Things I Learned from my Mother: Helping Others

Here I want to tell you the stories of things I learned from my mother.  My dear mother who passed away in 2013, may she rest in peace.

What can I tell about my mother?  This was a woman who knew everybody and helped all.  We all loved and appreciated her.  I was sad to leave my mother when I married and ended up raising my sons far away in California.

My mother visited me one time when I was sick, she loyally took care of me and helped me in such an impressive way that I shall never forget it.  We had many close conversations about our childhood hers in her homeland in Mashhad and mine in our new country Israel.  My mother Rivka then told me a story about her mother, Mina who raised six children.  All the kids were asleep and Mina was still sitting at the sewing machine and sewing clothes way into the wee hours of the night. Little Rivka asks her mother: “Why are you working so hard so late at night?”  My grandmother answers: “We are good people who like to help the poor.  We are unable to help them with money or with goods therefore I devote my time to make clothes for their little children.”
I was very impressed with this story and I understood that this was one of the important values in my family: there are always people with fate worse than ours and we should help them.
This is what I meant in my previous post when I spoke about innate responsibility to help the less fortunate.  I had some strong reactions against that sentiment.  Some people saw the political angle: “We don’t need the government!”  That is so regrettable that our political views blind us from watching our fellow human beings.  I think personal responsibility is the most innate value we should remember.  My Bell Curve just showed distribution of IQ.  But people who are fortunate in other areas of life, they also have something to contribute.  People with artistic talents entertain us and tell us stories.  They create beautiful art and enhance our sense of awe.  Scientists and engineers discover the secrets of our universe and create technologies to improve our lives.  Even the physically handicapped have emotional power to help us when we are sad.  It is an amazing world of diverse life.

I’d like to show you this photo of my family from the 1950’s with my two grandmothers all living in one small house.  But helping others was something I learned to cherish.
Ever since I remember, mother loved to help people.  She had an incredible memory and she knew every family member of every relative and acquaintance who came to Israel from the old country.  On one hand she knew the successful, rich families who moved to New York, with the large homes and fancy parties.  (She got invited to many of these parties…)  On the other hand she knew the less fortunate people who could not afford to support their large families or their sick and disabled children.  She had an amazing ability to mix in any society and find friends who loved her.  This way she had always been successful in convincing the rich to donate money to those in need.
Mother always reminded us of the memorials for our grandparents: It is important to remember.  I could continue and mention more examples of how mother loved to help everybody.  Not only she felt an obligation to help, she did it with pleasure and tremendous joy.  And that is the main lesson: To revere the joy you feel by helping others.
Maybe in the modern world today it is not as simple to figure who can use help and who needs to be punished.  Here is where our intelligence and imagination can guide us in figuring out how to achieve this balance.