May 8, 2026 – Behar-Bechukotai

Requesting Release: A Prayer for the Sabbath of Mother’s Day

This week’s Torah portion, B’har-B’chukotai, includes the famous verse that inspired the engraving on the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land.” (Leviticus 25:10). Most Torah commentaries use the word release instead of liberty. Release from indentured servitude, debt and generational poverty. The teaching could not be better timed. Coming on the Sabbath before Mother’s Day and a week after Hadassah Shabbat, there are a few things one would love for all women — be they mothers or not — to be released from.

May mothers and all women be released from the impossible expectation of perfection. No one can live up to it. We don’t need perfection. We need strength, love, integrity, courage, wisdom and joy.

May mothers and all women be released from violence. Too many remain trapped in relationships where they must choose between homelessness and abuse. Neither is acceptable nor safe.

May mothers and all women be released from poverty. Too many are relegated to hunger, coercion and neglect.

May mothers and all women be released from a continuous campaign against bodily autonomy and equal access to health care. We don’t have to agree with the choices they make to insist on the safeguarding of their choices.

May mothers and all women be released from being told they are not pretty enough, young enough or ambitious enough to pursue their personal or professional goals. Our job is to encourage not dissuade, to support rather than condescend.

On this Shabbat before Mother’s Day, let us practice the values that strong, courageous, loving and compassionate women have taught us. Let us make the world a better place for all God’s children, and may all God’s children realize a mother’s hopes for happiness, holiness and peace.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Wirtschafter