Image of the Week: Woman of Valor
© Durga Yael Bernhard
Here is my first completed new work of 2019. I started this painting on New Year's Day – a day that always feel bright with new beginnings. Even though it's January, I think of sunny yellow, sky blue, pastel green, pale peach.
Mother of Valor is my version of "Woman of Valor" – the title of a Jewish song of praise called Eshet Chayil (אשת חיל), from a passage in the Book of Proverbs attributed to King Solomon. Literally, the Hebrew translates to mean "Woman of Force". The word for "force" comes from "life" (chai), and in certain contexts can also mean "soldier" or "warrior". This kind of force is pro-life.
Traditionally, "Eshet Chayil" is recited by a husband to honor his wife on the Sabbath for her many contributions to the family, as it is she who upholds the feeding and education of the children, the tending of fields and flocks, the baking of bread, spinning of cloth, and care of elders, the poor and the needy. She kindles the lights of the Sabbath and enables her husband to study Torah. She is intelligent, resourceful, and selfless. This ideal wife and mother is rightly honored for her sacrifice and travail. Even a woman who does not attain these ideals is honored for her efforts. I like that. I like the recognition that keeping a home and bearing and raising children takes a whole lot of devotion, brains, and stamina.
More recently, progressive versions of "Eishet Chayil" have emerged that go way beyond the old paradigm. What is hailed now is the woman's potential to pursue a career, create her own destiny, and thrive as an individual. Children are either not mentioned, or reframed as a matter of choice. Women are revisioned as complete either with or without "actual" children. For this "Woman of Force", a brainchild is as good as a biological one – maybe even better, as she soldiers through life side by side with men.
I beg to differ. As a mother of three who has made my children the center of my life – and yet has also tasted plenty of freedom, enjoyed a lifetime of creative opportunities, and shouldered more independence than I ever wanted – I object to this newfangled Woman of Valor. Whether she wishes to fulfill it or not, a woman's capacity and contribution as a mother remains vital and essential, unsurpassed by any other experience in life. I motion that motherhood be fully restored to the Eishet Chayil of today, as it is her connection to the wellsprings of life that truly empowers a woman. Having children remains the most ancient, primal, and in my mind, powerful way to do that. Feminine wisdom is big enough to encompass both traditional and modern roles.
I therefore devote my Eshet Chayil especially to mothers. The Mother of Valor draws her force from nature. She makes of herself an organic vessel in which her children grow, connecting them to nature, teaching them reverence for life, feeding them from the earth. She encloses them in the safety of her garden, yet remains permeable to the outside. She gives her children language and stories, history and tradition, humor and wit. She leads them through holidays and around the cycle of seasons. She nourishes their growth and rejoices in their reaching beyond her. She allows them to change, and to change her in return.
The Hebrew words on the painting, intermingled in script and print, are from a separate verse of praise:
נשמת כל חי תברך את שמך יהוה אלהינו ורוח כל בשר תפאר ותרומם זכרך
May the soul of every living thing bless your name, Eternal Source of Life,
and may the spirit of all flesh hold in reverence your memory.
The Mother of Valor teaches her children thus.
And thus I have striven to teach my own two daughters and son, in my own way.
What do you think? Your comments are welcome – especially all you mothers out there.
Mother of Valor will be part of my next calendar, The Jewish Eye 5780/2020 Calendar of Art – already in progress.
A good week to all, and a good snowstorm to my nearby friends!
D Yael Bernhard