I came across an advice column on the Jewish Daily Forward's website where readers send in questions with subjects ranging from wedding protocol to career advice and parenting. One question sent in by a reader regarded a woman whose husband wanted to have a large family, "but I think that in today’s world with all of the suffering and the need, no one family should have more than two children."
The sage advice of the advice columnist, whose credentials include being a journalist and an author contained the following words. "I could not agree more. With all the unwanted children in the world, the ethical choice would be to adopt.... Yes, God told us to be fruitful and multiply but God also told us a lot of things that clear-thinking Jews have rejected over the centuries as sexist, cruel to animals, homophobic or out of touch with modern values." http://blogs.forward.com/the-bintel-brief/117141/0
Personally, I believe that the Torah laws were given for all generations, not simply to be discarded because they clash with modern values and the clear thinking of people who have a better understanding of the laws of the Torah than G-d. But, I suppose, if the woman writing the question would have wanted an answer based upon halacha, she would have directed her question to a rabbi, and not a newspaper.
Somehow, I got on the Forward's email list.
ReplyDeleteI read the email, listing their articles each week, and just judging from the byline of each article, invariably, at least a third of the articles each week make me disappointed in them at best or make my blood boil at worst.