160,000 Ingrates—And Counting
Jan 6th, 2011 | By admin | Category: 2010-2011, Archives, E-geress 3rd Article
Last week, in the stream of end-of-the-year special reports, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) made its contribution to the annual hoopla with its demographic figures for 2010. Not surprising, the population continued to grow as it has over the past seven years by a steady rate of 1.8%, and now stands at 7,695,000—and counting.
CBS published its report, complete with the usual breakdowns by ethnic group, age, children per household, etc. Not being of a statistical turn of mind, most of it did not interest me. Except for one extraordinary fact: That most of those new additions to the population of Israel did not seem particularly happy about it. In fact, it was recorded that as they entered the country, they were in tears.
What secret, heinous population transfer could be contained in those numbers? Were these illegal immigrants fleeing poverty and persecution in North Africa arrested as they crossed the border with Egypt who broke down in tears as they were taken away to detention centers to await the determination of their fate? Were they Jews fleeing rising anti-Semitism in Europe or Latin America weeping over having to leave their homelands?
No. In fact, none of the 160,000 additions to Israel’s population have known persecution of any kind, and they come from relatively affluent homes with all the material and educational advantages western society has to offer.
Why, then, the tears?
The answer is, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, that the 160,000 in question do not come from outside the country at all, but from inside. They are all newborns, the children of people already living in Israel, and represent the natural increase by birth rate. And they arrived, as might have been expected—even without reference to population trends—emigrating from the wombs of their mothers into the outside world (in this case, the airspace of the Jewish state) positively bawling and flailing their little arms and legs about as if it were the tragedy of their lives.
Little do they understand or appreciate in the slightest what has actually happened to them. Not the months of anticipation that preceded their birth, nor the highly-trained medical hands which ministered to their birth, nor most of all, the loving embrace of their parents who will take them into their homes and feed and clothe them and give them everything they will need until the day comes when they are able to make their own contribution to the Central Bureau of Statistics annual report.
The display of wailing ingratitude is not their fault. It’s a result of ignorance of their true circumstance. The newborns feel only the pain and discomfort of leaving the warm and cozy home of the past nine months for the chill and glare of the outside and all its alien countenance. They have no idea of the various and beautiful world into which they have entered, albeit against their will, nor the all the possibilities of life unattainable in the womb.
To be sure, not everyone shares this point of view. They point to the suffering and ugliness that the newborn will also find in this world and argue that their mothers and fathers do them no favor by arranging this forced emigration from the pre-birth land of comforting and dependable darkness. Better that, or that they should never have been conceived, than the prospect of life with all its frightening possibilities.
From this perspective, the babies should cry, not only over what they have lost but what they are inheriting, as well, and that the crying should not cease with infancy but should continue beyond it. Indeed, some people do spend their lives crying over their lot, over things they have lost or never had.
But Judaism does not deny that life can be hard. The Torah tells no fairy tale of sunny days without end. From the beginning it is a narrative replete with sin and exile, jealousy and murder, famine, kidnapping, war, old age, death, and every other trial known to mankind. Nor can anyone who makes the most cursory study of post-biblical Jewish history be unaware of the seemingly endless travails of the Jewish people.
Yet, every Jewish birth is seen as a cause for celebration. How does Jewish tradition reconcile the joy of birth with the suffering of life that no one can avoid?
It is a deep subject, but the short answer is contained in a statement of the Sages: In a time of joy, joy; in a time of mourning, mourning.* As human beings we are not asked to shut out our feelings of pain and pretend that everything is always wonderful, for it certainly doesn’t seem to be. We need to be honest about the hard things and be honest with our emotions. What life holds for the 160,000 new citizens of Israel—how much joy, how much sorrow—is as yet unknown. That is up to the Creator of life to decide. For now, our task is to appreciate the miracle of life itself, surely a cause for wonder and joy.
*See Rashi’s commentary to Genesis at the end of Genesis portion.
by Rabbi Yisrael Rutman
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