“DON’T DESPAIR, MOTHER IS HERE
Marin Buber closed one of his splendid texts with the above sentence. He calls upon the mother for support to the world in times that prove ever so difficult for the Jewish peoples, particularly for our children. Israel is more than a form and content. Buber wants us to make it real throughout our entire being, in contact with the loved ones, and with the community. (…) To make sure: it is not where our Jewry is rooted – by hosting Seder and keeping matzos at home. (…) Only when we know that to be a Jew doesn’t merely mean fate, but fulfilment of a mission, sacred task that has to be completed in everyday life – in it, perhaps first and foremost. Only then we, the Jewish mothers, (…) will be able to draw from the Jewish tragic drama of the day, the impulse for the new strengths that build our nation, Palestine; when we realise that our strength, our Jewish strength (…) lays in the book and not in the fist, but when we are able to implant it into the brains and souls of our children, only when we shall come to properly understand our task, only then it will perhaps be possible to truly say: DON’T DESPAIR, MOTHER IS HERE!”
Haderech, No 16, 22 April 1940