Rav Avigdor Miller on the Job of the Jewish Mother

A girl of that age, I imagine is of marriageable age. So I would say that her first job is to get married – not to think about shiurim or kiruv rechokim. If she’s seventeen or eighteen, that’s the time to get married.  The older you are, the less children you’re going to have and the less success you’ll be in marriage.

When you marry young, you’ll have more children and that’s your big success in life. A woman who brings up children; she cooks and bakes and cleans the house and washes diapers, she’s a servant of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. If she does it l’shem Shamayim, it’s a glorious opportunity for greatness!

Don’t go far afield and think that you want to write seforim and give lectures. Forget about that. Your job is right at hand for you – to be a successful housewife, a successful mother.

חכמת נשים בנתה ביתה – The wisdom of women builds a house, ואולת – but a foolish woman, בידה תהרסנה – she knocks down a house with her own hands. Foolish women make a house into a tragedy. They complain and they make everybody sick. They ruin the house and sometimes their husbands even die young because of them. But a woman who is careful in fulfilling her obligations, her husband lives longer. He’s happy. The children are happy.  She gives them good meals. She learns how to cook well. She becomes a master chef.  And she’s a manager of the household.  She saves money. She tries her best to shop and save and she’s always busy mending things and sewing; and her mind is always full of one thought: She is serving Hakodosh Boruch Hu in the very best way that was given to her; there’s nothing greater in the service of Hashem for a woman than being a successful mother and a wife.

So if you’re asking what to do until you’re married, so I could tell you a number of things, but I don’t want to overshadow the most important function and that is, aim to be married.

While we’re on the subject, I would tell you to try to marry the best man you can.  The best man is the one who has good character; a steady man who is going to work and earn a living, and not to be a lazy loafer. There are plenty of lazy loafers. I counted very many of them; frum good-for-nothings who don’t make a living. If they sit and learn all day long b’hasmadah – excellent!  But not everybody does that. So if you find a man who is going to maintain the household with responsibility; and he’s an oved Hashem who goes to beis haknesses and davens three times a day and he’s interested in maintaining a house with yiras Shomayim, that’s what you want. Look for a man who’s an idealist, and devote your life to making him and the children happy.

Here is an ideal mother. She has a child who is slow so she sits every evening coaching her child. Two hours every evening! It’s heartbreaking but she doesn’t give up. That’s her job. Her husband is very busy; he’s teaching other children. He has to go to the beis haknesses to daven and to go to shiurim. So she sits every evening for two hours and coaches that slow child!  She helps all the children with the homework. That mother is mamesh a rosh yeshiva!  Her zchus is immeasurable!  How great she is! She won’t be honored. She’s humble. She doesn’t wear a black hat.  She doesn’t have a long beard.  She doesn’t have payos. But she has everything! The gemara says, נשים במאי זכיין – How are women zocheh? Women are zocheh if they make their husbands go to learn and they make their children learn.

And when the time comes and she has to go to the next world, עוז והדר לבושה – She’ll be clothed in strength and in beauty.  She didn’t spend much money on herself in this world. She saved money for the family. But when she comes to the next world she’ll be wearing the most beautiful garments. עוז והדר לבושה – her garments are strength and beauty, ותשחק ליום אחרון – she’ll laugh at the last day. It means that she can face the future, Olam Habah, with confidence.

And the Gemara says: גדולה הבטחה – How great is the promise to women! Women are not as responsible as men are to accomplish things outside the home. Men have to accomplish things, certain things. Your husband, they’ll ask him questions: Did you daven with kavanah? Did you learn Torah? Did you do this?  Did you do that? Shleimus, many other things are expected of him.  But of women we are interested that they should fulfill their function of maintaining a frum home and having children – as many as they can – and raising them in the derech haTorah. And for that, גדולה הבטחה – “How great is the promise,” Hashem says, “that I make to women,  נשים שאננות – You women of peace.” It means, you don’t have to worry. You have nothing to fear because you know already that Hakodosh Boruch Hu will reward you.

It’s not easy, but women have the work cut out for them – clear cut work: Be successful as a mother and as a wife! If you’re successful as a frum Jewish mother, a frum Jewish wife, then you’re going to sit on a golden throne in Gan Eden.

TAPE # 713 (October 1988)