#Shmini #תשפא

(Some of these ideas were shared during the drasha in shul on the first day of Pesach.)

​A few days before Pesach, I wrote an article in defense of my grandmother and yours. The basic idea that I wanted to convey is that our grandparents understood that there is a deep value in commitment, dedication and hard work. Especially, in the performance of mitzvos. It's a value that has fallen out of fashion in Yiddishkeit as we have endeavored to find more frictionless avenues for mitzvah observance (many for good halachik and hashkafik reason.)

In that article, the example I gave was of the voluntary acceptance of chumros in preparing for Pesach on the part of our grandmothers. The reason for this example was in part because of the timeliness of it. But also because this subset of the Jewish people – our maternal ancestors – are often robbed of any agency in our retrospective of history. This is true on the right and left.

On the extreme right, our mothers are often portrayed as saintly: Accepting the challenges of poverty and pain with unimaginable grace from which we could only hope to be inspired. They are rarely given the credit for struggling with their challenges.

On the extreme left, these same women are viewed as ignorant victims of a patriarchal society that intentionally sidelined female voices.