Week Two: An Introduction to the Obligation of Procreation

Even HaEzer is where Shulchan Aruch discusses marriage and related topics. Shulchan Aruch does emphasize the importance of having children, but Aruch HaShulchan goes on at much greater length, with no explicit reason or evidence for why. Let’s see where he takes us.

Torah Expressions of the Importance of Having Children

AH notes the Biblical obligation is expressed twice, in the original creation of humanity, 1;28, and again in Parshat Noach, 9;1, according to Rashi to make clear these words were first a blessing and then also a commandment. Besides, Yeshayahu was told (45;18) that Hashem did not create the world to be desolate, lashevet yetzarah, He created it to be settled.

As if those sources need supplementation, AH points to Yirmiyahu 29, where the prophet instructed Jews exiled to Bavel to marry and have children, to emphasize that exile does not excuse them from God’s commands. The connection to lashevet leads Yevamot 62a to require a father to have more children should his first ones pass away, because he still needs to fulfill the mitzvah (sadly, the Holocaust gave us examples of people who lost their first families, and had to rebuild). Berachot 10a thinks the story of Chizkiyahu’s illness, where Yeshayahu tells him he is going die, started with the king’s refusal to have children, because he knew they would be evil (as Menasheh was).

[The Gemara’s assumption of Yeshayahu’s response, which mori ve-rabi R. Lichtenstein z”l cited often, was ba-hadei kavshei de-rachmana lama lach, loosely, it’s not your business how Hashem runs the world. R. Lichtenstein thought the Gemara meant to remind us not to try to outthink God, that if Hashem sets up an obligation, we must fulfill it.]

Yevamot 63a highlights the two verses of Bereshit 9;6-7. The first bans murder, because humans are created in the image of God, and the next commands people to be fruitful and multiply. The Gemara infers that one who does not have children is similar to one who commits murder and reduces the Divine image in the world. In doing so, the person also costs the Jewish people some aspect of the Divine Presence, because Hashem promised Avraham, 17;7, to be God for him and his descendants (so the fewer descendants…).

When We Protest Much

Allow me a brief pause to note how many overlapping issues there are here already. Before reading this paragraph, I might have said there is a Biblical mitzvah to have children and left it at that. (If I knew Shulchan Aruch, I’d know neglecting the obligation reduces the demut, although not the source of the idea).

AH shows us it is a Biblical mitzvah, with an added berachah from God, with later parts of Tanach adding many points of emphasis of the mitzvah: making clear it is central to God’s goals for the world, having fulfilled the mitzvah isn’t good enough if those children pass away, God forbid; making clear Jews in exile cannot use it as an excuse to refrain; and it can be a reason to be taken from this world (as it would have been with Chizkiyahu), and to lessen God’s connection to the Jewish people.

I suggest it shows this is a deep value, aside from the specific legal definitions of the obligation. Men are to have children (we will discuss women in se’if 2), a legal obligation as well as an overarching value, part of building God’s world.

Marriage, Too

None of what we have seen so far explains why this needs the context of marriage. When AH turns his attention to that issue, I would have expected him to explain it in ways related to having children, his topic until now. He could have said it’s better for children to grow up in a two parent family, as commonly assumed today, or it makes lineage easier to track, a concern both in terms of avoiding disallowed relationships and also to know our parents, for the mitzvot of kbbud and mora, honor and fear.

Instead, his reasons articulate the value of marriage itself. In Yevamot 62b, R. Tanchum in the name of R. Chanilai adduces verses to demonstrate the Torah’s assumption that a man without a wife cannot be fully happy, have full blessing, goodness, peace, Torah, or protection. Bereshit 5;2 says Hashem created humans as man and woman, a unit, meaning a man without a wife is half a human [and vice verse, although in AH’s time, I think the idea a woman might choose to remain single was fairly foreign].

A daf later, Yevamot 63b,R. Chama b. Chanina thinks Mishlei 18;22—matza isha matza tov, etc., a man who has found a wife has found good, and will reap goodwill from God—tells us marriage atones. AH attributes it to the man having a legitimate outlet for his sexual urges, removing (or lessening) his improper sexual thoughts, connecting him to his wife, whom Hashem designated to be an ezer, a help, Bereshit 2;18.

A se’if that well demonstrates a concern of mine, the error in thinking of halachah as a purely legal system. To introduce this central Jewish institution, in a book on Jewish law, AH mixes pure law with exhortations of various and unclear levels of obligation. When we need to tease apart the aspects of a case to answer a specific question, the provenance of each idea becomes important. For much of life, it can remain fuzzy, mixing homiletics with exhortation with strict law.

Women Are Not Obligated to Procreate

Yevamot 65b told us the general view of this mitzvah noticed how God linked having children to ve-chivshuha, conquering the world, exempting women, who do not conquer. [Does that mean that a future Sanhedrin could change this ruling, if women today do participate in conquest? A thorny question, with many other factors, but another good example of the openness of halachah to more options, in theory, than we might realize.]

However, the same page in Yevamot also offers a more clearly male oriented verse, Hashem’s having called Ya’akov to be fruitful and multiply, 35;11, in the singular, he had to have children, not his wives. AH mentions in passing that marriage and bearing children is more natural to women, perhaps another reason Hashem saw no need to obligate them. However, Rema in par. 13 reported the view among some (including Rambam) that a woman should not stay single, lest she be suspected of promiscuity.

In this case, AH himself makes the point I would have, that’s purely factual, if a woman will not be suspected of anything, Tosefta Yevamot 8 explicitly allows her to choose to remain single. His se’if 4 also completely rejects a view that women are included in la-shevet, the need to populate the world, even if not the specific mitzvah of piryah ve-rivyah.

But They Must Have the Opportunity

The reason those others thought so is that the Gemara requires freeing a hatzi shifchah, a woman in servitude who becomes half free (such as if two partners owned her rights, and one freed her). Because she cannot marry anyone, and Hashem created the world to be populated, we force the remaining master to free her as well. AH says that is because this value is important enough that all women should have the opportunity to bear children, but do not have the requirement.

To close on a positive note, se’if five asserts a kelal gadol, an important general principle, anyone who has children is performing a mitzvah, including women, including non-Jews, a reason for a surprising rule, a non-Jew who has children and then converts to Judaism will be considered to have fulfilled his obligation of piryah ve-rivyah by having had those (non-Jewish) children.

Much more to say. I think we’ll take next week to make more progress on this siman, then move on to Choshen Mishpat, pick up our cycle. Meanwhile, we have a solid reminder of the importance of marriage and children in halachah’s view of a Jewish life.

Adapted from articles previously published on Torah Musings