views

Ask Attorney
Ken Gross

for openers

On Mother’s Day

H

dynamics or because the wrong gifts
ave you ever wondered who
can cause explosions. (“Why’d you
thought up Mother’s Day? I’d
always assumed it was invent- buy me soap and perfume? Are you
ed by Hallmark, but I looked it up and implying I smell bad?”) In the end,
Anna Jarvis saw how commercial-
turns out, surprise, surprise, it wasn’t.
ized Mother’s Day had become and
In the U.S, credit goes to a woman
she ended up regretting her
(of course …) by the name of
invention … kind of like Alfred
Anna Jarvis. In 1858, when she
Nobel who invented dynamite
was pregnant with her sixth
…
child (out of 11, or 13, depend-
Apparently, Jarvis had
ing on which history book
envisioned a rather tame day
you’re reading), she initiated
of folks wearing white carna-
Mother’s Day Work Clubs,
tions, and when she saw how
which banded women togeth-
florists, candy companies,
er to help fix the problems
Rochel Burstyn
card companies, jewelry
of the day, like disease and
shops, gift shops, etc., were
infant mortality. She was also
capitalizing on Mother’s Day,
a staunch advocator for peace,
she was horrified and begged
encouraging her club mem-
people not to participate.
bers to take care of soldiers
For the rest of her life, Jarvis tried to
from both sides during the Civil War.
She was especially known for always “undo” Mother’s Day and spent almost
all her money on legal fees attempting
honoring, empowering and helping
to sue anyone who used and profited
mothers.
from the words “Mother’s Day.”
On her first yartzheit, her daughter
Unfortunately for her, all that
Anna held a memorial service for her
money went down the drain. Mother’s
mother and made the annual memo-
Day is here to stay, with Americans
rial service a little bigger each year.
Eventually, she petitioned Washington spending over $21.4 billion annually
on Mother’s Day celebrations and
to make Mother’s Day an official yom
gifts.
tov and, in 1914, she succeeded.
My first memory of Mother’s Day is
The funny thing, though, is that
asking my mother for money so I could
Mother’s Day is kind of like dynamite,
buy her something at the Mother’s Day
and I don’t mean because of family

Bazaar at school. My mother refused.
She was never a fan of this mishegoss
and staunchly insisted that “Every day
is Mother’s Day!”
The older I get the more I agree. The
thing is that the more money a gift
costs, the more forgettable it some-
times is. The best things in life are free,
like uninterrupted sleep, someone else
doing the laundry or a sincere hand-
written card.
Since I’ve become a mother, my
favorite Mother’s Day memories
include a sticky-faced child holding
out a handful of freshly plucked weeds,
eyes aglow and a funky handmade
macaroni necklace I received from
my then 5-year-old, which I told him
was so beautiful, I would wear at his
chuppah (which might explain why he
hasn’t made me anything else since).
But on the other hand, mothers do
so much every day of their lives for
everyone around them that one day
really does not do us justice. Who
cares about the commercialism? It’s
almost understated — I mean, bring
on the parades! The marching bands,
baton twirlers, trumpeting elephants!
Whether you celebrate or don’t …
for everyone who is a mother, has a
mother or knows a mother: Have a
great day! A great week! Month! Year!
You rock! •

letters

Jewish Voices

With all the vibrant institutions in our
local community, it is truly wonderful
when events and programs take place
that transcend the boundaries of
those institutions and show the cohe-
siveness of the community itself. April
25 was one of those special programs.
The Michigan Board of Cantors —
which itself boasts representation
from many synagogues in multiple
“streams” of Judaism — sponsored its
first annual “Jewish Voice” competi-
tion, which featured 17 middle school
and high school students from across
Metropolitan Detroit (and even one
from East Lansing).
While each of these students had
different affiliations with the Jewish
community and went to a mix of
schools (some public, some Jewish
day schools, including Hillel and FJA),

they shared something very simple
and yet immensely powerful: a con-
nection to Judaism and a love of
music.
The diversity in the music per-
formed by these students was incred-
ible — modern Israeli songs were
performed alongside those of contem-
porary Jewish-American composers,
classic composers of “chazzanut” and
even a 19th-century melody by one
of the early Lubavitch rebbes . Each
student brought individual style and
passion to his or her respective per-
formance and showed a personal con-
nection with Jewish music.
Although a competition, it was also
wonderful to witness the camaraderie
that developed over the course of the
evening among the 17 students, most
of whom entered the night knowing
some of the others and ended the eve-

ning congratulating and embracing
kids whom they had just met for the
first time to celebrate their mutual
love of music and successes of the
evening.
To witness this cross-section of our
Jewish community come together to
share music was, itself, wonderful.
But to see these students bond over
that very sense of community and
recognize that there are others who
love what they do was truly special.
Thank you to Hazzan Dan Gross
(of Adat Shalom Synagogue in
Farmington Hills) for developing
such a wonderful program with his
colleagues on the Michigan Board of
Cantors. Through their work, they
demonstrated how our diverse com-
munity really is unified.

Alan M. Gallatin
West Bloomfield

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May 10 • 2018

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