GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.
• SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health. By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth,And Low Birth Weight. SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.
In addition to these most famous of Surgeon General Warnings, this week the Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murphey, released a new warning: Parenting, having children, is hazardous to your mental health.
The warning basically highlighted that:
Parents consistently report experiencing high levels of stress compared to other adults According to 2023 data:
• 33% of parents report high levels of stress in the past month compared to 20% of other adults.
My friends, only in America. Only in America, can the chief doctor of the United States warn that parenting can be hazardous to your health. But I must tell you that I think while the Surgeon General means well, because he wants to make more funding available to help parents, I believe it is totally contrary to the Torah’s point of view to frame having children as a health risk.
To be sure, parenting is not easy. As parents know, having children is most definitely stressful. But, in the big picture, it is an overwhelming blessing by G-d! Imagine for a moment a person got an amazing job, or someone gifted them an incredibly beautiful Rolls Royce- is that stressful? Of course there are elements of stress, but in the stress is subsumed in the overwhelming blessing and appreciation that we have for the item! To lump having children in with smoking and drinking is a horrible perspective.
This week’s parsha opens with one of the great moral clarion calls. Re’eh Anochi Nosein LIfneichem HaYom Bracha Uklala- Behold says the Torah, I am placing before you today two paths. A path of blessing and a path of curses. The Torah here seems to be articulating the most basic and important of all religious values which is free choice.
The Torah is saying G-d has given us free choice and exhorting us to have free choice. Reject determinism, reject fatalism, remember the power of your destiny is in your hand. However, a famous question that the commentaries are bothered by is: What does “Re’eh”- See” have to do with anything? It should be that we should know this fact or Zakhor- remember this fact as we go through life. Why Re’eh- what are we being called upon to visualize? I would like to make the following suggestion. The Torah in this week’s parsha is not teaching us that we have free choice. The concept of free choice is the very first lesson in the entire Torah. It lies in the story of Adam and Eve, Cain and Able and every single mitzvah that the Torah enumerates. So what is the Torah asking of us here? Its saying that we must choose the perspective we have on the decisions we make in life. Dont just see Torah and Mitzvos as a series of decisions that we must make but rather see them as blessings and curses. Visualize them as blessings and curses. The Torah here is not commanding us or teaching us that we have free choice- but it is commanding us on the perspective we have when we make free choice decisions.
Dont view them as cold clinics of ethical dilemma or religious challenge but when we look at the choices and challenges G-d places before us see them as blessings and curses. This week’s parsha is not about bechira- but about the perspective we must have as we make bechira decisions.
Which brings me back to our Surgeon General’s warning. Only in a society that places such a premium on individualism and consumerism- can having children be viewed through the same lens as alcohol and smoking. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Parenting is most definitely stressful- but Re’eh- look at it through its true prism. Its an overwhelming blessing. From the perspective of American consumerism, children just make demands on you. You have to provide for them. You have to take care of them when they’re hurt. They’re expensive. Sure, every once is a while we get nachas. But at the end of the day, its very stressful. Judaism says- sure its stressful- but each child, each Jewish neshama, each Jewish family is infinitely more precious than the fanciest rolls Royce or the greatest job! And no one would ever issue a Surgeon Generals warning about that!
I want to conclude with a story: During the Holocaust, an elderly, wealthy Yid said to Reb Chaim Kreisworth zt’l,
“Tomorrow, I will be sent to the gas chambers r”l. I will give you my bank account information. If you survive this war, please seek out my children and provide them with the information so they can withdraw the money from the account.” Reb Chaim Kreisworth survived but couldn’t find that man’s children.
Twenty years later, Reb Chaim was talking to a poor person in a beis medresh in Yerushalayim, and Reb Chaim realized that he was the offspring he was looking for. Reb Chaim gave him the account number and the name of the Swiss bank that was given to him by the poor person’s father.This man was so poor he didn’t even have money to travel to Switzerland. But he borrowed money and made the trip. Having accrued interest all these years, the value of the account increased. The bank informed him that the account contained a fantastic sum of $30,000,000.
Reb Chaim Kreisworth commented, “He was wealthy for so many years, only he didn’t know it.” Reb Chaim Kreisworth explained, “We are also extremely wealthy; we have millions. We have the Torah and mitzvos. Our fortune is endless; only we aren’t aware of what we have.”
This is the mitzvah of parsha Re’eh. Realize what you have. Realize that you may think you’re poor and you have all of these responsibilities and challenges, obligations and mitzvos- but in reality see them for what they are- incredible overwhelming bracha. The reason we see things as burdensome in life is because we don’t see them for what they really are. Incredible source of blessings. The mitzvah in this weeks parsha is not bechria, its not free choice, but the lens, the perspective, the glasses of free choice. And this is a lesson I think we need to teach our Surgeon General.