The Paradox of Motherhood

Reconsidering Channah in 5785

I should be sleeping, because in a few hours my baby is going to wake up and want to eat. But instead, I can't stop thinking about Channah. She has become my Rosh Hashanah preoccupation in past years, with her story of infertility overlapping with mine. But this year, I keep thinking about the promise she makes to God, as she prays for her child. If her prayer is answered, she will give him away.

This part of the story in Shmuel has always baffled me, and it baffles me even more now that I have been blessed to have my own children. I have not even been able to leave my son to go back to work for the day. Why would Channah, before she has even met the son she has prayed for for years, before she has gotten to smell his sweet scent and feel his tiny fingers wrap around hers, tell God that she will give him up, if only he can be hers for a moment? And how does she follow through on her promise?

Something I have realized in my brief moments as a parent is that our children aren't ours to keep. I wish they were; I wish I could keep them soft and small and innocent, protected under my wing, but that is no life for them to live. If the past year has shown us anything, if the bravery of the hostage families and the families of the fallen and especially of the modern prophetess Rachel Goldberg has shown us anything, it is that really, we never know when the world might force us to give our babies up. There is no greater cruelty than a world that forces mothers to bury their children, but this is the risk that every parent takes when they bring life into the world. The only hope we can have is that those babies--who, if we are blessed and lucky, grow up to be adults who will never belong to us again--will make their impression on the world and leave it better than they found it.

Channah knows that her son, her beloved Shmuel, cannot be hers as he grows, and yet she also believes that he has the capacity to change the world. And so she prays that he should come into this world, and when her prayer is answered, she keeps her promise.

This year, on Rosh Hashanah, my son--the physical manifestation of my prayers from last year being answered--will be strapped in the carrier as we ready the story of the woman who held her son, who she had longed for for years, and then gave him away. I will kiss his soft hair and breathe in that sweet scent. And I will think of all of the mothers who have been forced to give their children away this year, who will never get to hold their children close again. There is no goodness in this, no reason. And yet, those mothers had those children, and I am certain none of them regret it. We don't get to keep our children. But we get to love them, wherever they may be.

Shana tova--may this be the year where all of our prayers are answered.