Spiritual guidance:

stereotypical Jewish mother jokes. There is some truth in them. Mothers like to be called. You may not think that Mother’s Day is a Jewish holiday, but its principles come from our Jewish tradition.

It tells about the holiness of Shabbat and the holidays, and about just punishments. All these topics are about creating a life of holiness and showing honor.

To greet Shabbat, the whole family must clean the house and cook. The house becomes a small sanctuary. But, all too frequently, it falls to the mother to organize Shabbat. She is then rewarded with the reading of a Woman of Valor, from Proverbs 31. My mother didn’t like this passage — it offended her feminist sensibilities.

Mother’s Day was started by Julia Ward Howe, who implored mothers to work for peace and end the Civil War. The Proclamation of Mother’s Peace Day reads, in part:

Arise then women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.

Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

This is what the Bible talks about when it describes a revolutionary limit on punishments. Known as an “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” the text states that for the death of an animal, one makes restitution. For humans, the punishment is life for life.

The Talmud teaches us that “eye for eye, life for life, and not a life and an eye for an eye it would sometimes happen that an eye and a life would be taken for an eye, for in the process of blinding him he might die!” The rabbis had a radical idea: Ascribe monetary values to these injuries, even life.

To Howe, it is ineffective “to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” Instead, she urges us, especially the mothers, to become pursuers of peace. While we create sh’lom when we recognize that our homes are the sanctuary, it cannot stop at the door to our homes. We are called upon to reach beyond ourselves and into our world to pursue peace, to actively run after it and chase it, not just seek it.

So, honor your mother. Call her. Bring her flowers. Make her breakfast in bed. Take her out to dinner. She’ll like that. But don’t stop there. Commit to work for peace with her if she is mad at you. That is the gift I want for every mother on Mother’s Day.