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What are your opinions about having children when you only have barely enough money to pay for them or perhaps not enough money at all. Is it better not to have kids then to bring them into a world where they will go hungry? Where do you draw the line? At one child, two? four? eight?
Sources are always appreciated.
oh man…. cant wait to see how this blows up..
I’m pretty sure Hashem has enough money in his bank account to support all my children.
Poverty and Malnutrition is a big problem in many Charedi communities especially in Israel.
It is halachicly prohibited to refrain from having children due to financial considerations.
zsdad: That is a boldfaced lie. Show me ANY widespread “malnutrition” in ANY Chareidi community.
Children bring blessing to the home. quite the opposite of your suggestion, if you need money, have children, who will send the bracha.
zsdad: That is a boldfaced lie. Show me ANY widespread “malnutrition” in ANY Chareidi community.
If there isnt any malnutrition why give to Kupat Hair???
“widespread”, he said. -95
Perhaps because there isn’t malnutrition because folks give to Kupat Hair. You lied and said malnutrition exists.
thegra:
you should be zoche to 8 kids,
no yeshiva can turn you down because you have no money
emuna and bitachon, you have the kids and Hashem will take care. I have yet to see jewish children dropping dead of starvation.
Bury your hand in the sand and think that malnutrition isnt a problem
no yeshiva can turn you down because you have no money
They can and they do
This is even worse than ????!!!
???? only wanted to kill the males, while you want to kill all!
??”? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?? ???
bury your ‘head’. So goes the saying.
ZD, where? There may indeed be poverty, but there are enough chessed organizations that I highly doubt there is actual malnutrition.
Pesach happened because of this question!
Amram asked this question, he said “Why should I have children if they will be thrown into the Nile?” And Miriam told him “Pharaoh is killing the boys, you are going to kill the girls too?” Amram listened to her and Moshe Rabbeinu came out of that.
Thegra:
I have a source: Adam and Chava had children before he started earning a living.
And in the Midbar, our antecedents lived and had children for 40 years.
Our job is to live and have children. Hashem gives us the parnasa.
Among our species, the optimal child bearing years are about 30 years before the peak earning years. If we waited until we could afford families, we would become extinct (as, by the way, appears to be happening in many secular cultures).
Having no money is a nuisance, but one can manage. Medicaid covers most medical bills. Assuming you don’t plan on home schooling, you can usually find some school if one is still poor when the kids reach school age. The more frum the school, the easier to work a deal if you are poor. It’s been a VERY long time since the typical poor person in our community had a one room room apartment (back then, the parent’s bed typically had curtains – and no one else had a bed). Especially in “blue” states, there are plenty of welfare programs in addition to programs such as “Food stamps” and “WIC.”
Remember that this is the first time in history where a major public health issue among the poor is obesity. Poverty today more often means having fewer luxuries than the neighbors. Note how people lived 100 years ago (tiny housing, no private cars, no air conditioning, often no central heating, no antibiotics, severe discrimination against orthodox Jews, and if you lived in Europe, frequent pogroms with the worst about to happen), and don’t whine.
It should also be noted that the marginal cost of each children is quite low. Schools (both ours, as well as universities) pay attention to family size, Adding one more place at the table costs little. And by the time kids reach middle school, they probably are doing a fair amount of work (especially in poor families).
???? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ????
(didn’t see popa’s post)
Chessed organizations cannot raise the kinds of funds needed to feed large families
Go to KRM yourself and try buying for 8 kids. How much is the food $500 a week? More?
If you use $500 a week, thats $2000 a month
If you need for 1000 families , thats $2 Million dollars A MONTH. that is alot of money to raise
Only the government or by working can you raise that kind of funds.
🙂
“I have never stepped over any corpses in a Yeshiva lunchroom,” Rav Avigdor Miller, when asked that Yeshivos don’t feed enough.
Thegra, there is an obligation to have children. If you think paupers are exempted, YOU need to find the source. (Someone once tried to do that here, and needed to completely misrepresent a Gemara to do so.)
Ok, ZD, you’re talking US. I guess you’ve never heard of WIC and food stamps. I know plenty of poor people in the US, and none are malnourished.
Israel is worse than US, but Ive been to their houses in US
And you can tell when people are emaciated , the portions are smaller and the children are hungry. They dont broadcast it that they are hungry, but the signs are there if you look and they wont admit it of course.
Thegra
One day you will be able to show your kids this thread and say thanks to __________ I decided to have you. Imagine owing your life to some random forum poster.
DY – you live in a very small daled amos.
ZD never said the word widespread, he shouldn’t have to defend it. I have been told by friends living there that there IS a very real problem with hunger and malnutrition but I did not ask for numbers or community names. I just know that if it was someone else who brought it up here, it wouldn’t have been jumped on.
Any one who thinks that there is food in everyones fridge because WIC exists is naive. WIC is for people who have children 5 and under and are low enough income. There are huge numbers of families who are not low income, by definition, but have no many left after expenses and their fridges are EMPTY. They’re children have garbage for lunch and they are HUNGRY.
Wish it wasn’t so, I know I do.
As far as the OP is concerned, if Hashem wants you at poverty level, you will be at poverty level. You can have 3 more kids and you will find yourself with just enough added income to be just where you were with three less kids. The children are a brocha and they will bring brocha.
zsdad said quote “Malnutrition is a big problem in many Charedi communities”. That is a lie.
And food stamps provides a lot more food than WIC. And tzedakah orgs (Tomchei Shabbos and many many more) fill any other void.
It is halachicly prohibited to refrain from having children due to financial considerations.
Um… Source?
DaasYochid – It may be a mitzva to have children, but it is not technically more than a mitzvas asei. One does not have to turn himself into a pauper for a mitzvas asei. Why should this mitzvas asei be different? And even if you give a satisfactory reason, that should at least not obligate one who already has a son and a daughter to have more children if he cannot afford to.
And why is it fair to the kids if they will be coming into a family with no money. Maybe ask them for their opinion.
And food stamps provides a lot more food than WIC. And tzedakah orgs (Tomchei Shabbos and many many more) fill any other void.
That is true in theory only. There is a limit to what many families receive, and many families are too high income for food stamps but are under budget by hundreds or thousands a month.
And why is it fair to the kids if they will be coming into a family with no money. Maybe ask them for their opinion.
Of course. Or why is it fair to bring them into the world at all, since we pasken that ??? ?? ???? ??? ????.
abra cadabra (Joseph), the only lie I saw was this: “It is halachicly prohibited to refrain from having children due to financial considerations.”
I personally know people who were told by their Rav they can use birth control because of their finances. My brother told me that R’ Henoch Shachar, who is a major posek in Lakewood, told him that it’s a big problem in Lakewood that people assume it’s never allowed.
Obviously there are conditions. Having a boy and a girl already makes it easier. But to say it’s never allowed is absolutely false.
WIC and food stamps do not exist so that you can have as many children as you possibly can, and let others support and feed them. That is disgusting. However, Hashem does want us to be fruitful and it’s a huge mitzvah & bracha to have children. Better take from tzedakas and other Jewish charitable organizations, go to school to get a better job etc. but to say ” yeah have as many as you can and let the American worker pay for it”, to me is condemnable. ( coming from a family of tax payers)
WIC and food stamps do not exist so that you can have as many children as you possibly can, and let others support and feed them. That is disgusting.
Actually, I think that the fact that you are reducing children to a monetary decision is kind of disgusting.
G-d has enough money to support my kids, and the fact He chooses to do so with your tax money is because you are too cheap to do what you should and give it voluntarily and happily.
Ok you live your life that way, an expect everyone to take care of your life and feed your children and pay for your food. I’m sure that’s what Hashem wants.
Take care of my children? I’m sure G-d can take care of His children just fine.
You live your life your way, and look down on people for bringing children into the world, and I’m sure you’ll very smug and proud of yourself. And you’ll probably keep voting for the people who make you pay more and more of your income to me also, while I vote against them.
People who think like you should be on birth control; society cannot survive if ideas like that are being passed on.
?????? ???? ????? ???? ??? ????
And notice, my fine apikorsim, that the value that chazal warn us about is that they will bring forth torah. G-d doesn’t need you to make money for him, he’s got plenty and to spare. He needs you to serve him and to learn his torah.
You really are quite fine apikorsim.
In my little village of 50,000 (according to US Dept 0f Stare we are settlers) there is a large majority of haredi, and a good chunk of those are kollel people. When the local kupa appeals in shuls, before the yomim tovim, they document cases they serve where there was no milk and no bread in the house at the time of checking. Hunger does not need to be constant to be a danger. Episodic want can do enough damage, and as of today the Kupa was 50k and change NIS short on their pesach target of kol dichfin.
Zdad & Morahrach,
Did you have a CPA audit your financial position and you budget to determine whether you are eligible to have children? In conjunction with the psychological workup you most likely avoided that, according to your Shira you should have had.
Popa, I usually respect most of your posts but you’ve totally lost me here. When did I say don’t have kids???? Please show me! It’s with huge Mazel that we are able to procreate and make more and more beautiful children. I said dont rely on the American government to support you and pay for every aspect of your life as you continue to have children. The only reason I even said anything is because someone’s roomed WIC and food stamps. There are tzedaka and Jewosh organizations that have money specifically to help Jews feed and care for there family. Of course if you have children and are eligible you should take the benefits that are coming to you. I never said otherwise. You jumped on me for no reason. But to have in mind that you should have kids have kids have kids and it doesn’t matter that you don’t have money for food or clothing because the gov will take money from those who pay taxes to support you isn’t a correct mindset.
And bar sharttya, please don’t preach to us whilst you sit on your computer against the gedolai hadors words.
Maybe I misunderstood your point. But I think it is a mitzva to have children, and it is not relevant how you are going to support them at all. And once you have them, if you need to take the benefits, you take them.
And I think that is the correct mindset, and I challenge you to find me a source that one is supposed to think about he is going to support kids before having them.
The question of whether one should work or not is a separate question and is the topic of other (most?) threads on this board.
I’m fine with people having lots of kids, even if they know they’ll rely sometimes on public assistance, as long as they plan to work a reasonable amount. Some people work but their jobs just don’t pay that much. That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to have as many kids as they can physically and psychologically handle. If they have no income and no plan to have an income, that’s another story.
What really bothers me, though, is the widespread custom in Israel among charedim that the couple’s family not only pay for the wedding, but actually *buy an apartment* for the couple! I’ve heard this really drives many parents into desperation, reducing them to shnorring door to door in America, and putting them under unbearable strain. Yet there’s no halachic other good reason for this custom! Let your kids rent; it’s not the end of the world.
Doesn’t the Shulchan Aruch list a famine as a time when relations are forbidden? (Not sure, but I seem to remember that.)
yytz: So this has nothing to do with kids; it just has to do with working.
truthsharer: Yes, I think the gemara says that. And what is the reason there? Is there an application here?
I think not having money and a famine are sort of different…
“Actually, I think that the fact that you are reducing children to a monetary decision is kind of disgusting.”
+1
truthsharer:
Yeah, that’s when people were actually starving to death en masse. Today that doesn’t happen.
truthsharer:
Yeah, that’s when people were actually starving to death en masse. Today that doesn’t happen.
Actually, I think the reason there is because you shouldn’t be doing enjoyable things while people are starving, and it is not about having children.
I’m looking for the sources. My bar ilan is down so I’m having to do some manual learning. It’s in the first perek of taanis I think.
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