The Jewish Woman – Part 3

Torah establishes that a child’s People is traced through the mother – who carries and nourishes the growing baby, and who devotedly struggles through the pains of pregnancy, labor and childbirth.

There are those who wish to steal the child from its mother, by “voting” that a child can belong to the father’s People instead. All women should object to such a possibility.

A child’s status as Kohen, Levite or Israelite does, in fact, follow the father’s – this is for a different, but equally logical, reason: Only the father can show his child a living example how to fulfill these roles.

But all things, including the education of the children, are still dependent on the mother – the “Pillar of the home” – as Rabbi Akiva told his students: “My Torah and your Torah are all thanks to my wife.”