Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

The book of Exodus begins with a brief recap covering a mere six verses – firstly that the Children of Israel, numbering seventy souls, had migrated to Egypt with their father Jacob, and secondly that each of the tribal leaders had passed away. 

The seventh verse of the book however brings the first significant piece of information about this people, something that fortunately has remained central to our belief system and our success for the last three and a half thousand years. 

 וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם

And the Children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.  (Exodus 1:7)

 In his commentary on Exodus, Italian scholar, Rabbi Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) considered that this verse should be seen as a fulfilment of God’s pledge to Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” (Genesis 12:1). 

 Cassuto also suggested that the seven expressions in the verse – 1) פָּרוּ were fruitful, 2) וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ and increased abundantly, 3) וַיִּרְבּוּ and multiplied, 4) וַיַּעַצְמוּ and became mighty, 5) בִּמְאֹד + 6) מְאֹד exceedingly 7) וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם and the land was filled with them – come to teach us that the proliferation of the Jewish people was “brought about by the will of God in conformity with His predetermined plan.”

 From that day to this, Jewish people have sought to have children, seen them as a blessing, and forever placed them, personally and communally, at the very centre of their lives.  The old English adage – children should be seen and not heard – seems to have little or no place in Judaism.  Instead, young Jewish men and women, are celebrated at birth, and heralded as they reach adolescence.  Only a bridegroom for example can equal a Bar Mitzvah when it comes to the order of aliyot in synagogue.  Girls, quite rightly, in more recent years, have been given their voice and their place in the Jewish community, as they mark their transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of Bat Mitzvah.  As for our most formative festival experience – the Seder – it is child-centred from beginning to end.

This passion for children goes back to the dawn of our history.  Three of the matriarchs struggled to get pregnant – their heartache is felt to this day as we hear the words of Rachel: הָבָה לִּי בָנִים וְאִם-אַיִן מֵתָה אָנֹכִי Give me children or my life is wasted (Genesis 30:1). 

On Rosh Hashanah as we rejoice in the creation of humans and their potential for divine worship and good deeds on earth, we remember one particular woman, who, like Rachel considered that her life was incomplete because she was unable to bear fruit, have children of her own and contribute to the future of her species.  This story of Hannah, taken from the First Book of Samuel, was selected by our sages as the prophetic reading for Day 1.  Although in Hannah’s case, she eventually had a son and dedicated him to the service of God, this story should remind us of the many, many couples in history, who although desperate to have children of their own, remained childless and lived with a certain sadness, a sense of loss, for the rest of their lives.  Modern medicine has helped many such couples in recent years, but there are still many who have not been able to fulfil their hopes and dreams – with neither IVF nor the possibility of adoption coming to the rescue. 

 It was with all this as a backdrop that last weekend I saw an article in the newspaper and the following day watched a piece on Sky News that reminded me of Bob Dylan’s prophetic words back in 1963 – how so much of what we took for granted when we were young would change in our lifetime and be the very reverse in the future:

 The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast, the slow one now will later be fast.

As the present now, will later be past; the order is rapidly fadin’.

And the first one now will later be last

For the times they are a-changin’.

 So it was that I read about the preferred choice of many in today’s world to remain childless.  The headline in the newspaper quoted one despondent person:

My children have left it too late to have babies – and I’m bitterly disappointed

 The article, penned by journalist Penny Dunbar, referred to Britain’s birth rate which is at an all-time low and as a consequence, how a growing number of older people are falling into the ‘grandparent gap’.  Dunbar wrote: When the first of Linda’s friends became grandparents, she assumed she and her husband wouldn’t be far behind.  Her two adult children were in long-term relationships; surely one, at least, would be welcoming a new arrival in the following few years. “John and I often talked about being grandparents,” she says. “We were in our late 60s, retired but still with plenty of energy.  I looked forward to using all my experience to support my daughter – my son, too, if his partner wanted it – and help with childcare if they needed it.”

“We decided our names would be Granny and Grandpa, like I called my grandparents as a child.  We’d joke about being less strict and more indulgent than we were as parents, spoiling the kids with presents. I had an image in my head of reading stories with a child sitting on my knee, feeling so content.”  More than a decade on, that mental picture evokes nothing but sorrow for Linda, who has given up hope of ever becoming a grandmother. With her daughter now single at 43 and her son married at 39, but with no plans to have a baby, she realises that the odds of her dream becoming reality are stacked against her.

Britain’s birth rate is at an all-time low, with women in England and Wales having an average of 1.44 children between 2022 and 2023, according to figures released by the Office of National Statistics in October.  For countries to maintain their populations, the fertility rate needs to be around 2.1 children per woman.  At the same time, the average age of new mothers and fathers has increased to 33.8 for fathers and 30.9 for mothers – the highest ever. This major demographic shift isn’t unique to Britain, but part of a wider trend sweeping across developed countries.  Australia included.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in figures released on October 16, 2024, the current fertility rate for Australian women is 1.50 births per woman.  This is the lowest fertility level ever recorded, and as mentioned above, well below the current level needed for population replacement (i.e. on or above 2.1).  Interestingly the rates differ amongst different religious groups with the two highest being Jews (2.17) and Muslims at 3.03.

 Bearing in mind, the relatively small number of Jews in the world and the fact that Israel is outnumbered by many millions of people in the Arab world it is unsurprising that Israel is the one country that bucks the trend.  Israel’s fertility rate is one of the highest among developed countries, and is well above the fertility rate in Europe.  In 2022, Israel’s fertility rate was 2.89 births per woman.  Israel’s fertility rate is also the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is otherwise well below the rate needed for population replacement.

The second story that related to fertility was one I saw on Sky News.  It reported that in Russia a family of ten children had just been awarded “Family of the Year” in Moscow and their photo is on billboards throughout the city.  Russia, facing its own population crisis, with dwindling fertility rates and increasing loss of life as a result of the war with Ukraine, has passed a new law prohibiting any form of publicity encouraging childless marriages.  A recent article in the Guardian covered the same subject, the headline reading:

Russia seeks to ban ‘propaganda’ promoting childfree lifestyles

People could face fines of up to 400,000 rubles,

as data suggests birth rate has slid to lowest level in quarter of a century.

One may well question why so much has changed in recent years.  Some suggest that house prices, childcare / education costs, low incomes etc. are reasons behind the drop in fertility rates; in other words, it is thought by many that economic factors are the primary reasons why people are delaying having children or avoiding parenthood altogether.  The fact that often both parents need to work to cover the mortgage and other basic living costs – plus the fact that since the 1960’s a reliable form of contraception has been readily and cheaply available are considered the most significant factors.

 But I would argue that there are cultural as well as economic factors at play here.  In western society that has increasingly valued and promoted the rights of the individual – including personal independence, happiness and fulfilment, children just seem to get in the way!  For women in particular, who have been sold the line – you can have it all – having a child soon after the completion of tertiary education, with the prospect of a highly paid position on the horizon, is a bridge too far.  Having a child during her 20’s or 30’s before she is entrenched in her executive role, before she and her partner have paid off the mortgage, and before they have travelled the world and enjoyed multiple international trips – would mean making a series of sacrifices that many nowadays are just not prepared to do.

In olden days, just as in the shtetl it was common for fathers to refer to their eldest son as “mein kaddishel” – my little kaddish, i.e. the one who would say kaddish for the year, so in general society, one’s children were often considered one’s insurance against infirmity or lack of income in old age – no need to worry, the children will look after me.  But nowadays the state has been delegated with this responsibility – so instead of children we have age care homes, the pension, superannuation and Medicare!  Children have become redundant.

Notwithstanding all these changes of attitude and opinion in the Western world – the Jewish world still holds fast to its traditional and historic position on having and raising children.  Each child remains a precious and vital ingredient towards creating a better future.  It is no coincidence that the sages of old drew a comparison between the Hebrew word for children – בָּנִים banim and the Hebrew word for builders – בּוֹנִים bonim.  The inference is obvious, that the future is constructed by the developing talents and skills of the next generation.

In a scholarly article written by Rabbi David Rosen entitled The Value of Children, he explains that Judaism views children as our hope for the future – a hope that springs eternal and is given to us by the Eternal One.  For this is precisely what we read in the Book of Psalms:

הִנֵה נַחֲלַת ה’ בָנִים שָׂכָר פְרִי הַבָטֶן

Children are an inheritance from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. (Psalm 127:3)

Then there are the famous words by Rabbi Meir, as quoted in the Midrash Shir Hashirim:

 “When the Children of Israel stood at Mount Sinai to receive Divine Revelation, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: ‘Bring me good guarantors that you will keep my Revelation and then I will give it to you.’  They replied: ‘Sovereign of the Universe, our ancestors will be our guarantors.’  Said God them: ‘Your guarantors need guarantors themselves, for they have not been without fault.’  They answered, ‘Our prophets will be our guarantors.’ God replied: ‘They have also not been without fault.’  Then the Israelites said: ‘Our children will be our guarantors.’  To which God replied: ‘In truth these are good guarantors.  For their sake I will give it to you.’” (Song of Songs Rabbah, 1:4)

Why then should we have children?  In similar vein to Rabbi Rosen, American rabbi Chaim Steinmetz wrote that Jewish parents recognize that every child represents the Jewish future; and that fact alone has intensified the community’s appreciation for children, who are not just loved, but treasured.

This is in contradistinction to a famous quote attributed to Sigmund Freud. “Life is misery, and it would have been better not to have been born.  But who is so lucky?  Scarcely one in a hundred thousand.”  No doubt Freud was attempting his version of Jewish humour.  But in reality, it is not so funny for this quotation forms the epigraph of David Benatar’s book “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.”  Benatar, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town, is one of a group of philosophers called anti–natalists, who argue that it is morally wrong to have children, because coming into being actually causes harm to the unborn child.  Putting this into a Jewish context, one could ask, who in their right mind would have brought new Jewish life into the world after the Shoah?  In fact I knew of one pair of sisters from Sydney who made a pledge to each other in 1950 not to marry because they deemed it too dangerous to bring a Jewish child into this world.  But fortunately, most Jews did not view things in this way and to their credit, they chose life over non-existence – they chose hope over tragedy.

There are times when having a child appeared absurd; and to return to our sidra of the week, the years of the Egyptian slavery were such a time.  The Talmud (Sotah 12a) says that after Pharaoh’s decree to throw all the male children into the river, Amram, the leader of the Jewish community, decided that everyone should stop having children.  That would be the reasonable thing to do. Who could bring a child into a life of slavery?

But the women of the community took a different path.  According to the Talmud, Amram’s own daughter Miriam rebuked him and said, “Father, your decree is harsher than that of Pharaoh.  Pharaoh decreed only with regard to the males, but you decreed that both males and females will no longer be born.”  Miriam’s argument is: It is better to survive and suffer. We cannot let Pharaoh determine the future of the Jewish people.

 In an imaginative retelling of the story in the Midrash, Jewish women in Egypt held their marriages together with warmth and love.  Their efforts to retain affection and intimacy in their marriages with a view to bearing a generation that may yet live in freedom, was an act of profound holiness.  Having children in Egypt was above all an act of heroism.  It was true then – it is true now.

For the descendants of these Israelite women, such situations re-occurred at regular intervals throughout history – even to the present day.  The figures relating to fertility cited above, seem to demonstrate that whatever the circumstances – Jewish couples believe in themselves, even more in their children – and with trust, hope and faith – they believe most of all in a future for the Jewish people where our descendants may be blessed to live a life of peace and security in Israel and around the world for many years to come.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Freedman