The Chabadnik at the LGBTQ Pride Parade
Last night, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the Chief Rabbi of Tsfat, honored us neighborhood mothers with a special inspirational class. Here’s a taste of what he said:
Once a man called me and said, “I am a Chabadnik, and I regularly set up a table in Tel Aviv for passersby to have the opportunity to perform the important mitzvah of putting on tefillin. But this Friday will be Tel Aviv’s annual LGBTQ Pride Parade. Should I still set up my tefillin table there?
“Yes, of course!” I told him.
“Afterward the Chabadnik called me to tell me how it had gone. He told me, ‘In the end, I set up my table, and I was surprised to discover that maybe 90% of the men participating were anyway from other countries, they weren’t Jewish at all. But, rest assured, the 10% who were put on tefillin!”
Last year a remarkable statistic was released by the OECD about Israel’s birthrate. Throughout the world, there is a disturbing trend. In wealthier, western countries, like the 36 members of the OECD, the average birth rate is, in almost all cases, less than 2.1 children, meaning that the population can’t sustain itself. There is a single exception: Israel. In Israel, the average birthrate is dramatically higher than any other Western country: 3.11 children.
Among religious as well as secular Israelis, we continue to believe in the crucial importance of having children and building strong families.
And there is a direct connection between the birthrate and the redemption of the Jewish people.
There are families?
There are happy marriages?
There are couples who are loyal to one another?
There are mothers and fathers who continue having children and raising them with love?
There will be Geula.
Wow. Yes I think it was Rabbi Wallerstein that alluded to this point. Very interesting. I love the hopeful tone of the article.
Thank-you Chana Jenny.
Your final sentences gave me the chills.
And you are right. There WILL be Geula (b’karov mamash be”H) and healthy, loyal, loving families are what build us up as a nation in anticipation for that time.
And I love that even among the seemingly non-religious population in Israel it is still quite obvious that there comes a time when one settles down and has children. BH.