Blessed Families or Problematic Ones?
"Behold, the people of the Children of Israel are more and multiplying than we. Come, let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply"
Pharaoh, King of Egypt (circa 2362)
"We should encourage families with three children to have a fourth and families with two children to have a third, but not families with nine children to have a tenth because this is a formula for poverty and is common to the Third World."
Avraham Poraz, Israels Minister of the Interior (5763)
(Poraz is the one who sent congratulations to the Dutch government for banning shechita in Holland.)
In this weeks Torah portion the Egyptian ruler declares a state of emergency because Jewish mothers are giving birth to six children at a time. Poraz echoes the concern when it comes to religious families, and publicly admitted at a meeting with the members of the Foreign Press Association that the government cuts in child support payments were specifically aimed at the religious sector which his Shinui Party is battling on every front.
The truth is that the large "blessed families" in the religious sector are the best bulwark Israel has against the demographic problem posed by the population growth in the Arab sector. The time has come for people like Poraz and his Shinui partners to put aside their hatred of Torah and encourage Jews to have more and more children in order to guarantee the future of Israel as a Jewish state forever.