Birth Control in Halacha - Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Feiglestock shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:19 Speaker 2 Hello, everyone. Today we’ll give a class on contraception according to halacha. The most important thing is to understand the facts. Once we know the facts—what science can teach us—we can discuss the halacha. If we don’t know the facts, what science has discovered, and what medicine has available, we can’t discuss the halacha. First we need to know the facts. We’ll divide this into sections. The first is oral contraceptives: pills. This is the most common form of contraception. More than a hundred million women worldwide use it. How effective is it? Ninety-nine percent under scientific conditions, but in practice only ninety-seven percent. Let’s say one in forty women will become pregnant even though they took the pills. The second item is the contraceptive patch. It’s the same kind of thing. With the pill, hormones enter the body, and those hormones disrupt the whole system, including the reproductive system and ovulation. The contraceptive patch does the same thing. It’s a patch you stick on the skin. Instead of the hormones entering the bloodstream through a pill that you swallow, which is absorbed into the blood and disrupts the whole system, the hormones pass through the skin into the bloodstream. They disrupt the whole system so that she won’t ovulate. It’s more or less the same thing. Its effectiveness may be reported as ninety-two percent instead of ninety-seven percent. Why is it a little less effective? Because she might sweat, or she might not notice that the patch she put on her back has fallen off. Even if she put it on her abdomen, she might not notice that it fell off. That’s why it happens. But in principle, they both work the same way. The third item is an injection. They give

03:15 Speaker 2 an injection. The injected substance remains under the skin and slowly releases hormones, like the patch releases hormones. It works on the same principle: it disrupts the body’s whole system and the reproductive system, and she doesn’t ovulate, so there’s no pregnancy. Then there’s the vaginal ring. It’s a ring inserted into the vagina. The company that sells it calls it NuvaRing; that’s the brand. A plastic ring is inserted into the vagina. The plastic contains hormones, and those hormones are absorbed through the vagina into the bloodstream and cause the same disruptions as the pill. But there are also cases where it doesn’t work so well, for various reasons. It might come out of the vagina without her knowing. So a pregnancy can occur, but in principle it works through the same mechanism. The NuvaRing company says that because the hormones are absorbed near the reproductive system and enter near the ovulation system, a smaller amount of hormones can achieve the same result. So the harm from the hormones is somewhat less. Now I’ll speak generally. This is one type of contraception: hormones are introduced into the bloodstream to disrupt the whole system and the reproductive process, so that ovulation doesn’t occur. That applies to all four of these. I’ll say a word about our women: the advantages and disadvantages of each one. The pill, which is the most common, has the disadvantage that you have to remember to take one every day. Sometimes people forget. And for our women, what do you do on Pesach? Are there pills that are kosher for Pesach? And what do you do on a fast day? You’re not allowed to eat. A sick person may eat, but this woman isn’t sick; she’s healthy. What she does have is a concern about pregnancy. So send the husband out of the room for a month. She won’t need anything

06:29 Speaker 2 at all. Am I recommending that you send your husband out of the room for a month that has a fast day? No, no, I’m not recommending that. Find another form of contraception. Another solution for a fast day: instead of taking the pill every morning, take it every evening. Then you can take one before the fast and one after the fast. Even on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, you can take it an hour or half an hour before the fast and half an hour after the fast. A difference of two hours doesn’t make that much difference, although doctors say it’s best to take it at the same time every day, and that does matter. With the contraceptive patch, the injection, or NuvaRing, she doesn’t need to swallow anything. She puts it in place before Pesach—whether it’s the patch she sticks on, the injection that remains in her body, or the plastic ring inside the vagina. They don’t need to be kosher for Pesach. You don’t eat them, right? So I think that’s easier than a pill. Because besides the hormones, a pill contains all kinds of other ingredients that make up the pill. The medication is less than one-sixtieth of the pill. As for all the other ingredients, which make up most of the pill—how are you supposed to know whether they’re kosher for Pesach? That’s not the case with the contraceptive patch. The patch is plastic with a little cotton, a little adhesive, and a reservoir of hormones that releases them slowly. The injection works similarly: it’s mixed with a substance that isn’t absorbed into the muscle, and only a little comes out into the muscle at a time, providing a small amount of hormones. The vaginal ring is similar too. It’s like a bottle that releases drops from the plastic into the vagina. It contains plastic and hormones, and nothing else. That makes it easier for Pesach, and it doesn’t present problems on fast days. That concludes my discussion of these hormonal forms of contraception. There is one more

09:02 Speaker 2 hormonal form, which we’ll discuss in a moment, but the four I’ve talked about so far form a category of their own. Later I’ll explain the advantages and disadvantages, and what is permitted and what is forbidden. That will come later. Right now we’re explaining the scientific side. Next there is Mirena. Mirena is a device shaped like the English letter T, with a reservoir of hormones. It is inserted into the uterus and releases hormones over two or five years, depending on which model you buy. It is ninety-nine percent effective. The Mirena company says that all the methods mentioned earlier—the pills, the patch, the injection, and NuvaRing—involve much more hormones than Mirena. That’s because Mirena places the hormones directly inside the uterus. So they can prevent pregnancy with a much smaller amount of hormones. In other words, Mirena causes much less disruption throughout the body than the others. The previous four introduce extra hormones into the body that the body has no medical need for, and they have harmful effects on its systems. Mirena also adds hormones, but in a much smaller amount, so the harm to the body is much less. Last is the copper IUD. IUD stands for “intrauterine device.” It’s a device placed inside the uterus. Most versions are shaped like a T, with copper beads or copper wire on them. When copper metal is inside the uterus, it causes a disruption—not throughout the body, but only in the uterus—and that prevents pregnancy. The copper, being a foreign object, puts the uterus in a state of activity as though something foreign were there. This causes the embryo, formed when the egg and the husband’s sperm unite, not to attach to the uterus but to be expelled, because the uterus is in motion. Not all doctors agree that this is how it works. There

12:22 Speaker 2 There are quite a few debates about this. I’ve explained one approach here. There are other explanations for why it works, but that doesn’t affect what it does, and it’s also 98 or 99 percent effective. There are cases where one in fifty women becomes pregnant even with it. Now we’ve covered those types. The next question is: Is it reversible? Is it something that can be changed? In other words, if it’s only temporary, all of these can be reversed. You remove the copper device, remove the Mirena, remove the NuvaRing, or wait for the injection to wear off. You can’t take back the injection, but after three months it wears off. And likewise, you stop taking the pills. That’s it. The question is side effects: Does it cause harm in other ways? Yes, all of them have side effects; all of them can cause harm. What harm? Let’s take them one at a time. The pills. The pills can cause spotting between periods. They can make her gain weight. She doesn’t gain fat, but water, because they cause the body to retain water, so she becomes heavier because her body holds on to more water instead of getting rid of it as a healthy person’s body does. They can cause problems with blood circulation, and that can lead to problems with veins in the legs or elsewhere. Sometimes that stops when she stops taking the pills. Sometimes the damage remains permanently. They can cause dizziness. They can cause vomiting and make her feel unwell. If there’s a history in her family of the well-known disease of the breast or uterus, even if she herself is healthy, these pills can trigger the disease to appear. I don’t recommend these pills for someone with a family history or anything like that. What is the halachah? The halachah is that this is considered in the Shulchan Aruch a temporary kos ikarin, a treatment that makes her temporarily infertile, and it is permitted.

15:35 Speaker 2 Now, other rabbis take a different approach: they recommend this as the best option. It’s the first thing they recommend for preventing pregnancy. At the end, I’ve put the order of preference that I think reflects what the Rebbe advises, and I place this second. The same goes for the patch. It causes the same kinds of harm and falls under the same halachic category. The injection is the same in both respects, except that the injection causes additional harm. It weakens the bones and can leave her in a condition where a bone might break whenever she falls. That’s why I don’t recommend the injection. But halachically, they are all the same. The NuvaRing is exactly like the pills. It can cause all the same problems, with one additional one: it can cause irritation or inflammation inside the vagina. Perhaps one woman in a thousand doesn’t tolerate it and it makes the area red, but it falls under the same halachic category. It is a temporary kos ikarin. She uses it. It has one very significant advantage. Generally, if someone chooses among these four methods, I recommend the NuvaRing, because our women have a thousand things to take care of at home. There’s the laundry, the dishes, the children, taking them to preschool, and so on and so forth. You know that very well. She forgets to take the pill in the morning, or in the evening, or whenever she’s meant to take it. With the NuvaRing, she needs to remember once a month to take it out and then to put it back in three days later. I won’t go into detail about how that works and when she needs to remember. If someone chooses it, I’ll go into that more specifically. With the Mirena, the harmful effects are fewer. There aren’t any. The main problem it causes is spotting. In the first three months

18:16 Speaker 2 of using it, that happens to more than seventy percent of women. During those first three months, they have so much spotting that they can’t manage to go to the mikvah at all. Perhaps she manages to go to the mikvah and they can be together for two or three days, but otherwise she can’t. After three or four months, they may be able to be together for a week. After six months, things start to become somewhat normal, and after nine months, even her period becomes lighter. It may be that after a year, she even skips a period one month and doesn’t need to go to the mikvah, so what she suffered at the beginning may pay off in the end. Now, it isn’t recommended. I don’t recommend it. I put it last because of the problem of spotting. Other rabbis put it second despite the problem of spotting. And there’s this point: with all the first four methods, you need to speak to a doctor, but the woman herself manages them day to day. With the Mirena, though, you have to go to a doctor to have it inserted and to a doctor to have it removed. I recommend it only as a last resort, while other rabbis place it second. Later we’ll see what their third choice is and what my first choice is. The last item in this row is the copper device, a copper IUD inside the uterus. It is permitted. A question has been raised—several rabbis asked whether it causes a miscarriage. The same question applies to the Mirena, since it sits inside... And the problem with the copper device is that it causes spotting only at the beginning of the cycle. In other words, a woman who bleeds for five or six days during her period may have another six days of spotting. So instead of going to the mikvah on day thirteen of her cycle, with this device she’ll go to the mikvah on day eighteen, or day twenty, or twenty-

20:44 Speaker 2 one. It can even be day twenty-two. But that doesn’t happen to every woman. For some women it works out and adds only a day or two, and for some women it works out well. About fifty percent of women have spotting every month with it. An Israeli company came up with a version that, instead of being T-shaped, is shaped like a ball. Instead of an IUD, it’s an IUB—a ball inserted into the uterus. They conducted studies at first and said it didn’t cause spotting, but several rabbis looked into it and said that it, too, causes spotting. In any case, someone for whom the copper IUD available in Israel doesn’t work, who can get the ball-shaped copper device, can try it and see whether it helps her personally. But there’s a lot of research indicating that it doesn’t quite deliver that good news. Now let’s move on to other types of contraception. The types here create a barrier. They place something over the opening of the uterus so that the husband’s sperm cannot enter the uterus. The first is the condom—a plastic covering that the man puts over his organ. Its effectiveness is 97 percent; that’s what the books say, but in practice it’s 79 percent, meaning about 80 percent. Eighty percent means one in five women will become pregnant using it. Why? Because in practice it’s quite common for it to burst or tear during intercourse. There’s also a plastic covering that the woman puts in place, which goes inside and covers her vagina. In medical terms, its effectiveness is said to be 95 percent, but in practice it’s 88 percent. Yes, it tears less often than the covering the man wears, but both can tear, and pregnancy can result. The female condom is not very common. The condom

23:51 Speaker 2 The one for men is very common and sold in many places. Both were invented to protect against sexually transmitted diseases. In other words, if a man or woman has one of the diseases that pass from man to woman or woman to man through intercourse, these are supposed to prevent it from being transmitted. But the success rate is only eighty percent. They don’t tell you that so much. They say it provides protection. Yes, it protects eighty percent of the time. Imagine a road where, if five people cross it, one will be killed and four will reach the other side. Would you be willing to cross a road like that? That is what we’re talking about with sexually transmitted diseases. Four will be protected, but one will become ill. The same applies to preventing pregnancy: one in five will become pregnant. I’ll say very little about the contraceptive sponge because it is no longer on the market. But I won’t skip it, because it’s what people used three hundred years ago. It’s a sponge filled with a substance that is placed at the back of the vagina, blocking the opening to the uterus. It works in about ninety percent of cases. This is in the books, what appears in the Gemara and in the Alter Rebbe’s writings: You take cotton or a cloth, wash it thoroughly so it won’t introduce disease or dirt, put some substance on it, and push it to the back of the vagina so it sits over the opening to the uterus. Then they have intercourse, and all the semen is absorbed into the cloth. The next morning, she removes the cloth and washes it, and in that way it has absorbed all the semen and the semen has not entered. How effective is it? The books say ninety percent; in practice, eighty-five percent. Others say sixty-eight percent. Bottom line, it doesn’t work that well. The diaphragm. “Diaphragm” is a scientific word used in many places. It means a hemisphere. Just as we have a muscle between

26:52 Speaker 2 the lungs and the digestive system called the diaphragm, and that muscle makes us breathe. It is shaped like a hemisphere. Here, too, it’s called a diaphragm. It’s a hemispherical piece of plastic that goes into the back of the vagina and blocks the opening to the uterus. You put a spermicide on it; the two are used together. A spermicide kills sperm. Together, they have a ninety-four percent success rate medically, eighty-five percent scientifically. In my experience, I’d say ninety percent. If ten women use it, one will become pregnant and it will work for nine. Nothing on the market is one hundred percent effective. Even the pills are ninety-eight percent effective—that is, even with the most effective method, one in fifty women will become pregnant. There is only one way to be one hundred percent certain she won’t become pregnant: she divorces her husband and does not live with him in the same house. If there is no man, the woman will not become pregnant, one hundred percent. That’s the only way. If they want to be together and have a marital relationship with intercourse as they should, there is a risk. The question is how great the risk is. Why did I explain the diaphragm at such length? Because later you’ll see that this is what I recommend, and it’s what the Rebbe writes in Igros Kodesh. That’s why I’m explaining it in detail, because later I’ll put it first. The cervical cap is a cup that fits over the cervix, the opening to the uterus. It works like the diaphragm, but its success rate is much lower. Halachically, it’s the same. I don’t recommend it because its success rate is much lower. Right? The Lea contraceptive is not on the market. Lea is a company that made a silicone device shaped to fit the back of the vagina. It fits there and blocks the opening to the uterus. So I won’t go into detail about it, but I mention it

29:55 Speaker 2 even though it isn’t on the market and you can’t obtain it in practice. It still exists, but it isn’t available on the market, and no one has been able to get it. Now let’s discuss this from a halachic perspective. The first question: Are all of these reversible? Can she become fertile again? Yes, all of them. If she removes it, if they stop using the condom, if she no longer uses the diaphragm—all of these things—she becomes fertile again. Do they cause harm? None of these harms her health. There is no health risk with any of them. The substance is only in the vagina; it does no harm, causes no damage, does not enter the bloodstream, and does nothing bad. For anyone who has medical problems with contraceptives, these are recommended because they do not cause harm. The question is: Are they permitted or forbidden? With the condom, whether male or female, there is no question that it is forbidden. All the halachic authorities say it is forbidden. It creates a barrier between the man and woman, and it is wasting seed. He releases his semen into plastic, and that is forbidden. All the others listed below—the contraceptive sponge, diaphragm, cervical cap, and Lea contraceptive—fall into one halachic category: a moch, an absorbent wad. The Rebbe writes, and the Tzemach Tzedek writes, that it is permitted, while some halachic authorities forbid it. The Chasam Sofer wrote a responsum saying it is forbidden. Other rabbis treat it as a third option. They say that since the Chasam Sofer forbids it, they use it only when there is no other possibility, permitting it only as a last resort. The Rebbe says: We rule according to the Tzemach Tzedek. This is the best option we recommend. The contraceptive sponge is no longer available. When I gave this class, it was available, and that’s why I included it when I made the presentation. But today it is not on the market. It appears in the books. This is the wording

32:28 Speaker 2 of the Tzemach Tzedek’s responsum, which discusses the sponge, the moch. And the Rebbe writes “diaphragm” in a letter. So what I recommend today is the diaphragm. Now I’ll discuss a few more methods, and then we’ll turn to the Rebbe’s letters. Tubal ligation means cutting and cauterizing a woman’s fallopian tubes, making her permanently infertile. A vasectomy means cutting the man’s sperm ducts, making him permanently infertile. Both are operations, and they are very difficult to reverse. Reversal is possible, but its success rate is low. The effectiveness of these procedures is ninety-eight percent. It’s not one hundred percent. Whenever a procedure is performed on people, mistakes can happen. Scientifically, it really works one hundred percent of the time, but in practice the success rate is ninety-eight percent. Doing it to a man is forbidden under the prohibition of castration. We’ll talk more about that shortly. Withdrawal. Withdrawal is what Er and Onan did. In other words, he enters, and when he feels he is about to ejaculate, he withdraws and releases the semen into a tissue so it won’t enter her body. It is only eighty percent effective, because even before he feels ejaculation coming, a few drops come out, and they contain enough sperm to make her pregnant. It works only four times out of five; one in five women becomes pregnant. Natural birth control methods mean that the woman tracks the days of ovulation and separates from her husband for a week. In other words, during the third week, or a little before—at the end of the second week and during the third week—they separate because that is when she could become pregnant. The success rate is seventy-five percent. Here, too, one in five becomes pregnant, and they have to separate for seven to ten days a month and not be together. Not be... So you add that to the twelve or thirteen days that we

35:25 Speaker 2 They separate for niddah and add another week to that, so she won’t get pregnant. It works. It has a 75 percent success rate, but they’ll be together only three or four days in the whole month. That’s certainly not reliable. I’ve had cases of women who did this using tests they could buy at a pharmacy, and by taking their temperature every day, they could figure out when they ovulated. They were together two, three, or four days each month, and that was it—and they got pregnant. Sometimes a woman ovulates three days before her period. It has happened; it isn’t impossible. Spermicide: that’s the medication we said goes together with a diaphragm, but used on its own, without anything else. It comes in all kinds of forms: foam, cream, ointment, gel, a film like a sheet, a kind of gelatin, or a suppository. They put them all into one category: spermicide. They all contain the same medication, yes, but they’re not all the same. I’ll explain that later. After we finish the presentation, I’ll recommend a few spermicides that work better than a diaphragm. Now let’s go through these five from a halachic perspective. Cutting the tubes of a man or a woman—that is, the fallopian tubes or the man’s sperm ducts—is that reversible? No, it isn’t. It’s forbidden because it is sterilization. Sterilizing a man or a woman is forbidden by the Torah. It’s an explicit ruling in the Shulchan Aruch, an explicit ruling: “And in your land you shall not do so.” It’s an explicit verse in the Torah. There’s nothing to discuss. And is it reversible? No. Are there medical problems with it? No. None of these have medical problems, any of them.

38:08 Speaker 2 Is that permitted? No, it’s forbidden. Why? Because of wasting seed. Calculating her cycle—when she ovulates—and avoiding relations on those days is permitted and has no adverse health effects. That’s what the doctors write. The Rebbe writes differently. We’ll see a letter from the Rebbe about it later. Spermicide is reversible. Yes, it’s reversible. Stop using the medication, and she can get pregnant. Is it permitted by halacha? Yes. There’s no question about it. All the rabbis permit it. Nobody recommends it because it doesn’t work: one in five, or one in four, women will get pregnant using it. But from a halachic perspective, it’s the best. Now, this is spermicide. The name of the medication is written at the bottom of the box: nonoxynol-9. This is spermicide in foam form. It worked very, very well. Only one in twenty women got pregnant using it. It worked better than a diaphragm. But what can we do? A year ago, the company stopped making it. The same company makes a film, though more research is still needed to see how effective it is. In any case, the company recommends using the film instead of the foam. It works better than a diaphragm, and that’s what I would recommend. It’s the most straightforward option halachically. Why did the foam work better? Because it had two effects: the medication killed the sperm, and the foam acted like a plug that blocked the opening of the cervix. Now let’s turn to what the Rebbe writes about this. Here it says exactly where the Rebbe’s letter is printed: “For a woman for whom pregnancy would be dangerous, there are methods that were permitted for use during relations; see the responsa of the Tzemach Tzedek on this, contrary to those who are stringent.” The stringent authority is named there in the sefer. He needs to ask a rabbi who knows what the practice is. The Rebbe says

40:53 Speaker 2 to tell the rabbi that the Rebbe sent him to ask him. In other words, the intention is that the rabbi should ask the Rebbe what to answer. This is a letter to a rabbi, and it was sent to Rabbi Yitzchak Hendel, the father of Rabbi Hendel in Tzfas or Migdal HaEmek. He was my rabbi; I learned everything from him, and this letter was addressed to him. Here: “Our Rebbeim are lenient and permitted methods for use during relations.” He cites the Tzemach Tzedek on this, contrary to the stringent rabbis, “and we have only the guidance of our Rebbeim to follow. I also heard in the name of my revered father-in-law, the Frierdiker Rebbe, that he permitted certain methods.” The main point is that whatever measure is taken should be taken by the woman, not the husband. That is, the husband should not use a condom; only the woman should use a method. Then there was a yechidus, and the Rebbe told him more details in yechidus. But there are more letters, so before we discuss the yechidus, I’ll go through the letters. What does the Rebbe write here? He writes about the state of his wife’s health: the doctors had expressed the opinion that she should avoid pregnancy. Although he had been permitted to use methods to prevent it, rather than use a contraceptive—some form of birth control—he chose to abstain from relations, particularly since he had heard that his wife had forgiven him. He asked whether the Rebbe agreed. The Rebbe says: “I am not comfortable with stringencies such as these, with abstaining from relations, because in our generation only a select few are capable of guarding themselves against improper thoughts, even if nothing more than that occurs. And who can say that their Torah study and prayer will remain pure? Consequently, in the vast majority of cases, the loss outweighs the gain.” That is, he thinks he’s gaining something. “Especially since the Tzemach Tzedek permitted relations using a mokh, and in addition to all the above, whether a wife’s waiver in matters like these is a valid waiver is itself a matter of debate.” Why? She loves her husband. What is she going to say—“I don’t forgive you”?

43:23 Speaker 2 “Furthermore, in many cases the absence of marital relations affects the man’s health, makes him irritable, and harms his health.” In other words, even if we say this man is made of iron and it doesn’t harm him, and he can live without it—though the Rebbe says he can’t—even if he doesn’t waste seed, at the very least he’ll think about women and about relations. That will affect his Torah study and his prayer, which won’t be pure, even if it remains only in his thoughts. That’s what the Rebbe says, even if he doesn’t waste seed, and all the more so if he does. Then there’s nothing to discuss; it’s forbidden by the Torah. This appears in the sefer Mamleches Kohanim, written by Rabbi Hendel. Rabbi Hendel’s sons say about their father that this letter I brought was printed in Likkutei Sichos. And there it was printed as addressed to me—that’s what Rabbi Hendel wrote. But we’ll get to the details. The main point here is that if a doctor says a woman needs a break for a period of time, even a year or two as needed, she may use a diaphragm. It’s like a rubber disc that covers the cervix. Doctors know what it is. In general, one should be lenient out of Ahavas Yisroel and not make this difficult, and not adopt a Chassidus stringency at someone else’s expense—his wife’s. I discussed this at length with the Rebbe and also with the Frierdiker Rebbe. That is, the Rebbe told him this, and he told me orally: when a woman asks for permission, don’t ask too many questions. She asks—say yes. Especially if it’s during the first year. And even if a woman doesn’t ask for permission because she’s a Chassidic woman and wants to have ten children, he told me this: a woman can have one child, use birth control for a year, then have another child, then take another year, leaving a year between each child. She’ll have

45:48 Speaker 2 More children. But a woman who does not leave gaps between births will be very weak after five years. She will have five children and will not be able to have any more. A woman who leaves a break between one child and the next—for the first children, a year is enough; afterward, she needs a year and a half, sometimes two years—may be able to have ten children or more. It depends on each woman’s strength, but there need to be breaks. In the end, she has more children, and the mitzvah of “be fruitful and multiply” is fulfilled to a greater extent by using contraception. If contraception is not used, the woman is worn down, she has fewer children, and the mitzvah is fulfilled to a lesser extent. To fulfill the mitzvah properly, it is necessary, according to Torah, to use contraception, and every person must ask a rabbi. A person may not decide on their own to use contraception. They need permission from a rabbi, and the rabbi needs to assess the woman’s health. Usually we ask for a report from the doctor—what the doctor says about her health—and based on that report, the rabbi will permit contraception for between one and two years, sometimes only six months, depending on the woman’s condition. But six months is the minimum. There are very few situations where only six months is given. Ten months or a year can be given for even a relatively minor reason. A year and a half requires a reason. If it was a cesarean birth, two years. Sometimes the doctors recommend a year and a half. Each case depends on its circumstances. More than two years requires a very strong reason, because anyone who reads Rabbi Shimon Tzadik’s responsum will see that the permission he gave was for up to two years. In any case, the Rebbe says not to be a chossid at someone else’s expense. Whenever a woman asked me for permission, I never simply told her no. And if I had to forbid it, I brought her to a point where she herself would be happy to have another child, so that she would not have a

48:18 Speaker 2 child against her will. That is very harmful to a woman’s mental and physical health. She needs to approach a pregnancy with joy and love, and that is a very, very important point. This is the main point of spacing pregnancies that the Sages spoke about: it will lead to “be fruitful and multiply” and “fill the earth.” And each person needs to be in touch with a rabbi. It needs to be a Chabad rabbi, one who follows the Rebbe’s instructions, both those given orally and those in writing. Rabbi Hendel told me that the Rebbe said this: Those who recommend pills—the whole reason we use contraception is to protect the woman’s health. In his sichos, the Rebbe spoke very strongly against using contraception for financial reasons or other reasons. And later I’ll tell a story about this, about something the Rebbe said in a sicha that I was somewhat involved in. You can see that a farbrengen with the Rebbe is a yechidus. In any case, it requires a ruling from a rabbi, and one must go to a rabbi who knows the Rebbe’s oral and written instructions and follows that approach. There are rabbis in Chabad who prescribe pills, but that is not—The Rebbe told Rabbi Hendel in yechidus that the entire purpose of contraception is to protect the woman’s health, and someone who gives her pills takes her out of the frying pan and into the fire. He has removed one problem, pregnancy, and put her into much more serious problems caused by hormones. I have seen it with my own eyes. Women who took hormones for five or ten years of their lives—if you do the math, a woman with ten children has used contraception for at least ten years, right? Taking a pill every day for ten years, the damage it does. She gained some fifty kilos, and it isn’t ordinary fat; dieting won’t help. It is irreversible damage, and

51:02 Speaker 2 she has no chance of living to seventy. Who knows if she will reach sixty? And women who followed the Rebbe’s approach reached eighty or ninety. These pills simply shorten a person’s life. Don’t touch them; they are really deadly. But the doctors say, “No, it causes problems, but I have another pill for those problems.” The other pill causes other problems, but they have a medicine for that pill too. And so they draw you into a whole system of pills, while the doctors make money off you and your body becomes a laboratory for all sorts of pills. They all work and all offer solutions, but each has side effects that cause harm and shorten life. I’ll tell you a story. There was a woman who had six children. When she asked a rabbi about her last child, the rabbi did not help her feel some joy and love for the child to come. She was not very happy that the rabbi had not given her permission. She became pregnant without much joy or love. So after the birth of her sixth child, she decided not to ask the rabbi and decided to use contraception. That was it. She used contraception for four years. The house became empty. The youngest child started kindergarten, the house was empty, and she longed for another child. Two years passed, and she did not become pregnant, even without contraception. She wrote to the Rebbe and wept about not becoming pregnant, but the Rebbe did not answer her. She wrote again and again, about five times, and the Rebbe did not answer. That Shabbos I came to New York. I knew about this woman, and my wife [unclear]. The woman wrote to the Rebbe that Friday evening, and the Rebbe delivered a sicha along these lines: Moshe Rabbeinu cried out to Hashem, asking to enter Eretz Yisroel. Moshe Rabbeinu asked. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “When I wanted it,

53:32 Speaker 2 you did not want it. Now you want it, and I do not.” What is the Rebbe explaining? When Hashem came to him in Egypt and asked him for seven days to redeem the Jewish people, Moshe Rabbeinu said no to Hakadosh Boruch Hu seven times. On the seventh day, he accepted the mission. “When I wanted it, you told me no. Now, after forty years, you ask Me to let you enter Eretz Yisroel. Today I do not want to. If you had said yes the first time I asked you to go to Egypt, and had not waited seven days, I would now take you into Eretz Yisroel.” The Rebbe says: There are three partners in a person: the father, the mother, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. For a child to be born, the father, the mother, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu all need to want it. The father contributes the white substance, the woman contributes the red substance, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu places the soul within the child. Now, a couple uses contraception. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted a soul to come into the world, but he or she did not want it, and they used contraception. They did not want it, so no child was born. Later, when they want a child, Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “Now I do not want it. I know the right time to bring the child into the world.” That is why, according to Torah, there are times when contraception should be used, with a ruling from a rabbi. Then there is a blessing that she will not become pregnant now, and that she will become pregnant when the time is right. But when people do things not according to Torah, afterward Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not want it, and they have complications. We need to do as the Torah teaches us, and there will be a blessing. And when the rabbi rules that contraception should be used now, there is blessing and success in that course; without the rabbi’s blessing, something is missing. We need the will of all three of us: the father, the mother, and Hakadosh

55:59 Speaker 2 Blessed be He, and let us pray that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives to each and every one. The question is: why does Hakadosh Boruch Hu send us more blessing than we feel able to receive? A couple came to me and said, “Listen, we’ve been together for a month, and my wife is pregnant. There’s no medical reason why my wife shouldn’t get pregnant. The doctor says there is. We’ve already taken the longest break we can, two years, and you’re telling me you can’t permit us any longer than that. But Rabbi, I don’t have the strength to raise another child. Having another child isn’t just a matter of being with my wife. Afterward you have to change diapers and feed the baby in the middle of the night. I don’t have the strength for that.” I told him, “Listen, your neighbor, or another couple in the community, have been married ten years and have no child. Have a child and let them adopt the baby; they’ll raise the child. You don’t have the strength to raise a child, but there’s a couple who do. You have the blessing of being able to conceive, and they don’t have that blessing. They have the strength to get up in the middle of the night, give the baby a bottle and change a diaper. They’re looking for that love. Give them that.” “But Rabbi, once the baby is born, I’ll love my child with all my heart. How could I give my child to a neighbor?” “Decide what’s right for you. But not having the strength to care for your child is no reason to deny your child the gift of life. That’s a gift only you can give. Would you decide that your child shouldn’t live because it’s hard for you to get up in the morning and give him a bottle?” The greatest gift we can give our sons and daughters is the gift of life. And the investment that will bring us the greatest reward, nachas and joy is in children we’ve raised with love, affection and dedication. And today I’m a grandfather

58:36 Speaker 2 to many children and grandchildren. It’s the best investment I’ve made in my life, and it brings me so much joy, happiness and love that goes both ways. I love my grandchildren, and my grandchildren would do anything for me. They love me more than anything. It’s the best investment I’ve made in my life, and I’m glad I made it. Wishing you success! Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.