Editorial by Paola Tavella

It is the mother who puts you in humanity

“It is the reading of the Bible that tells us what motherhood is, the first source in which we encounter desired or troubled motherhood, but always experienced in a way that leads us to reflect on the role of mother and wife within the family unit. And it seems like reading a current affairs magazine, a mirror of the human being in which we can fully trace today too”. We talk about motherhood and Judaism with Noemi Di Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities since 2016. Graduated in both Economics and Business and Law, this beautiful and refined lady represents the 25 thousand Italian Jews and their 21 communities. She has dual nationality, Italian and Israeli, as she was born in Jerusalem to a family that is partly Roman and partly from Turin, but she moved to Italy as a girl to get married, and had three children who now live in Israel.

The conversation starts from the beginning, from the first mother, Eve, to whom the Bible says “you will give birth in pain”. It’s true, Noemi Di Segni replies: “It is specified as a response to the sin committed. But today we try to give an answer to this pain, to welcome it, to understand it and to live it. For us it is no longer linked to this sin. On the topic of sin we have put a lot of distance from the Catholic culture. I grew up in Jerusalem and attended a religious school. In my studies I have never, in any way, seen a reference to the theme of Eve’s birth as a debt to pay for that sin. Instead, it constitutes a turning point with respect to the original plan, when the whole world goes in a different direction with respect to life in paradise. But we are not the mothers who suffer that sin, who must pay for it for everyone”. In the Torah and in Jewish culture there are “Great Mothers”, the mothers of Israel. “Yes, they are very idealized mothers, almost icons whose greatness is passed down with prayers, and in some Jewish holidays. They are Sarah, Abraham’s wife, Rebecca, Isaac’s mother, Rachel, Jacob’s second wife, mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and Leah, Jacob’s first wife, mother of many children. But then, reading the vicissitudes of each one, we realize that they are not exactly saintly and very saintly mothers, on the contrary: they go through all sorts of things. They are special because they are human with weaknesses, fragility, desires, jealousies, favorite children. Sarah chases away her other wife and sends her into the desert because she is jealous of her and her son. Rebecca prefers one child to another. Leah organizes a deception. Rachel dies immediately after giving birth to Benjamin, she had raised to heaven the cry of the woman who cannot have a child, she had been listened to. Through their example we learn to be human, not perfect. The first access of a child who studies the concept of motherhood occurs through these women and the events of their family units, with their crises and with the ability to emerge from the crisis. You get deep into their souls and you immediately immerse yourself in their psychology too.”

2nd Number

mothers

1st Number

Erre

It is the mother who puts you in humanity

mothers

/fəndə'men(t)l,iz(ə)m/

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