Weekly Davar - Vayetzey: One Of The Worlds Deepest Pleasures
Vayetzey
(Genesis 28:10 – 32:4)
1st December 2011
5th of Kislev, 5772
GOOD AFTERNOON!! A quick reminder about our Light up a Life volunteering opportunities. Here’s the link. There is so much variety – you can deliver chocolates to children in hospital, cook meals for on duty firemen, serve in a soup kitchen or play Wii or karaoke with residents in an old age home. If you are in London on any day between 23rd December and 2nd January, please do volunteer – you won’t regret it!
Torah Portion
Jacob leaves Canaan for Haran, arriving 14 years later. On the way, he experiences his famous vision of the ladder stretching to heaven.
He arrives at the home of his wonderful uncle Laban: a good-for-nothing of the highest order who does not miss a single opportunity to try to steal from and cheat his nephew out of all he has.
Jacob wishes to marry Laban’s daughter, Rachel. He works seven years for her and then Laban substitutes Leah under the chuppah. He works another seven years for Rachel. He fathers eleven sons and a daughter. Jacob works for Laban for another six years, during which time he makes Laban into a very wealthy man and, although Laban tries to swindle him at every turn, Jacob manages to make himself into an even wealthier man. Finally, the time has come and he packs his bags and begins the long journey home to Israel.
Davar Torah
In this portion Jacob is blessed with 12 children. He eventually has a 13th.
Today in the UK, the average family has 1.8 children; in the US it’s 1.86 – that’s not even a replacement level. Children are one of life’s greatest blessings, so why would people want less? It’s hard to imagine someone who has a million pounds saying he’s not interested in another million or two. What’s wrong with more pleasure? I’ve said before that when talking to an older generation of people, many have told me they wish they had had more children. I have yet to hear a single person tell me they wish they had had less. I appreciate that this message might be a little late for many of my readers, but it’s never too late for us to change our perspective – and the values we teach our children.
Children are indeed a great challenge, but they are also one of life’s deepest pleasures and each one is worth every single little bit of effort that we invest and sacrifice that we make. In later life, we are left with our children; the more we have, the more life will offer us in those years. And, as a bonus, my wife always likes to remind me that the more children we have, the more likely that at least one of them will actually look after us rather than put us in a nursing home when we need nappies again.
Other than in very difficult circumstances, I just can’t understand why people would be unwilling to make the personal and financial sacrifices that are required in having more children. Yes, less or no holidays; yes, a serious hassle going on a plane journey; yes, a more cramped and noisy home; yes, less peace and less sleep. But my wife, who is one of 12, always maintains that the greatest gift, by far, that her parents gave her in life is her many siblings. She was brought up with very little materially, but she felt incredibly wealthy because she had brothers and sisters.
And it’s amazing to me that people talk about a potential problem of global ‘overpopulation’. That’s like saying we are worried that the world will have too much oil one day, or too much gold. What greater resource does the world have other than human beings? We take iron ore and create bridges, cars and aeroplanes. We take salt water and make it fresh. We take seeds and grow crops in the most inhospitable of locations. The world has not become poorer since its population has grown – on the contrary, it has become a great deal wealthier. Human ingenuity and endeavour is such that I don’t believe our race will ever outgrow the resources of our planet. Every extra human being that is born – and it’s 4 every second at the moment – is another blessing for our world, and another fabulous resource.
We need to buck a trend (which in my mind is a little bit selfish) of 1.8 children per family and start sharing our wonderful world with more people. More effort, indeed. More sacrifice, indeed. Less for each of us materially, perhaps and perhaps not. But one thing is for sure, more children means a great deal more pleasure.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt
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