jewish mother since has carried a piece of that name. You carried it for me.
For the lullabies you sang when I could not yet understand the words — for the tears you cried for me when I did not know I needed to be cried for — for the laughter, like Sarah’s, that refused to give up on a better tomorrow — for the prayers you whispered over me as I slept, that I am only beginning to feel now —
Thank you, Mama. Thank you.
Our Sages teach that in the merit of righteous women our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt — and that in the merit of righteous women, the final Redemption will come. Mama, you are part of that merit. Every Shabbos candle you have lit, every bracha you have said, every tefillah you have whispered for your children — Heaven has counted them all.
May the Almighty bless you with health, with nachas, with years of joy. May you live to see the seeds you planted bloom in front of your eyes. And may we, together, very soon, witness the day Rachel Imeinu our Matriarch was promised — when all her children come home.
I love you, Mama. Today, and every day.
