Having passed Simchas Torah and returned to Sefer Bereishis for another round through the Torah, there’s another topic I’d like to pursue before returning to the news of the day. Along with many others, I’ve observed how there are at least three episodes in the Torah (the third one actually being in Parshas Shemos) where one of our patriarchs found a shidduch at a well, namely, Yitzhak and Rivka (though Avraham’s chief servant, Eliezer, played Miles Standish to Yitzhak’s John Alden); Yaakov and Rachel; and Moshe Rabbeinu and Tziporah. These three special shidduchim are made at a well because, as the commentators tell us, water (mayim) is repeatedly used to symbolize the Torah. (See, e.g., Bava Kamma 17a.)
Water, along with air, is the most essential ingredient for our physical life. It is a known fact that people can survive longer without food than without water. Likewise, Torah is the most essential ingredient for our spiritual life. Without Torah, it is all too easy for us to get off track. Thus, the imagery of the well emphasizes the important role of Torah in a good marriage. One need only compare the divorce rates of non-observant Jews vs. observant Jews to see the point.
When I mentioned this idea to Rabbi Avraham Shemesh, who has since moved to the Pacific Coast, he thought it was original to the extent of not having seen it anywhere previously. While the thought of a mere ba’al teshuva, largely self-taught in Torah, coming up with a chiddush (new idea) seemed a bit far-fetched, I decided to try an Internet search using the keywords Torah, water, well, and marriage. What I found using the Brave search engine is quite remarkable:
“In Jewish tradition, water wells are often associated with Torah and marriage. Here are some key insights:
- Meeting at Wells: In biblical times, wells were common gathering places, and it was at a well that Abraham’s servant Eliezer met Rachel, Jacob’s future wife (Genesis 29). This story highlights the importance of wells as meeting places, where people could come together and form connections, including romantic ones.
- Torah as Water: The Talmud (Bava Kama 17a) states, “There is no water except Torah.” This metaphorical connection between Torah and water underscores the life-giving and transformative power of Torah in marriage. Just as water nourishes and sustains physical life, Torah nourishes and sustains spiritual life, enabling couples to build strong and lasting relationships.
- Miriam’s Well: In the Torah, Miriam’s Well was a miraculous source of water that accompanied the Israelites during their 40-year desert journey. This well, named after Moses’ righteous sister Miriam, symbolizes the enduring presence of Torah and its ability to sustain and guide couples through life’s challenges.
- Water Test: In the story of Eliezer and Rachel, the ‘water test’ serves as a sign of compatibility and kindness. When Eliezer asks Rachel for water, and she responds by offering to water his camels as well, it demonstrates her generosity and consideration. This test becomes a model for evaluating potential spouses, highlighting the importance of mutual respect, kindness, and consideration in marriage.
- Marriage Contracts: In Jewish law, a marriage contract (kesubah) is a vital document that outlines the rights and responsibilities of the couple. The Torah emphasizes the importance of providing for one’s spouse, including material needs, emotional support, and spiritual nourishment.”
We can add to this discourse that the Torah not only promotes marriage – it practically mandates it. To begin, G-d says, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate opposite him” (Genesis 2:18), but waits to provide a mate until Adam himself realizes that he needs one after seeing all the lower animals paired male with female. It is further said, “Whoever does not have a wife is without blessing, without joy, without good… without Torah, without a protective wall… without peace… without atonement… without life.” (Bereishis Rabbah 17:2; Yevamos 62b-63a, quoted by Rabbi Eliyahu Attias, Ginat Egoz Bereishis Part I).
As we know, the Torah is valid for all time, but societal attitudes toward matrimony have changed dramatically over the past three millennia. Herein lies the tragedy of our times: Marriage is going out of style. Recent statistics show that 25% of 40-year-olds have never been married, an all-time high. I’m ashamed to include myself in that category, having been single until the age of 59 as the consequence of two fears: fear of assuming responsibility for a family, and fear of making the wrong choice of a wife, based on the observation that my own parents’ marriage fell short of Ozzie and Harriet or Rob and Laura Petrie. (Those who are younger than the Baby Boom generation can look up on the Internet who those couples were – one real, the other fictional.)
More generally, why is marriage no longer fashionable? There are multiple causes, but in essence it comes down to the radical environmentalist belief that the earth is overpopulated and that procreation is practically a crime against society. So it is that every Western society other than Israel has a birthrate well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman on average. (Yet another “justification” for Jew-hatred?) This in turn serves another Leftist goal, namely that in order to have enough workers, we need to import millions of people from the Third World upon whom we can lavish taxpayer-paid benefits, grant amnesty, and sign up to vote for Leftist political candidates in perpetuity.
Specifically, as Yudi Sherman has written in Frontline News, marriage avoidance is part of a depopulation plan designed by Planned Parenthood over 50 years ago and laid out in the Jaffe Memo:
In 1969 an economist named Frederick Jaffe devised a set of proposals to limit U.S. population growth which continue to be put into practice today. Jaffe, who at the time was vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, had created the plan at the request of Bernard Berelson… the head of the Population Council, an organization founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1952 to stem birthrates in the United States.
In 1969, Berelson was looking for ideas.
Jaffe rose to the occasion and responded with what would later become known as the Jaffe Memo. In it, Jaffe proposed a set of actions which he believed could suppress the U.S. birthrate. He compiled them into a table titled “Proposed measures to reduce fertility by universality or selectivity of impact in the U.S.”
Some of those proposed measures were to “encourage increased homosexuality,” “to allow harmless contraceptives to be distributed nonmedically,” to “make contraception truly available and accessible,” and to provide “abortion and sterilization on demand.”
Another measure was titled “Restructure family” and contained two parts: “(a) Postpone or avoid marriage,” and “(b) Alter image of ideal family size.”
These were listed alongside two of Jaffe’s other propositions, which were to drive women into higher education and to convince more women to join the workforce… [both of which reduce the desire to bear children].
Another part of the strategy is using gender confusion ideology to prevent mass births. Whereas men and women naturally breed, masculinizing women and effeminizing men – contravening “gender norms” – is an effective way to stagnate a population.
In addition, an article by Michael Clary on Kings-domain.com cites other proposals, among the scariest of which are “compulsory sterilization of all who have two children except for a few who would be allowed three” and “confine child-bearing to only a limited number of adults.”
The Jaffe Memo has been extraordinarily successful, having a powerful influence on government, media, and nongovernmental organizations alike, as symbolized by President Nixon’s creation of the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future (with Jaffe and Berelson among its members) that issued the 1972 Kissinger report, which concluded that further population growth was not in America’s interest. Implementing the Jaffe plan, the feminist movement has encouraged women to act like men, putting career ahead of family, and has further portrayed men as oversexed cretins, beginning with the character of Al Bundy on the 1980s sitcom Married with Children, and evolving to the point where any form of manhood beyond docility is viewed as “toxic masculinity.”
Women are told that motherhood hurts their careers; a literature search shows growing approval of having only one child, a trend accelerated by women’s increasing education levels. (I myself am an only child.) And for many in this self-centered age, children are an annoyance, a responsibility that interferes with other pursuits, to the point where there are now even reports of people marrying themselves, complete with a formal ceremony.
What we rarely hear about are the career women in their fifties who wake up to being alone at night, with no husband, no children, maybe a pet cat or dog for companionship, and a deficient sense of fulfillment.
Besides the aforementioned considerations, there is a deeper ideological component to the erosion of marriage. The forces of evil take special delight in preventing the performance of mitzvos. For example, when the Bolsheviks first took control of Russia, Lenin attempted to outlaw marriage, but strong popular disapproval caused him to back down. By contrast, nowadays it seems that social media are a far more effective means of propaganda than Pravda.
America now stands at the edge of a precipice. If the moral and social rot that increasingly pervades our society is allowed to proceed unchecked, the ending is clear. Just look at the history of ancient Rome. What began as a republic with at least some degree of civic virtue degraded into an increasingly corrupt empire that eventually collapsed when its subjects, besotted by bread and circuses, were unable to repel the barbarians at the gate.
