What Is the Best Thing to Learn from a Mother?
When my mother passed away, which was when I was already over 70 years old, I felt that she had been carrying me in her arms my whole life, and she only let me go at that very moment of her departure.
When we are babies, we are completely dependent on the care from our mothers, and the natural care that mothers hold for their babies is far more important than all other human desires. This is because the mother’s desire to care for and connect to her baby precedes our every other desire—for food, sex, family, wealth, respect and control.
I often emphasize the immense importance of a mother’s care for her child because we need to use this caring force in order to bring humanity to a harmonious and peaceful state. It is what human society’s positive future depends on.
In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we discuss the Sefira of Bina as a quality that wishes solely to give and to bestow as a protection, cover and shield that is somewhat similar to this world’s example of a mother’s care for her child.
If we wish to use this force of Bina, i.e., to cover ourselves with the force of bestowal, we then become similar to a baby in its mother’s arms. We acquire the protection of Bina’s special force, a force in nature that Kabbalists call “the light of Hassadim (mercy),” which drives away the negative egoistic forces that cause every bit of suffering in our lives.
That is all humanity lacks: the feeling of a supreme caring force that wishes solely to bestow, similarly to a mother’s natural care for her baby, covering our relations in society like an umbrella. We would then be unable to act negatively toward each other because the harmful egoistic forces would be “afraid of mother,” the force of bestowal that would be present in our midst.