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Infertility is not a Jewish problem, per se. Every individual
who has trouble conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term grieves
many times over. They miss the experience of pregnancy, and the loss
of a chance to see their eyes and long fingers transmitted to their
biological children. They grieve for the family name that can not be
carried on. Potential ups and downs of raising a child are mourned
for, beyond the baby they won’t hold to the sharing of adult
confidences with a grown child. Multiple treatment cycles, in vitro
attempts, and the widening array of fertility drugs, surgeries, and
therapies leave little time to cope with these losses, because
there’s always something new to try even before the highs and lows
of the last experience have been fully assimilated.
Jewish beliefs and practices place an extra strain on the couple
facing infertility.
Judaism appears to revolve around children. The account of the
creation of humankind reads:
“…male and female he created them. And God blessed them,
and God said to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the
earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
The very first words spoken to the first couple is the first
Jewish mitzvah: have kids.
An overt link between having children and acquiring happiness is
established throughout the Scriptures:
- “Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in
God’s ways. For you will be satisfied and all will be good for
you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine in the recesses of
your house, your children like olive plants around your table.”
(Psalms 128:1-3)
- “A wise son makes a glad father.” (Proverbs
10:1)
- “Children’s children are the crown of the old.”
(Proverbs 17:7)
This attitude carries through in Jewish philosophical thought.
Maimonides speaks of the greatness of having children "whoever
adds a soul to the world it is as if they have created an entire
world.”
The Talmud notes: "Any man who has no children is considered a
dead man". This approach arises from the Torah itself and refers
to the words of Rachel, who was barren to her husband, Jacob "Give
me children or else I die".
There is another very strong reason that Jewish individuals feel the
great need to bring forth a new generation. Jewish history is
fraught with pogroms, massive massacres and genocide. In ancient
times the Greeks, the Romans and the Assyrians tortured, oppressed
and tried to annihilate the Jewish nation. Then, beginning in 1096
the crusaders rode in and proceeded to rape, pillage and murder
entire Jewish communities. After decades of expulsions from
different European countries such as France and England, came the
Spanish Inquisition in the 1400s, which continued to reverberate
throughout Portugal and Italy years later. Eastern European
countries such as Poland joined in with their anti-Semitic acts of
violence such as the vicious Chmielnitsky pogroms of 1646-1648. And
in modern times, the “enlightened” Germans brought upon the
Holocaust, murdering 6 million Jewish men, women and children.
After each slaughter, the Jewish people set about rebuilding.
Children became a tangible symbol of hope and survival. This mindset
still exists.
There was once a woman who was pushing a full double carriage down
the street with two other young children holding onto the stroller’s
side. An onlooker made some snide remark about the ever expanding
world population, and its ill effects such as overcrowding, famine
and others. The woman replied, “The children I have are nothing
compared to the six million places I have to fill.”
These scriptural and historical factors magnify the pressure felt by
a Jewish couple facing infertility. Yet Judaism values spiritual
parentage over biology. Teaching is more important than siring. The
proof text of this can be found in both the Torah and Mishnah.
The Torah:
Rashi comments on the words of the Torah “These are the offspring
of Aaron and Moses …..These were the names of the sons of Aaron”
that the passage mentions only the sons of Aaron to teach us that
one who teaches Torah to someone else’s children is regarded as if
he had begotten them. Because Moses taught Aaron’s sons Torah he
became their spiritual father. (Bamidbar/Numbers 3/1)
The Mishnah.
If one finds his father’s lost property and his teacher’s lost
property, that of his teacher
comes first. For his father brings him into this world, but his
teacher teaches him wisdom to bring him into the world to come. (Yevamot
6:6)
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