BUILDING A FAMILY

The central theme of parshat Chayei Sarah is the finding of a wife for Yitzchak. Almost the entire portion is dedicated to this, with the exception of a few verses at the end.

The Talmud (Shabbat 31a), basing itself on a verse from the prophet Isaiah (33:6), notes that when a Jew will come before the Heavenly Court for judgement, he or she will be asked six questions. For our purposes, I cite the first four: “Did you conduct your [business affairs] faithfully? Did you set aside times to study Torah? Did you engage in the building of a family? Did you look forward to redemption?” These questions represent four pillars of Judaism, namely: Jewish morality, Jewish eternity, Jewish continuity and Jewish destiny. The third question, “Did you engage in the building of a family?” refers to Jewish continuity.

The Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 63:10) states: Rabbi Elazar said, “A person must raise his son until the age of thirteen and from then on he must say, ‘Blessed [is He] who has exempted me from the punishment due this son.’” This, of course, is the source of the blessing a father recites when his son receives his first aliyah.  We are not required by the strict letter of the law to provide for and educate our children when they are in their teens. This may well be the law, but tell that to your average Jewish parent! As the Chofetz Chaim (Ahavat Chesed, chapter 1) writes: “[An example of how someone behaves out of a sense of love compared to behaving out of a sense of duty is] the behaviour of a parent towards their child. Every parent conducts himself far beyond what is required of him or her when it comes to their child’s food, clothing and nuptials and in all matters because of the love he or she has for the child. The parent also continuously looks to do the best for the child and rejoices when he can do so.” To truly build a family, the minimum is not sufficient.  When we are asked, “were you engaged in building a family?”, the Heavenly Court will not be satisfied with the minimum standards because that is not what people do when they love their children. We will be held to a higher standard. 

The mitzvah of procreation, pru u’rvu is one of the first instructions mentioned in the Torah (Bereishit 1:28): “God blessed them and God said to them, ‘be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the sky, and every living thing that moves on the earth.’” Like every mitzvah, the Sages dissected the imperative of procreation, examining every aspect: from what age it applies, at what point can one desist from it, how many children one must have etc. The Talmud (Yevamot 65b) concludes that every couple must endeavour to have one son and one daughter. In other words, every couple should replace itself. 

The formulation of the question – asakta b’periyah v’reviyah –literally, “did you engage in having a family?” is somewhat strange. Why did the Talmud not say something like, “did you beget children”? Why the choice of this verb. The Talmudic commentator Maharsha asks this question and explains that the use of this word adds a further dimension to the question: it is not sufficient that a Jew builds his own family. Rather he or she must assist others, especially those less fortunate, to marry and raise a family. This can be achieved in many practical ways in our community including supporting a hachnasat kallah fund such as the Simcha Fund (https://www.jcs.org.za/simcha-fund/ ); introducing young adults to appropriate marriage partners, such as via the Chief Rabbi’s new Matchmakers Network (under the guidance of Netflix matchmaker Aliza Ben David, see https://www.sajr.co.za/make-five-introductions-this-year/ ) and supporting the good work of the Malka Ella Fertility Fund (https://malkaella.co.za/ ) which assists couples to cover the heavy costs of fertility treatments.

Perhaps another explanation for the use of this word is that the Heavenly Court is not interested whether you actually had children or not, only that you made the effort to find a spouse and have a family. Having children is not in our hands (see Moed Katan 28a) and even with modern reproductive fertility treatments, there is no guarantee that a couple will have children. The Torah wants us to try, but it will not hold us accountable if we are unable to do so for medical reasons. The Torah is very often interested in the effort and not always in the result. Rabbi Chaim Kanievtsky, of blessed memory, once commented to a man who did not have any children, “There is no kuntz (‘trick’) in having children, the kuntz is to get naches from children!” My Rosh Yeshiva used to say that the Torah’s requirement that a Jew father a son and a daughter is not the mitzvah itself but the shiur, the measure of the mitzvah. Every mitzvah has a measure – the size of an etrog, the amount of matzo we must eat. In this case, the mitzvah itself is to get married and attempt to have children. The measure of how many children is to tell us at what point we can legally desist from the mitzvah, but it does not imply that if one is unable to have the required number that he has contravened the Torah.

The Sefer Hachinuch (Mitzvah #1) gives a straightforward rationale for the mitzvah of procreation: “The point of this mitzvah is so that the world should be settled, for Hashem desired that it be occupied as the Prophet (Isaiah 45:18) declared: ‘[For thus said Hashem, Creator of the Heavens; He is the God, the One Who fashioned the earth and its Maker, He established it;] He did not create it for emptiness; He fashioned it to be inhabited: I am Hashem and there is no other.’ It is a very great mitzvah, for as a result of its fulfilment are all the other mitzvoth fulfilled for the commandments were given to human beings and not to angels.” Simply put, if there are no Jews, there can be no Judaism. That is perhaps why this mitzvah appears first, for without it, all the other mitzvoth are meaningless. Let’s all do our best to ensure that the Jewish people not only survives, but thrives!

Lee, Chani Merryl & Naomi join me in wishing you Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Liebenberg.

YouTube message: https://youtu.be/QmKBhS5bTrM?si=lC5ptNX3-1pHsnrJ

*Friday 21 November – Rosh Chodesh Kislev

Kislev contains the Festival of Chanukah which begins on the 25^th day of the month and continues for eight days, ending in the month of Tevet. The Molad (appearance of the new moon) for Kislev is on Thursday 20 November, at 13h38 and 9 chalakim (a chelek, literally a “portion”, is a Talmudic measure of time equal to one-eighteenth of a minute, or 3 and 1/3 seconds).