The Torah and Haftarah readings instituted by Chazal on holidays are meant to direct our thoughts and focus of the day to specific messages. Chazal selected the readings of “And G-d visited Sarah” (Bereishit 21) and the story of Chana for the first day of Rosh Hashanah, and “And G-d tested Avraham” (Bereishit 22), and “Is Ephraim My dear son?” (mentioning the tears of Rachel) for the second day (Megillah 31a). Three of the readings focus on three barren women who were all remembered by Hashem and conceived on Rosh Hashanah – Sarah, Rachel, and Chana (Rosh Hashanah 10b).
Ironically, in the story of Sarah giving birth to Yitzchak, we also learn of another mother, Hagar, the mother of Yishmael, who, upon Sarah’s suggestion, is sent away by Avraham with her son who will not inherit with Yitzchak. The Torah tells us of her tears as she casts her son under a terebinth so she will not see him die of dehydration and how Hashem answered not her cries – but those of her son! Further tears of another mother become central to the Rosh Hashanah themes as we blow one hundred “wails” of the shofar to recall the “yevavot” of Sisera’s mother anxiously awaiting her barbaric son to return from war against Israel (Tosafot, Rosh Hashanah 33b).
Rabbi Norman Lamm poignantly contrasts the tears of Hagar and Sisera’s mother with those of Rachel, who cried for her children in exile and hostage. Sisera’s mother soothes her own cries by imagining her son tarried by the division of spoils of victory; she refuses to face the reality of her son’s demise. “When you live in a dream world, you must expect nightmares. She had imagined that her exalted position as mother of a successful conqueror inured her to pain and tragedy – that was reserved only for the contemptible enemy, Israel. She was guilty of an immoral optimism, the kind of outlook that characterizes the unthinking and arrogant of all ages. Hers was a strutting and pompous dream which collapsed under the weight of its own illusions” (Three Who Cried, 1962).
Hagar’s cries of desperation, along with her fatalistic surrender to the perilous situation without trying to save her son, as she “beholds the great desert of life – and submits to it,” are a reminder not to let hopelessness paralyze us. “The tears of Hagar and her whole frame of mind suggest a despair of which is born delinquency.”
The perspectives and “crocodile” tears of Sisrera’s mother and Hagar are dangerously wrong. “A society, like an individual, which alternates between the moods of exhilaration and depression… shows symptoms of moral mania and spiritual psychosis. Neither the one weeping nor the other is for us. Rather, it is the tears of a Jewish mother which inspire us this day.” The Haftarah of the second day describes Rachel relentlessly crying from Ramah over her children, banished from their homes by the Baylonians. Unlike Sisera’s mother, she recognizes the bitterness of reality, but unlike Hagar, she refuses to despair and surrender to final exile and destruction. “They are not the tears of vain sentiment and self-pity, but of powerful protest; they are a sign not of weakness, but of strength; not of resignation or frustration, but of determination.”
The tears of Rachel on Rosh Hashanah are accompanied by the tears of Sarah and Chana. Though Sarah’s cries are not explicit in the text, Chazal understood that she is a central persona of proper Jewish motherhood represented on Rosh Hashanah. Instead of learning the sound of the teruah blasts from the wails of Sisera’s mother (Rosh Hashanah 33b), the Midrash cites the cries of Sarah upon hearing of the sacrifice of Yitzchak as the basis for the sounds of the shofar (Vayikra Rabbah 20:2). Similarly, Chana’s sincere tears and prayers lead to the birth of Shmuel. The tears of Sarah, Chana, and Rachel are tears of mothers who will not yield to the realities of the world but will help transform them. Unlike the tears of Hagar and Sisera’s mother, they are not the end of stories, but rather the beginning of legacies of salvation and redemption.
This Rosh Hashanah, we must reflect on these five mothers and contrast the tears of Sarah, Rachel, and Chana with those of Sisera’s mother and Hagar. The Jewish mothers represent a deep awareness of harsh realities – personal loss, frustration, and national division. Yet they are neither blinded by complacency and false hopes, nor consumed by despair and resignation. Their tears are born of determination, leading to redemption. These are the cries we should focus on during Rosh Hashanah: as we study the Torah and Haftarah readings, hear the shofar’s call, and pray with tears and hope. These are the tears of relentless pleading to Hashem, with faith that He will hear and respond, fulfilling the promise of return – “veshavu vanim ligvulam.”
Rabbanit Shani Taragin is Educational Director of Mizrachi and the Director of the Mizrachi- TVA Lapidot Educators’ Program.