תכנון המשפחה

00:01 This is Igress, and today we are going to discuss family planning. Uh, obviously, as this is a family-friendly share, and I don't wanna have to check the Contains Explicit Content box on Spotify, we won't be discussing the particulars, such as birth control methods. It wouldn't even really be appropriate to discuss the general halachas here. These are matters that should be private discussions between a rabbi and a married couple, and maybe, uh, young soon-to-be-wed couples with their teachers. Uh, but for them to listen to our share, we, we can't discuss the details of these sorts of things here. What I am willing to say is that there are situations in which birth control is permitted. That's not something you could determine with Google. A rav would have to be involved. But even in those cases in which rabbanim have determined that a couple is permitted to actively limit the number of children they hope to have, it's important for us to understand how the Rebbe sees large families and why the Rebbe has an almost visceral-sounding reaction to couples who want to limit the number of children in their families due to financial constraints and the like, God forbid. So today, im yirtze Hashem, we are going to discuss the Rebbe's general attitude toward the decision to stop having children or space children or have fewer children. Uh, call it the Rebbe's shitah on family planning if you like. We're going to see that when the Rebbe agrees-- even when the Rebbe agrees that a rav

01:03 is involved and someone is authorized to engage in some activities that limit the number of children they will have, family planning is not a Jewish value. That's probably the big takeaway from the Rebbe's letters and sichas, that even when it's allowed, it's not a Jewish value. When Dehert did an article on the Rebbe's position on family planning, they called it the Rebbe's campaign against family planning, and I think that that's mostly accurate. The Rebbe will say, as we'll see in a moment, time and again, that there is something inherently wrong with wanting a smaller family for financial or emotional reasons, and that it's a serious misprioritization to want fewer children so that you can do a better job on the ones you have or do more volunteering or helping the world at large or shlichas. What really comes through here is that the Rebbe is against the notion of family planning, even if he is not at all against a rav on an individual basis allowing it for certain families for medical reasons. There are a ton of sichas, a handful of letters. To make this manageable, we'll be looking at a bunch of letters. Uh, this is the Igress share after all, so I'm gonna lean on letters and, uh, one medium-length sicha in the hopes that this brief survey of the topic will show you the main ideas in the Rebbe's work. But this is one of those cases where I left literally, I don't know, fifteen great sources out of this year

02:03 and something like an entire collection of English letters that we're not going to get to. So please understand, uh, this is a survey. The Rebbe says-- says a lot more on this subject. Uh, we have our first letter on the screen. We'll make it a little bit bigger. This letter is labeled תכח. It's a relatively early letter from the Zayin Kislev, תש"א. You'll find it in the volume four, page seventy-six. And we're gonna read the whole letter. Beracha, Mishana. The Rebbe writes, "מכתבך ח' חשון קיבלתי בהיטב." I received your letter from the twenty-seventh day of Cheshvan in its proper time. And because of the incredible work that I have, "בגלל עבודת רבתי האישית לא היה אצלי אפשרות לענות את מכתבך עד עתה." I haven't had time to answer until now. It is now י' Kislev. So the Rebbe is, uh, a little, a little less than a month late. "שאלה במכתבך," you asked in this letter-- in your letter, "כיוון שיש לשניכם ילדים שניים בריאים," you have two healthy children, "הרבי פעם יעד זצוק"ל בשמו של תלמיד ללודה. רצינו לדעת דעתי בזה." So the doctor told her, "You have two healthy children. I'd like you to stop." So the doctor is suggesting that she engage in family planning from this point onward or for birth control from this point onward, and I wanna know your opinion on this, the woman writes to the Rebbe. So the Rebbe writes back, "בטח ידעת," certainly you know. "שכך הוא ללודה," when it comes to birth control, family planning,

03:09 bechalal, in general, "אינו טעם להשקפת התורה." This is not in line with the position of Torah. That is that it's not a Jewish value to be involved in these things. "וזה דעה ילדים כבירך זה מאת הקדוש ברוך הוא" because the authentic Jewish view of a child is that a child is a blessing from the Holy One, blessed be He. "שבא שם מבורך כסהיר" and this is something that God uses when he wants to bless parents. When God's looking for some way to help you or to do you a favor, he does it by sending you children. So the entire notion, the Hashkafa's HaTorah when it comes to the, uh, the idea of birth control is against it. "התורה אומרת שאין אצל יהודי עניינים פרטיים." The Torah also will tell you-- uh, Torah also holds that when it comes to Yidden, when it comes to Jews, there are no individual matters. "כי כל יהודי הוא חלק מכלל העם יהודי" because every Jew is a portion of the entire Jewish people. "וכל עניין פרטי של כל יהודי יש השפעה על כלל עם יהודי." And therefore, every private individual thing that an individual Jew does impacts the general public, which is the Rebbe's way of saying, as he's going to now expand a little bit, that, uh, these are not private decisions. Somebody could say, you know, "This is something I'm do-- this is between me and my--" She could say, "This is between me, me and my husband, me and my spouse, and this is something that

04:07 we're doing in our house alone. This is nobody's business." The Rebbe says it's kind of everybody's business when you're dealing with a Jew because a Jew is part of an entire Jewish people, so you can't really say, "This is just my business." "זה נגיע לכתוב ענין חיים מיוחד לאחר הגזירות והשמדות ר"ל." The Rebbe says this particularly applies now. Remember, this letter is written in nineteen fifty-one. This is right after the Holocaust. And the Rebbe says this applies especially right now. We're coming right off of a period where a lot of people tried to kill us. There are גזירות and שמדות and ר"ל. "שאדם כך הרבו להיעלם יהודי נס אל קידוש השם." Through these horrible things, many millions of Jews were killed, אל קידוש השם, died sanctifying God's name. Uh, so this is not just a private matter. It is your job to help replenish the number of missing Jews. "ממרא זה," on the other hand, the Rebbe says, "מכיוון שזה נגיע לבריאות של יהודי." But if this has to do with a Jewish person's health, it's a different discussion. "איש, אישה, ילד," we're talking about the health of a man, of a woman, of a child. "שבריאות של יהודה," when it comes to the health of a Jew, "זה פי שניה של רמב"ם בהלכות הרקעה ואמת השם יתברך." The Rambam says that when it comes to the health of a Jew, this is among the paths of serving God. "הרמב"ם מסיים המאמר טל מקיר בצורת מסיים השתתף משפחה." That is that certainly in individual cases,

05:08 the Torah recognizes it as being valuable to engage in birth control or engage in family planning only when it comes to the health of the mother, the father, the child. For some reason, there's health involved. So the Rebbe is not saying no entirely. The Rebbe is saying two things at once. Number one, the idea of birth control itself and family planning is fundamentally against the Torah's values because we see children as valuable, and it's fundamentally against Jewish values to feel yourself as an individual because you're not an individual. A Jew, if in fact, impacts everybody, and having more children, uh, helps replace-- There's no way to replace obviously, but you understand what I mean, those lost in the Holocaust. On the other hand, we're not saying that people who are unhealthy should be having children and putting themselves at risk, God forbid. If there's a medical reason to engage in family planning, go for it. The Rebbe didn't say go for it. I said go for it, but that's what you're seeing here, is that, uh, with a-- in consultation with a rabbi and with a doctor, it makes sense in individual cases, but you can't say that's a Jewish position. The Jewish position is we like children. Uh, the Jewish position is if someone's too sick to have them, they can't have them. "וכה שזה סדר כללי זה." The Rebbe says therefore, it is very difficult to give a general ruling on what do we say about family planning. "כי הווה תלוי מוכר זה

06:08 נזק שילד לולד אבי לאם." Because the entire discussion has to do with how much damage and the sort of damage we're talking about that might be caused by having a baby. "וכן בהבצעת התורה." And also the form of birth control used will need to be discussed. So the Rebbe goes, "There really is no one-size-fits-- size, one-size-fits-all here. We're gonna have to ask, what is the risk to the mother and what sort of birth control method are they considering?" "לכן," and therefore the Rebbe says, "הנה יעץ לאן," giving you advice. "של אחר שתשאל שוב עם הרופא של אבי ירד לאל את צורת השתלת הרן כמדוק." Once you've spoken with the doctor and clarified exactly what his plan is for family planning, "תפנה לרב חסידי אורתודוקסי תשמע חפץ דעת." I want you to go turn to an Orthodox Hasidish rabbi and listen to what he has to say about that. And then he gives her a beracha that she should have nachas from all of her children, along with her husband, the rabbi so-and-so, and the Rebbe signs his name. I like this letter the most of all the letters I'm showing you today just because I think it gives the entire treatment. You have on one hand the Rebbe saying that the notion of wanting to limit the amount of children you have is not a Jewish notion, but on the other hand, that there's totally room to do it when in consultation with a rabbi and with a doctor. I don't think you'll get one

07:05 letter that captures the entire idea better than this one. However, I do have other letters to show you anyway. Th-and, and that's the end of the show, right? We, we saw one great letter, why go further? Uh, this is the longer letter. Just wanna show you the top. It's from Kuf Tishrei of Tav Shin Kuf. It's labeled Zayin Lamed Beis. We're gonna go all the way to the bottom of it to entry Daled. The Rebbe has, um, several points in this letter. Point number Daled, letter Daled is the one for us. "Im hashkavas ve'es midias Harayim," when you're talking about-- You wrote to me about birth control, about family planning. "Ari atzmuso melashon horah." Our Torah, the word Torah is melashon horah. The word Torah means it teaches. He taught us chayim. It's also the Torah of life. "Torat chayim hi la'rak belolam haba el gam belolam hazeh." This is a Torah that gives us life not just in the next world, but also in this world. "V'avad abba," to the contrary. "Hu ha'iker," the main thing that the Torah does is tell us how to live in this world and give us life in this world. "She'ari Torah sheba'shamayim hi," the Torah is not in heaven. "Ve'im lila'hat dam." Now this woman had apparently written to the Rebbe. I think it's a woman. Let me scroll up a little bit and check. No, it's a man. This man had written to the Rebbe about his wife, that, uh, this woman, she has a blood

08:01 pressure condition. Her blood pressure is either too high or too low, I don't know which. And because of her blood pressure, the doctor doesn't want her having children anymore. So the Rebbe continues, "Ve'im lila'hat dam," when it comes to blood pressure, "Milvado mishtanav mis zman l'zman l'talah matz li sralshos matz li ruach v'chalal." In addition to the fact that blood pressure changes, you gotta get a couple readings. It has to do with your mood, it has to do with you have to give an igras here and you're not done preparing yet, that sort of thing. "Pesa kadasi ma'ayen bazeh kalkah," and, uh, certainly not thinking about it can make it go down a little bit. Uh, "Hine ga--" Excuse the comma and comma. It can make it go down a little bit. "V'hi, v'hine gama refi yaspir ma she'olam v'olam lila'hat dam yesada al hagil. Me'eleh bonim ubonos b'even halchitei v'chulu." And certainly, your doctor will explain to you that high blood pressure or low blood pressure is not something that means people can't have children. Many people in worse cases than yours with worse numbers than you have, have had successful children. That said, "Nikud ki karas vemor." The main point, the Rebbe says, in our discussion is "Shekol toras mitzva ad minyanam kan al sheyech nachmu dak l'bezeh elam avigea. Ha ze hepech seichal apostum. Lehi hepech hashkafas haTorah." Says the truth is that people mixing into procreation, unless there's a life threat, a real serious damage threat, is the opposite of seichal

09:00 apostum. It's the opposite of good, of good logic. "Lehi rak hepech hashkafas haTorah." It's not just the opposite of the hashkafa of Torah. "Yesh lehi b'zeh ood kam nikudus v'lo yavi rak shtayim." The Rebbe says, "I have many things I'd like to say about this, but I'm only gonna bring you two." Thing number one, "Alef. Mechaveis dereinu." It is among the obligations of our generation, "Shekol echad u'kedaim butzal me'eis hashmadas le'eleinu le'eleinu rachmana litzlan v'lo yesh rak, rak anasa idei eilush nasua al kiddush Hashem. Ei ikar olam v'lo yesh ga misbonen yesh rak pshuti," the Rebbe says it is the obligation of every single person living in the generation after the Holocaust to make up for the missing Jews and to take all those Jews who were killed al kiddush Hashem, al kiddush Hashem, and replace their numbers. And the Rebbe says point two, "B'zmanenu," in our particular time, "zmanenu," in our time, "shekol echad machpes ilois v'bimyana filu b'even meshuna." People in this day and age, they're always looking for excuses. "Vala hakeh derech chayav." Everybody wants to find a way to make their life easier. And in a world like that, where everybody's looking for a million different ways to make their lives easier, "yesh chashash gadol," there is a very large concern. "Shehanhaga amur tashbir gam acheress la'aseh kazal," that your behavior in this way, limiting children because of a blood pressure issue, will cause many others to say, "Well, you know, I have a slight cold, so I'm not gonna have

10:02 children for the rest of my life." Like, the, the Rebbe is saying here that, uh, people are looking for the easy way out, and if you give them even a little bit of a way out, even when they technically maybe could use that as a way out, it's going to negatively influence everybody around them 'cause people are looking for ways to make their lives easier. "Shaari ein lifne sameach lasiva deila'hat dam ve'gami en sheom lasiva basfar v'chulu kim ve'im ra'ayan hagever payo." No, people don't really know about the blood pressure thing. They're not going to ask you, "Hey, did you stop having children because of a blood pressure condition?" They'll see you have fewer children, and their first thought will be, "Everybody has fewer children because everybody's using birth control," and they'll just go for it. So the Rebbe is very cautious about this. I didn't see a no in here anywhere. I saw a whole lot of caution. I can add from the previous letter and add from the Rebbe's general work on this that without a doubt, the Rebbe's advice in this case is to, based on everything the Rebbe said, speak to a doctor, speak to a Rav, and see what's happening. But at the same time, you see the Rebbe's hesitation, that even in a case where there might be medical indication to, uh, to hold off on having more children, the Rebbe says, "I'm not so sure I wanna see it because I'm worried, uh, number one, about replacing missing

10:55 Jews, and number two, about everybody trying to make their lives easier, uh, in a way that could end up, uh, spreading." And then you have a whole bunch of people not having children when they should. Something you might have noticed so far is the Rebbe has not mentioned any isurim. No f-no, no isur in any of his letters. Um, here he's talking all hashkafa. This is Jewish outlook rather than Jewish prohibition. Uh, the truth is there are prohibitions against, uh, against not having children if a person doesn't have two. And there's prohibitions against not having as many children as one can have, depending on which opinion we're following. But the Rebbe is not doing that today. On these letters, the Rebbe is speaking hashkafa. He's just talking, uh, the outlook of Judaism. We have one more letter I wanna show you. Not just one more, actually a few more, but one more is the one in front of us. This one is labeled Ches. Taf Taf Kuf Mem He. It's from Chaf Gimel Shat of Tav Shin Chaf He. And the Rebbe writes. In this top one up here, I'm gonna skip this and just read it to you outside. You can read it 'cause it's off the screen. Uh, a doctor had made a suggestion that, uh, for a woman's health, that she shouldn't have any more children, at least not for a little while. And, uh, he-- Then she spoke with a Rav as she is supposed to, so this woman spoke to

11:51 a Rav, and the Rav had a suggestion for what kind of birth control method would be permitted. And the Rebbe adds a birth control method that he thinks the Rav should also consider, and this is something people can read inside on their own. Going down to the bottom of the letter, which is for everybody, regarding permanent birth control, regarding, um, what is this? Uh, tubal ligation. Uh, "tfiras shichios." This is a woman's, uh, this is doing this to a woman so that she can never have children again. The Rebbe says, "Regarding that," 'cause the doctor's saying, "You're in danger. I don't want you having any more kids," might be the most straightforward just to per-permanently sterilize you. So the, uh, Rebbe says back to this, "Regarding that, uh, surgery that permanently sterilizes a woman, "nesh al chashash sheyesh nim choli nituch, frat nituch hapnimi beyucha." The Rebbe says, "First of all, I'm just concerned in general about surgery, especially when it comes to serious internal surgeries." Uh, so step one, surgery is scary. Uh, step one, we do take surgery seriously. We try to only do it when there's a real risk otherwise. So the Rebbe says, "In addition to my general concerns about surgery, and especially this internal and specific kind of surgery that requires certain specialization, "vematz li res refa gai kama b'chratin gam lo bono kinam mechtavai yesh lazei kam tsadim shtulim." The Rebbe says, "In addition to my concerns, there's also a couple side reasons. My general concern about the safety

12:56 of the surgery, I have a couple other concerns about this procedure." Uh, number one, "zei pula lishlorain l'tamid," that this is a permanent intervention that will permanently prevent your ability to have children. "Avili kesh tagmur v'chulu," even if you, even when you get healthy. So the Rebbe says, "Right now, you're not healthy enough to have children." And the Rebbe, you can see from the earlier part of the letter, is essentially signing off on her using a form of birth control. He just wants her to discuss with the Rav which one's the best one, but she truly is someone who could get very badly hurt if she has more children. So obviously, the Rebbe is, uh, signing off on her not having any more right now, but says the Rebbe, "What happens when you get healthy? When you get healthy, you're gonna want more children. There's no reason to permanently, uh, sterilize yourself, uh, because we're expecting you to get better." And number two, . There's also some, uh, practical legal concerns, Halakhic concerns. as your Rav will explain to you. There is Halakhic concerns, and your Rav will talk to you about it. And gimmel, The Rebbe says, in addition to that, you know, it's sort of the opposite of what he made in point one. In point one, he says, you know, this is permanent. And in point three, he says, "You know, sometimes this isn't permanent, and its lack of permanence can be a problem." That there are individual cases where these things

13:56 get undone. Um, sometimes these, uh, these remo-- sometimes these things reattach by themselves. By the way, this is completely true. Um, I don't know for sure about tubal ligation. I know for sure that vasectomies sometimes reattach by themselves. There's a lot of research on that. And so the Rebbe's saying point three, I'm not even sure this is the best way to protect you because a person gets tubal ligation, I can't be sure you're not gonna get pregnant anyway. So the Rebbe has a bunch of reasons he doesn't want her to do this. Uh, just to go through them again, number one, the Rebbe doesn't seem in favor of tubal ligation because, uh, the-- it's female sterilization because he's worried about surgery in general. He doesn't really want surgery unless it's to protect someone's life or to do something that's needed, and there's other ways to prevent childbirth. Um, number two, he's worried about the Halakhic implications of this as opposed to other forms of birth control. Number three, uh, he says that he's worried that this woman might get pregnant anyway because it's not that effective a form of birth control. And if she gets pregnant when it's still dangerous for her to do so, she could, God forbid, hurt herself. Um, and the Rebbe says he's giving a berakhah for bituras tevelis in all of these things. What you have in front of you right now is not a letter. It's actually says the letter. Either way, this is the Rebbe's answer to somebody

14:59 who was leading a, uh, a ta'aras mishpachah, uh, organization. He was leading a ta'aras mishpachah discussion. They wanted-- he wanted to know what he should say about family planning and specifically about spacing, about, uh, deciding that, you know, uh, we-- deciding you want a real big family, but deciding you want, I don't know, three or four years between each kid, and so specifically planning the family, that there'll be a lot of them, but that they'll be spread out. And the Rebbe in response to this said, "Al davar spacing," the English is right here, "regarding spacing out kids." Not saying you don't want so many, just you don't want so many so quickly. This is something that would be under a person's, uh, choice. That decision that a person could make, whether permitted or prohibited, would be up to the bechirah of a person. A person has the ability to say and to do things to make sure that they don't have any children. Um, and that's, that's interesting. People have the power to decide they don't want kids. The Rebbe continues, But when it comes to having a baby, and that that baby should come out okay, that's up to God. You can't ma-- You can't make those decisions. The Rebbe says, "It's possible that if you don't want kids now, you might never have them." If you don't do it now, then when? So what the Rebbe is saying is this, if you'll allow me to read into it a little bit, the Rebbe

16:03 is saying, "You think it's, it's, it's, I guess, impressive that a human can control whether they have children in the first place. They should remember that although they can choose not to have children, it's God who chooses whether they will have children one day. And if they choose not to have children now, who's to say they'll be able to later? You can choose to turn off the spigot, but you can't choose to turn on the spigot." So the Rebbe's concerned about this. And the Rebbe says, "In addition to that, the younger a woman is when she gives birth according to the natural order, the healthier her children turn out." So there is no particular reason to space things because first of all, you don't know if you'll be able to have them later. People say that they wanna keep, you know, a couple years, five years, ten years. They wanna get to know each other, you know, for, for twenty-five years before they finally have their first child. The Rebbe's response to this is, uh, "You think you're pushing it off. Uh, I'm not sure you'll be able to have children when you want. Uh, you can control how long you wait, but you can't control whether they show up. And certainly, the younger the woman is when she has children, the more healthy they'll be. It's possible that waiting, God forbid, could cause there to be problems with the child." Of course, chas v'shalom, but the Rebbe's concerned about these sorts of waiting things.

16:59 This second paragraph, I very much hesitate to read on a podcast. I'm gonna do it anyway, but this one's with hesitation. Uh, regarding the claim that the woman would like to space the children out because she needs rest, because it's just too much for her. She's had a bunch of children. It's hard on her body. It's hard on her mind. It's hard on her soul. Uh, the Rebbe says, " I find it very hard to believe." That a woman who has already enjoyed the incredible joy that comes from and the incredible satisfaction that comes from having a child, and raising a child, watching this child grow up in front of her eyes is to see that his chinukh and then, and, uh, that his chinukh and that this child succeeds based on her mesiras nefesh. To look at a child that she's raised and see this is the product of my hard work. The Rebbe says, "I find it very hard to believe that a woman who had-- a, a woman who has had that joy of raising a child and seeing the child, um, become what she'd hoped the child would become based on her hard work, that a woman like that that a woman under those conditions who has seen those things would agree to, and cert-- and, and all the more so would even want to remove herself from those sorts of reason-- fr-from those sorts of things for the reasons that have been indicated." Um, let me, uh, paraphrase now that

18:09 I've tried to read it as literally as possible. The Rebbe is saying that, "I find it very hard to believe that a woman who has enjoyed what it is to raise children would then say that she needs rest and doesn't want to do it again." That, uh, it is such a joy to raise children and watch children grow up and get naches from the fact that you have put so much effort into them, that a person who has experienced this, says the Rebbe, "I find it very hard to believe that they would say, 'Uh, I'm tired, and therefore, I don't want that joy anymore.' It's just too mu-- It's too much good against too little bad." Especially if the woman is considering the following. The Rebbe says, "Here's a few things to think about." The Rebbe says, "A person will consider that the real concern she has, that she's afraid of the pain of childbirth and the incredible work that goes into it, and the fact that she won't be able to participate in activities for a period of time while she-- her children are very little or while she's pregnant and things like that. And when she considers that in addition to all of those concerns, she's also mainly concerned in a very large way about how people might look down on her for having a large family." And of course, the Shulchan Aruch begins by telling us that you shouldn't listen to what scoffers will say. When we-- she discovers that that's the

19:18 real problem standing in her way- The concern for temporary inconvenience and temporary pain and the concern of others, but not for the long-term gain of having children, having nachas from children. When she considers that, "Harab simchi masrila achlata devara zmanatev," in that-- in those case, the woman will, uh, the, the woman-- the women when they're told this will make a positive resolution that they will have children and that they will be benched with, they will have blessing of "zorach hai vekayama," uh, living and healthy children. "Yesh larach bechal halal," the Rebbe says, "I could expand upon all this." "Ve'gam lo hispin," I wish I could add more, but he's not going to add more right now. So we have in this, uh, letter/shichitas, I think now it's a letter, uh, from the Rebbe advising somebody on how to give these lectures and how to speak to the women about "taras mishpacha" and about the importance of having large families. The Rebbe says, "When it comes to spacing, you should let them know that, uh, they can choose to not have children, but I can't promise they'll be able to later." And, uh, you know, s-space at your own risk and understand that, uh, having children is in the hands of God, and that people increase their risk the longer they wait because as women get older, "biderech hateva," it's harder to have children, and sometimes it's harder to have healthy children. And in response to the claim that some women say that they would like

20:16 smaller families because life is hard when they have small kids and life is hard and when it comes to giving birth and to carrying children, of course it is. Of course it is. But the Rebbe says that he finds it hard to believe that someone who has experienced the joy of raising children would feel that way. And if they do feel that way, they should be reminded that their concerns are about the relatively temporary parts of having a child and that the long-term gains of having a child, the long-term nachas outweighs that by a very large margin, and that when people think about this and do the calculation properly, they'll come to the conclusion that it makes sense to have as many children as possible. I'm gonna show you one more letter. I'm, I'm actually out of time, although I very badly wanted to show you a sicha. I have one more letter here, and this is just a PS at the bottom of a letter. The letter is labeled Yud Aleph Tuv Shin Ayin Tes, and we're just gonna look at the PS. The PS says, "Temor k'sava," I'm shocked about what you wrote to me. "Ayesh tasher yesh tzedek v'divre ish anusu ba kamah shanim. Shem naz ha'rayam ki matzava kasfi ein masbia rotzei na v'techakah ad sheyesudah v'chulu." The Rebbe says, "I'm shocked that you wrote to you if you think there's some merit in this argument." There's a woman who's been married for many years, and she hasn't had children for

21:12 many years, and her reasoning is financial. She says that she's not satisfied with how much money she has, and she's waiting to have children until she feels that things are in order enough for her to bring children into the world. And the Rebbe says, "I'm shocked you would think that that's a reasonable argument." "Shari yalanimei b'rchas Hashem yikar v'gedolah" because the Rebbe says children are a blessing from Hashem, a very dear one and a very great one. "Vafilah ma tanish matan l'chavel m'baser bedam." Even if you were to receive a present, you were hoping to receive a present from a mortal human, "lamdan ein makom lemore lei," there would be no place to say to this human, "ata enira tzematama shochah." Right now, I don't want your present. "Ki she'avda b'tzem l'shanas da'iti," but if I change my mind, "ideach al ach let you know." Says the Rebbe, people are thinking about this completely wrong. Children are an incredible blessing, and to say that you don't want children because you don't think your financial situation is ideal right now for children is the i-- not really equivalent. It's much, much worse than the pseudo-equivalent statement of saying to someone, "I don't want your present right now. It's not a good time for me. I'll let you know when it becomes a good time for me." Though, uh, you'll see in many letters and such as if you look into this more deeply, that, uh, every time money comes up, the Rebbe pushes that one away

22:09 immediately. The idea that ch-- somehow parents would, uh, plan around finances when trying to decide whether they should have children is an anathema to the Rebbe. I don't have time to show you the sicha. I really want to anyway. Let me just show you maybe a highlight or two of the sicha. This is the Likkutei Sichos. It is, uh, volume chaf hei. It's in volume twenty-five. You'll find it on page forty-five. And there the Rebbe talks through the entire, the entire argument, pro and against, I guess, but all pro, of course, um, in favor of having more children. He says over here that, uh, in this first section that after the Mabul, after the flood, Noach was instructed to repopulate the world, and we are coming off of a similar Mabul in these days after the Holocaust, and it's our job to repopulate the world. And, uh, in the times of Noach and in the times of Chizkiyahu, the king, both of them saw or predicted that they would have future children who would be, uh, spiritually broken, who would have real problems, or children that might, in Noach's case, get wiped out again. And nonetheless, God says to both of them, "I expect you to do your job and have more children and let me do the calculations." And that parents overthinking it and saying, "If I have more children, they might not turn out so good. I won't have time to focus on them. I won't have the ability to spend time with

23:08 them, that, uh, I won't be-- I won't have-- I won't have enough money to take care of them." That these are the sorts of calculations that, uh, we've seen throughout Jewish history are ones we are not supposed to make. We are supposed to have as many children as we can, and it's God's job to fill in the gaps. The Rebbe adds over here in yud that when it comes to every single child, a new avenue of parnassa is opened. So when it comes to financial concerns, those financial concerns should not exist because people find more money when they have more children. Just to read this part from the Rebbe, and then I think we'll have to conclude. The Rebbe says, "Everything that we spoke about earlier is about concerns about the spiritual status of the children, and there you've gotta just let God handle things. You have as many children as you can, and God will make sure they turn out okay." "She'et tali v'yikah behirav," this mainly does depend on the, on the parents, so at least there's some room to say, "I'm worried I can't educate my children properly. There's too many of them, or I don't have the, uh, you know, I don't have the resources at the time." Um, "lem nasan Hashem baruch hu mitzvas alz l'chanach b'neinem v'niseim b'derech hateva mitzvas nasan laimez habkir ha'chafshas v'kaytziv eizeh." So that's, uh, in God's hands, but certainly the parents could claim some control over it. "Ach kasha beduah bedagas mipar nasa gashmi,"

24:02 is when people say that they don't think they have enough money to have children. They're worried about financial concerns. "Kisha esei kashpede shematza parnasa ene me'achshev lehaseg bemidvas zeig b'priya v'rivya mar mikash sheim katnia mona lem atem ize." When a person says, "I'm not gonna have children 'cause I can't afford it," they're showing they don't even believe in God. Uh, they certainly are among the, uh, he says they are among the one-- those of little faith and beneath that. I would say those beneath those of little faith are those of no faith. So the Rebbe's saying here it shows complete-- it's a completely faithless attitude. To say that I'm not sure that I have the energy to raise children is to say that you don't trust that God will give you the energy, uh, and you don't trust yourself, which is not great. But to say that you don't believe that God will give you the money, we don't control our money. God controls our money. So it's to say that you don't believe that God's gonna give you the money to support the thing that he's asking you to do, which the Rebbe goes on to say is an untenable Jewish position. Obviously, if someone doesn't have enough money for children and has children, God will send them the money. The Rebbe goes on to describe the incredible destruction. He calls it a "chorban," a destruction that has come through family planning. And he says, "Ki chal d'var na'ela hu gam menagea l'keichas hanefesh."

24:57 All the things, all of the things we've spoken about up until now, they also apply to a person's capabilities, their "keichas hanefesh." "Acherim tehiyin," but other people will still claim, "she'ein lahem esa keichas." They say they don't have the energy, the, uh, capacity to raise many children. "Keichas haguf, keichas hanefesh," maybe they don't have it emotionally, maybe they don't have it physically. "L'kali yeshto raise more children. it requires incredible effort to raise more children. it requires a, uh, spiritual labor and a practical physical labor. the person who's saying this should know. since Hashem is the one who commanded you to do this, to have children, he only asks according to your capabilities. therefore it is clear that he has given you what you need in order to fulfill his commandments. therefore, there is no reason to mix in with personal calculations. a person should rely entirely on Hashem, and should do so in a way of joy. as they should with every aspect of serving God. So what the Rebbe is saying here is that a person could say, "I specifically don't have the energy for this," the physical energy, the emotional energy, and that doesn't make a lot of sense to say. Hashem has already promised that he wouldn't give somebody anything that they can't deal with. One of the commandments he gave us is to have as many children as possible, and therefore you do have the energy for it. That's essentially what he's saying. You do have the energy. Of course,

26:17 this cannot be mixed in with somebody who doesn't have the energy from a medical perspective. If the doctor says it could hurt them, then we're in a different parsha. But here we're talking about people who the doctor says you would be healthy, maybe not happy, but healthy, and the Rebbe says here, "Then you should approach this with joy and do it, and you'll have the energy." if the true situation is if the truth is that a person does not have the emotional, physical, et cetera, energies necessary to raise many children, then God has already take care-- taken care of this for you. As the Rebbe goes on to say, how did God take care of this for you? in order to give birth to children, you need a special blessing from Hashem. It's not enough to have the reproductive machinery. If God doesn't give his blessing, people with perfectly functional reproductive machineries don't end up having children. God forbid, as it says in the, in the verse in the Torah, "And God blessed them, saying, 'You should be fruitful and multiply.'" Two steps, blessing and the actual machinery. and therefore, there are many people who do not give birth, even though they have the , even though their machinery is working just fine, they just don't have children, and that's because they have the , but they're missing the blessing of children. The Rebbe here is quoting a that says this explicitly. The Rebbe continues, the truth, and this is the real truth, the revealed

27:38 truth. that this behavior of trusting in Hashem, this is not just something that won't take away from your physical health, to the contrary. this is actually the way to reach real , to calm you down, uh, to be a calm and tranquil person. when a person tries to mess up the normal way that God made the natural world, and specifically the life of a family, that is when somebody tries to intervene by using family planning methods rather than letting a family unfold the way that nature plans and the way that God plans, we see that this ends up causing problems. Uh, not only does this interfere with the relationship between a husband and a wife, it starts causing all kinds of other problems. family planning, the Rebbe says, this idea of making calculations about when and how to have a-- to, to have children, um, has already been accepted as a name. It already has a name, and that name is family planning. He says it sort of in English. but the truth is, says the Rebbe, that this thing and this planning is the opposite of family planning. It is the opposite of what it's been named. it causes the opposite of order in the life of the family. and is the opposite of building life within a family. and as has been revealed to all those who are not willing to fool themselves, not interested in fooling themselves, that there has never been anything that has done such a great deal of turning

29:21 over and destroying the basis and the power of building a family quite like family planning. So the Rebbe says in this last paragraph that people have used this friendly name, family planning, to make it sound like this gives seder, it gives order, it gives structure to a family, when in fact it does the opposite. It breaks down the structure and the order of a family entirely. The Rebbe concludes by saying that engaging in being fruitful and multiplying and not engaging in family planning, unless God forbid there is a medical situation that requires it, ends up bringing Mashiach a little closer or a lot closer. May he come speedily, may he come right now. The mitzvah is the Rebbe says that the mitzvah of procreation has a specific relevance to our generation. Gemara says, um, he added some words. The Gemara says that the, uh, that the-- that Ben David, the Mashiach will not come until all of the neshamas that have in-- that are in the oitzer end up in a body. That is, that all of the souls that are supposed to go in the bodies go in the body. So until everybody's born, you can't bring Mashiach. everybody's supposed to be born. that is to say, that the birth of one new child, one new Jewish child, brings close to the redemption, the complete redemption of the entire Jewish people by way of David, King Mashiach. and since we now find ourselves in a generation on the heels of Mashiach, Mashiach's very close,

30:45 as we've spoken about on many occasions, We are saying right now all the time in our prayers, we say every day that the, uh, scion of David, your servant, should very speedily sprout forward now, , literally right now. therefore has to do, a Jew has to do everything that is, uh, dependent upon him, everything that he can do to make sure that all souls find their ways into a body. Because as long as there is some soul waiting up there in the collection in heaven to come down into a body, Mashiach can't come. this speeds up Ben David's arrival with the complete and total redemption . So what we saw today is that the Rebbe is not on the surface opposed to family planning. Uh, there absolutely is grounds for it. We saw a couple of letters where a rav was involved, a doctor was involved, the mother's life was in danger, there was a serious threat to her health if she had children. And we saw that the Rebbe does give advice, and he even sort of signs off on some of these procedures, has some ideas about the ones that are less invasive, doesn't seem very excited about the idea of surgery, of tubal ligation, but, uh, seems excited. I don't know about excited is the right word. Seems at least, uh, open to other forms of birth control that might help keep people safe, but that's a safety issue. We're not talking a safety issue here. The Rebbe's shitah, family planning, his

32:01 position on what it is to decide that somebody wants fewer children is absolutely clear. The Rebbe has no sympathy for it, really no sympathy for it. Um, in response to the claim that I don't have enough money, he says, "God will give you money." In response to the claim that I don't have the emotional or physical capacity, he says, "God will give you that, too." In response to the claim that I might not be able to make righteous children because I'm not focusing on them enough 'cause it's such a big family, the Rebbe says, uh, "Noach thought about that before you, and so did Chizkiahu. They both got in trouble for it. Don't go down that route." In response to somebody saying that, uh, that the, the mother's saying that it's painful and it's scary, and I don't wanna do it, the Rebbe says, when she thinks about just how much nacha she'll get from her children, that seems to be a minor concern. And he finds it hard to believe that a woman would decide not to have children because of that, given how much gain there is in her life on the other end of it. When you put all of this together, you get a very clear shitah. Uh, the Rebbe's campaign against family planning, as it was put by Der Ha'ar, is an accurate way to put it. The Rebbe does indeed campaign against family planning. The Rebbe says in this last section that we just saw that family planning causes

32:54 the opposite of planning. It causes the opposite of order, the opposite of a family being built up together, and causes problems between a husband and a wife, and causes problems between the parents and the children. So when it comes to family planning, the Rebbe is not a fan at all, outside of the specific contexts that a rav and a doctor have signed off on together. So in the rare case, of course, where family planning is necessary, it's important to reach out to a rav and reach out to a doctor, and in consultation with both of them together, figure out what works the best for that particular scenario. But that's the exception to the rule. The vast majority of people are not in that parsha. The vast majority of people are in the other parsha, the parsha where the Rebbe says that we have to replace the Jews who were lost in these horrible events that happened in our past, where it is our responsibility to add more Jewish people to the world. And in a much more forward-looking way, it's our responsibility, our responsibility to help clear out all of the souls that are waiting to be born, so we can see Mashiach right now. Thank you all very much.