This week, we start again the story of Torah. This year I start as a member of not one but two synagogues, and infrequently attending a third on some holidays. Why this is so is what I want to write about, because two verses in this week’s parasha are at the heart of this situation.
28 And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.'[Genesis 1]These verses are part of the two creation stories we find at the beginning of Torah. In the eyes of the rabbis, these two lines say the same thing, though it may not appear it. Rashi, summarizing Sanhedrin 58a, show us how 2:24 is the same as 1:28
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. [Genesis 2]
one flesh: The fetus is formed by them both, and there [in the child] their flesh becomes one.
For Genesis 1:28, Rashi comments on the possible bad grammar of the sentence. God starts in the plural, but if one vowel is different, "subdue" is in the masculine singular.
It is also meant to teach you that the man, whose way it is to subdue, is commanded to propagate, but not the woman (Yev. 65b).In short, these two verses define a family as a husband as the head of a household, and he should have a woman to procreate with. The classic line "A marriage is one man and one woman" comes to mind. It seems to establish itself in the story of creation.
Though one half of the genetic material of a father and one half on the genes of a mother come together in a fetus, I have thought, "one flesh" does not mean children. The reason for making woman in Genesis 2 is to correct the first problem of creation: loneliness.
18 And the LORD God said: 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.'[Genesis 2]The solution given in Genesis is to have a ezer c'negdo, a companion, an opposite. Where this opposite comes from is the separation of the sides of a whole creature. Tzela, is often translated as rib, but is better translated as a side. God spilt the first creature in half to find a companion for it. Woman and man are two opposite halves. When put together, they make a unit which can be more than the sum of its parts. That whole may produce children, but that may not always be the case.
Children are a biological imperative of course. In my experience these verses have substantiated that biological imperative and elevated it to the level of a mitzvah. For many non-observant Jews, I have observed it had long ago become the only mitzvah: be fruitful and multiply. As long as you have Jewish children, you are okay. Kosher? Shabbat? Acts of Charity? Not needed. The assumption is be fruitful, have some Jewish kids and get them to the Bnei Mitzvah Bimah. After that it is up to the kids.
While many might take exception to this, it is this assumption of what is a family which drives much Jewish community structure, often defined as our prayer community, our synagogue. The assumption of "be fruitful and multiply" is to produce children who will need a Jewish education. Thus having kids attending the events that are supposed to shape them into good Jewish adults becomes a driving force in the culture of the synagogue. I spent Simchat Torah at such a synagogue, which beautifully orients the entire service to the kids, and to the parents to support their children. This education continues till the child reaches their bar mitzvah. At the point where the child becomes responsible for themselves, some of those kids will go on too teen activities at their synagogue. Some will even go to Hillel services and activities at their college or university. But what happens to those kids after that?
When it comes to be fruitful and multiply, while the assumption is this is the greatest mitzvah, the reality is very different. In 1990, the National Jewish Population Survey raised some alarms about the rates of intermarriage. Inthe follow-up, NJPS 2001 continued to see such a trend. That was not the only alarming news however. Fertility rates were low, and childbearing years were later than the general population.
At all ages, fertility among Jewish women is lower than fertility for all U.S. women, whether gauged by the percent who are childless or the average number of children ever born...The fertility gap between Jewish and all U.S. women narrows but is not eliminated in later childbearing age groups, indicating that Jewish women delay having children until later years, and then come close to, but do not match, fertility levels of all U.S. women.Be Fruitful and multiply is something many young Jews do not do early in their lives. Many plan to have children after they feel they can successfully financially support a family. Fertility rates, the NJPS notes directly correlate to graduate school attendance. In some graduate research I performed surveying dating websites, I found the age one finishes graduate school correlates with when one begins to look for a mate to have children with. Yet they are not the only ones who reject these two verses. Those who find ezer c'negdo in a member of the same gender also run into dilemmas. Is one’s other half always of the opposite gender? The GLBT community would disagree. The drive to having children in gay and lesbian couples is not as prominent as mainstream straight couples. One could contend it is this lack of fruitfulness which many straight people find so disturbing about the GLBT’s communitty. There are also those who just decided, for whatever reason, that raising children is not for them. All of these have in one way or another decided it is not raising children that will be the center of their universe.
It is not until age 35-39 that less than half of Jewish women remain childless, compared to a fifth of all U.S. women. By age 40-44, usually considered the last childbearing age group, the gap narrows but is not completely closed, with just over a quarter of Jewish women remaining childless compared to less than a fifth of all U.S. [NJPS 2000-2001]
Yet in the culture of the Synagogue, these childless demographics are not the lifeblood of the synagogue, the traditional family is. Many synagogues might have adapted enough to allow for two-mommy or two-daddy families, but they are parents and children still. The culture, like the synagogue I was at for Simchat Torah, admirably revolves around educating Jewish youth in both Jewish culture and belief. Yet in this pedagogy, the Childless are both left behind and made to feel alien, even the nest-makers who want children. As Synagogue 3000's demographer Steven Cohen and Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman report, all those same kids who went to Hebrew School in the big synagogues stay away from those same synagogues as adults because there is no place for singles and couples without children.
I experienced this myself almost a decade ago at a previous extremely liberal synagogue, one that prided itself on open-mindedness. I realized back then how much work it is to raise a child well, and realized I was not up to the task. As a straight man, I do not know what it is like to come out of the closet, but the day I told my friends I would not have children is one that is probably a lot like coming out. Coming out as gay that day would not have caused as much a furor as when I told them I decided not to have children. Instead of listening to me, they tried to find way I would have children.
While I am no longer at that synagogue, I'm a lot like my gay and lesbian friends as far as the culture of any mainstream synagogue is concerned. While I can admit to who I am to most people, there are some who will react strongly. Indeed I'm taking a big risk in outing myself as Childless by Choice to people who will not be tolerant of my life choices. Yet like my GLBT friends, I will be by definition be a minority in synagogue life. Synagogues are for Parents, Children and Grandparents. I have found over the years, If you are anything else, particularly if you do not ascribe to Be fruitful and multiply you don’t exist, and it’s often best not to show up.
Even when a synagogue calls itself "gay friendly”, I have found the culture still diminishes them as a minority. So too the childless like myself. To emphasize pedagogy is to emphasize having children around. As one who has chosen childlessness, I for one find myself rather comfortable in a community of GLBT Jews in ways I don't in a community of straight Jews. And so I am now a member of both a larger mainstream Synagogue and a smaller, GLBT synagogue. The part of me that doesn’t fit in one, fits in the other.
Although I choose not to have kids, I do still take some responsibilities with children very seriously. The Talmud states:
He who teaches the son of his neighbor Torah, Scripture ascribes it to him as if he had begotten him [Sanh. 19b]I may not have my own children, but in the children I know it is vital that I am there to show them how good it is to embrace words of Torah. This week it was literally embracing as I danced with the Torah, with little kids around me wide eyed in the delight of Simchat Torah. Many of their parents do not do what I do, waltzing around with that Torah, or sing verses of Torah off the top of my head. Many do not keep kosher to any degree, or refuse to work on Shabbat. That third Synagogue is where the kids are, and so on some Holidays, I am there too. But my job extends beyond the synagogue walls to the rest of life and teaching the little ones about who they are and who they should be as Jews. Jewish education is also outside of the classroom and synagogue. When the little ones ask me why I davven on Shabbat, or say some particular blessing or why I don’t eat cheeseburgers or bacon, I can tell them, and they can learn something along the way.
I may choose not make more Jewish Bodies, but in doing so, I’m also committed to keep Jewish souls joyously Jewish.
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