#imahot

Hi, Reform Jew from the Midwest USA here. I had a question for other Jewish people on tumblr: in the Avot v’Imahot prayer, do y’all remember the mothers being listed in Hebrew as Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel, or Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah? I have a clear memory of it being the first order when I was a kid, but my synagogue at some point must have changed it to the second order. I can’t find anything clear online, so I’m wondering if anyone else has heard it the first way!

[...] do we not still recognise the God of Leah? His ear has not become heavy that it cannot hear, nor His arm shortened that it cannot save. And though He may not bestow on us a visible and audible manifestation of His tender compassion as on Leah, yet we may be certain that He will grant us some compensating blessing for every joy of which he may think fit to deprive us. And even for those bitter griefs,which from their nature,  their seeming selfishness, woman shrinks in trembling from bringing before her God and buries them in her own heart till it bleeds at every pore, -- Leah's history proves that He will grant peace and healing. It may be that a wiser and kinder will than her own has flung an insuperable barrier between woman's heart and its dearest object; and impelled her by all that is refined and delicate in her character to hide deep from every eye the anguish which is her burden. How blessed then that even for such a grief there is the fount of healing waters still in the word of God -- that she may come there and read not only the abundance the fullness of his love, but that He has especial tenderness for those by earth unloved! And as He gave Leah children because she was not loved, so will He grant such sufferers a peace and calm and joy in the consciousness of His unfailing tenderness far surpassing even the rich and glowing, but too transient, happiness of sympathy on earth.

Let us not, as women of Israel, be content with the mere performance of domestic, social, and individual duties, but vivify and lighten them by the rays of eternal love and immortal hope, which beam upon us from the pages of the Bible. A religion of love is indeed necessary to woman, yet more so than to man. Even in her happiest lot there must be a void in her heart, which ever- acting piety alone can fill ; and to her whose portion is to suffer, whose lot is lonely, O what misery must be hers, unless she can lean upon her God, and draw from His word the blessed conviction that His love, His tenderness, are hers, far beyond the feeble conception of earth ; and that whatever she may endure, however unknown to or scorned by man, it is known to Him who smites but in love, and has mercy even while He smites.

Free to assert their right as immortal children of the living God, let not the women of Israel be backward in proving they, too, have a Rock of Strength, a Refuge of Love ; that they, too, have a station to uphold, and a 'mission' to, perform, not alone as daughters, wives, and mothers, but as witnesses of that faith which first raised, cherished, and defended them — witnesses of that God who has called them His, and who has so repeatedly sanctified the emotions peculiar to their sex, by graciously comparing the love he bears us, as yet deeper than a mother's for her child, a wife's for her husband, having compassion for his people, as on a ' woman forsaken and grieved in spirit.' ' Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her travail; yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee.' 'As a mother comforteth her children, so will I comfort thee.'

How and whence originated the charge that the law of Moses sank the Hebrew female to the lowest state of degradation, placed her on a level with slaves or heathens, and denied her all mental and spiritual enjoyment, we know not: yet certain it is that this most extraordinary and unfounded idea obtains credence even in this enlightened age. The word of God at once proves it's falsity; for it is impossible to read the Mosaic law without the true and touching conviction, that the female Hebrew was even more an object of the tender and soothing care of the Eternal than the male.