Give Me Children Or I Shall Die!
Tuerk, Catherine
"Give Me Children Or I Shall Die!" And Hannah Wept Infertility, Adoption and the Jewish Couple by Michael Gold Jewish Publication Society, 198a 251 pp, $19.95 Reviewed by Catherine Tuerk Hannah...
...Infertile couples have a problem that cannot be solved just by trying harder...
...However, Gold cautions that this does not mean that anything goes...
...Like Michal, many infertile couples are made to feel guilty about their problem...
...Neither Sarah nor Rachel nor Hannah was passive when she failed to conceive...
...Then they become anxious about their emotional responses, fearful that they are overreacting or that they are emotionally unstable...
...When a couple has become emotionally drained or financially depleted, it's time to end the quest for biological offspring, Gold says...
...He asks, "Am I not more devoted to you than ten sons...
...Gold makes it clear that Jews should not look at infertility as "God's will...
...Genesis 30:2...
...The reaction to miscarriage is often further despair...
...Despite a few minor medical inaccuracies, Gold's book is a unique and helpful addition to the already vast literature on infertility...
...Unfortunately, modern-day Freudians do not dispel this self-blame...
...Thus we have Rachel crying to her husband, not to God, "Give me children or I shall die...
...He stresses that Jewish communal agencies should do more to help Jewish couples who want to adopt and to help women who wish to consider placing a baby for adoption...
...Are we not trying to take advantage of the infertile couple's sense of desperation...
...Infertile couples frequently face serious decisions about their treatment choices...
...No Jewish ritual provides an outlet for mourning such a loss...
...Gold deals with another important emotional issue that is faced by many couples who conceive: pregnancy loss...
...Judaism does not teach that life begins at conception...
...Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and master it" (Genesis 1:28) is the first of the 613 commandments (mitzvol) in the Torah...
...Why should we expect infertile couples to assume more responsibility than anyone else in caring for such children...
...Infertility puts a special strain on the marital relationship...
...Because he is helpless, he feels powerless and responds defensively and cruelly, "Can I take the place of God, who has denied you the fruit of the womb...
...Jewish law treats an early miscarriage as a non-event, Gold notes...
...His own rabbinic preference is to permit some halachic leniencies for the sake of fulfilling the mitzvah of procreation...
...A Conservative rabbi, Gold describes a number of halachic viewpoints on the ethics of new reproductive technologies...
...Should we not encourage people who have children and want more of them to think about adopting a special needs child...
...They respond first by becoming frustrated and upset...
...Genetic manipulation to cure a deadly disease like Tay-Sachs would be ethically justified by Judaism," he writes...
...He has no desire to take away a woman's freedom to choose, but I think he is right in observing that many young people who choose to abort rather than to place a baby for adoption have no idea that so many childless people would love to provide wonderful parenting...
...Genetic manipulation to choose the sex of a baby would not be justified...
...However, the couple usually experiences severe grief...
...He makes a case for remaining childless or a "family of two...
...Rabbi Michael Gold has felt the pain, and in his book, And Hannah Wept: Infertility, Adoption and the Jewish Couple, he provides a Jewish perspective on the emotional, medical and societal issues surrounding infertility...
...Hannah's husband Elkanah sees her weep and feels rejected because he cannot console her...
...on the contrary, for the first forty days an embryo is considered 'mere water.' " Although Gold's message is sympathetic, he seems to think that miscarriage is emotionally easier at earlier stages in pregnancy...
...Individual coping styles are different and tend to fall along gender lines...
...Gold blends a perceptive analysis of sources in the Bible, the Talmud and other rabbinic literature with his compelling personal experiences to show how Judaism can offer emotional support to infertile couples and can provide guidelines to help them make decisions...
...On the one hand, many righteous men and women (e.g., Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah) bore the anguish of infertility for many years...
...I doubt that the disappointment can be measured in days pregnant rather than in years invested in the dream of having children...
...Judaism teaches that doctors are commanded to heal, and the acquisition of medical skills and knowledge is a gift from God...
...Whether the treatment be drugs or surgery, artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization, Jewish tradition would permit its use...
...For the nearly 20 percent of married couples who have known the pain of infertility, this will not sound melodramatic...
...Gold comments that unlike Jacob, "Elkanah at least tried to comfort her and proclaim his love for her...
...at the same time, "closing the womb" was sometimes God's punishment for a sin, as it was in the case of King David's wife Michal...
...They often attribute infertility to unconscious conflicts about mothering...
...Infertile couples are often made to feel guilty because they don't want to adopt a "special needs" child, says Gold...
...She is desperately asking her man to help her...
...He writes, "Jewish tradition has never accepted passivity in the face of human suffering...
...Infertile couples should be assured that there is no evidence that being a bad person or having unresolved conflicts plays a role in their fate...
...Rachel cried to Jacob, "Give me children or I shall die...
...Himself the father of two adopted children, Gold explains that "biology is secondary in Judaism...
...And Hannah Wept Infertility, Adoption and the Jewish Couple by Michael Gold Jewish Publication Society, 198a 251 pp, $19.95 Reviewed by Catherine Tuerk Hannah wept and would not eat...
...Women often become more outwardly emotional, while men tend to deny their own sadness, expending their emotional energies toward trying to keep their wives from becoming upset...
...Gold reviews the Bible's ambivalence about the reasons for infertility...
...Catherine Tuerk is a Washington, D.C., psychiatric nurse therapist who counsels many couples coping with infertility...
...Judaism teaches that we should not view the raising of children as the only important role in marriage or in the world...
...For these couples, it's a comfort to know that procreation is a priority for God also...
Vol. 13 • December 1988 • No. 9
