Enough Already?: In Defense of Large Families
Today I heard a story that moved me very deeply.
This afternoon, I saw my old friend, Limor, at the playground, and mentioned that I was sorry to have seen the death notice for her father-in-law who passed away several weeks ago.
Limor’s elderly father-in-law had personally lived through most of the Jewish people’s greatest tragedies of the past century. He had survived a series of Nazi labor and concentration camps. He had survived Stalin’s purges and Soviet Russia (as an Orthodox Jew, no less). He had lived through a blood-drenched Intifada and several Israeli wars.
Limor told me that one of her father-in-law’s favorite stories was the following:
One day, the father-in-law was standing at a bus stop as some Orthodox children were getting out of the family’s van nearby. Another man who was waiting at the same bus stop, seeing child after child after child getting out of the van, almost like the famous clowns-in-a-car circus routine, turned to the father-in-law in irritation and said “So many kids! Enough already!”
And Limor’s father-in-law, without missing a beat, turned to the man and said, “It will be “enough already,” sir, when they reach 6 million.”
A lady in London who has 15 children, ka”h, was once “attacked” by someone who said – why do you have so many? it’s irresponsible, etc. She had some of her younger children with her so she lined them up in front of the man and asked him, “which one shall i get rid of? this one? this one?” She made her point very effectively!
I love this! And the story from the commenter above…
I hope I will be that smart one day!
Once someone told me that it was selfish of me to have so many children and that I was not being careful of the earth’s resources. I said that in light of what had happened in the previous generation we were entitled to replenish what we lost. too bad that person found that comment not to their liking and ended up using a four letter word to say that it was a lie! that really left me speechless since I had never personally experienced anti Jewish hatred to that extent.
ain milim, what a perfect, perfect answer! May this father in law’s memory be for a blessing.