Reading the Torah, there is no doubt about motherhood’s important role in Jewish literature and life.
The Hebrew Bible is replete with stories of women who feel incomplete without children, although Orthodox interpretation holds that only men are commanded to “be fruitful and multiply.” Unable to bear children, Sarah offers her handmaid Hagar to her husband, Abraham, so he can father a child. Rachel longs for deliverance from infertility, saying “Give me children or I shall die,” and Hannah provides a model for Jewish personal prayer when she fervently prays for a child on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem.
