Expecting Miracles Sneak Preview: Section Eight

A Time to look forward to the Miracle of Birth

Previous Section/Next Section

In the weeks before I give birth, I get very nervous. I know that this baby inside of me must come out somehow, and I know that whatever way the baby chooses to make her long awaited exit, it will extremely painful!

I had always assumed that all women feel as negatively about the labor as I do, until I interviewed a woman who told me without the slightest trace of irony that childbirth is the highlight of her pregnancies. The women in this chapter appreciate and even enjoy childbirth, which they see as the holiest time in a woman's life- a time when G-d's presence actually surrounds you.

Childbearing and Jewish Mysticism

The following interview was conducted with a popular teacher as well as a mother (and grandmother) of many children. Her interview focused on her own personal development- from her initial resentment of motherhood as a distraction from her Torah study, to growing to understand the inherent holiness in motherhood and pregnancy and childbirth in particular. This new understanding was facilitated by her exposure fifteen years ago to the secrets of Jewish Mysticism.

The Shoah and Having a Large Family

I had one experience that sticks out in my memory from right after I got married. I went to Yad Vashem [Israel's Holocaust Museum] for the first time, and for thirty years I just didn't go back, but the experience that first time was just very overwhelming. As a teenager, also, I almost lost my balance even thinking about the Shoah [Holocaust], especially since my father lived through it. So I went to Yad Vashem as a new bride, and I walked out with a feeling that I'm going to bring down as many neshamot [souls] as I can, that that's the only answer that there is. There's no answer, but that's what I can do now, and that was my decision.

So, I decided that I was going to let down all the souls I could, although bringing this down to the reality was not easy, and that took me a long time. In other words, to keep this lofty idea in my mind while going through all of the difficulties of pregnancies and births and, more than that, while dealing with all of the physical tasks in the household and with children- that took a longer time. But the point, the idea, the light was there, but to translate it into a day to day message was this thirty-year venture.

Having Children and Learning Torah

So, for most of the pregnancies I wasn't aware enough of how to understand pregnancy as a religious experience. I loved learning Torah then, and I still love learning, and when I have any free time that's what I do. So, for example, it was hard for me then, even with all this great idea of bringing down souls, to not have any time to learn. If you're into just learning Torah, and doing mitzvot, and you're not aware that you're doing this all as a woman, then you can look at a lot of the things that happen to us as mothers and wives as taking away from precious time for Torah study. And that's what challenged me for my first years of early motherhood, and there was no one who could really answer my questions. I feel it's my shlichut [mission] now to give answers to other women, since I went through these difficulties, and learned things the hard way.

I came to a deeper understanding of women's experience through a switch fifteen years ago, at the midpoint of my life, to learning more P'nimiut haTorah, learning the deeper teachings of the Torah, that shed light then on all of the verses and the commentaries and the Tanach [Bible] that I had been learning and teaching before. I found that the perspective I gained from this new way of approaching things was able to change a lot of the experiences I had during the day- the great experiences and the small experiences, and it provided me with a new way of looking at the daily chores of being a woman, as well as my pregnancies and births. I think that was one of the great turning points in my life.

Torah Inspiring the Daily experience of Pregnancy

For example, I apply what I am teaching and learning about women in Chassidut to my understanding of the pregnancy, or the birth, or it affects the name I gave a child. This was mostly simple stuff, for example, how I would carry myself during pregnancy. Everyone knows that sometimes this is an issue, especially if you're getting very big, or are not feeling your best physically or emotionally. So the moment that I understood and internalized this idea that the soul inside of me is like a living sefer Torah [Torah scroll], and that the fetus is learning Torah inside me all the time, so all of a sudden when I walked it was with a lot of happiness.

Of course, not every day was like this, but in general it did help me. Or the teaching that every Jewish woman walks with pride because she knows she's giving birth to Moshiach [the Messiah], in a certain sense, because every Jewish soul has it's point of Moshiach inside it. All of these thoughts could transform much of the difficulty involved in the pregnancy and just take me to another place.

A Difficult Birth, and the Kabbalistic Commentary that Got her Through

I'm not going to tell people what to do, but I'm grateful for all the experiences that I went through. In other words, I wouldn't trade in one moment of even any of my longer and painful births. That's the difference of before and after! Now I can feel the sweetness of every moment of those difficult births. I can taste what it will be like in the future when G-d will show us and explain to us all of the suffering of the Jewish people, of all the exiles. And this is because I can now say that if I were given the choice again, I would still go through every birth naturally and not use any pain relief. Because now afterwards, I'm grateful for every moment, even every painful moment that there was.

I can remember my most difficult birth. Labor started when my waters broke, and then all of a sudden the labor pains stopped and I waited. And then there was this other place of just waiting, and wanting the pain to come. I suddenly knew this other place of how the contractions are a sign that the birth is going to take place, and the most difficult place is where you don't feel anything at all- where you're just nowhere. Feeling the pain means you're part of the process, you're in the labor, assured of the redemption. I can remember yearning for the contractions to come as a sign for what will take place finally, and understanding that the pain that the Jewish people is experiencing now means the end is near, that redemption and the Messiah are near.

After many hours, I still had no contractions, and I hadn't slep, so I just had no koach [strength]. I was grateful when the labor was finally beginning and I was in labor, but I just had no strength physically to give birth.

During my births, I always did breathing, like most women do, but I had been learning more Chassidic Philosophy, and I had also studied verses and meditations to go along with the breathing, so in the less intense stages of labor, I would use them. I would breathe verses from the Torah and I would breathe and envision Hebrew letters. This is a well-known technique now, accompanying breathing exercises with Jewish meditation. This is something you can do in the less intense stages of labor.

So all of a sudden, during that birth, this verse came to me from Neviim [Prophets], "Bau banim ad mashber, v'koach ayn l'leidah" [the children have come to the final stage of labor, and there is no strength to give birth] . The verse is talking about the Jewish people during the siege of the King of Ashur [Assyria], and these are the words of King Chizkiyahu in his prayer to Hashem.

So during the birth, this verse came to me and it stuck, and I could only hold onto this verse. And I'm saying, "Yes, right, I know that place now. That's right where I am- I have no strength. And how will I get out of it?" This is a verse that I studied for many years in the Bible and before this birth I learned about it in Jewish mysticism, which adds a new dimension. In mysticism, when you see that you are "ayn," [not] that you have no strength of your own, then that is the point at which you can know the "Ayn Haeloki" which is a name for G-d, who is the source of all strength.

So all of a sudden, very far into this long transition, the verse that had been with me all this time was saying that I couldn't give birth. I was so connected to the verse, I just couldn't give birth. I said, I need another verse, I'm not going to give birth with this verse. I needed some other place to get to in order to get out of this fatigue. But I didn't get another verse. That verse kept on coming, but then all of a sudden I got this other meaning. I realized, "Ah, no, no, not 'Ayn!' It doesn't mean there's no strength, it means the strength for the birth is not coming from you. Really, you have no strength, so where will the strength come from? From the Ayn, from the Ayn ha'Eloki, because now only G-d can do it."

So then my understanding of the verse totally switched around. I understood that the power of Ayn will give birth, and immediately I gave birth.

In the births that followed that one, I came to understand that always the key to birth is in the hands of G-d, and the most intense feeling is when you have this feeling that everything is from Hashem and at the same time you have to actively participate in a birth. You're supposed to push, you're supposed to do, but you know it's all from Hashem. And then you can know all of the time that Hashem's doing everything, even though you're going to be doing something. Baruch Hashem [thank G-d], I've never had to go through that again. But after that I understood that everything's always from Hashem, all the time.

Previous Section/Next Section

Also in this Section: The Privilege and the Lesson of Giving Birth, Meaningful Screams, The Miracle of Pain Relief