Question: We’re commanded to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, and Jewish life is centered around the family. My daughter has a chronic skin condition that makes her look very unsightly. Although she is already 28, she has not actively sought a mate (largely considering of her condition), and fears that whether she consciously puts all her day into her business and volunteer work, and forgoes dating, she’d be willfully neglecting that commandment. In fact, she feels that she is evil considering of that. I tell her that it’s not as whether she has decidedly rejected the prospect of a family, of marriage and children; but to no avail. What would you say?

Answer: The commandment to marry and have children has a number of components. On the one hand, the Torah advises a man (although, that specific advice is not binding) to break away from his parents and attach himself to his wife (see Gen. 2: 24). One might conclude from that that most, or perhaps all, human beings will only find full happiness and fulfillment in marriage.  A man (though, according to tradition, not a woman) is actually commanded to marry and have children (at least one boy and one girl) through the passage

“be fruitful and multiply”. But there seems to be a further declaration of God’s intent for the world in Isaiah (45:18), where all His creatures are told that creation requires our participation in filling the earth.

The subtle distinctions within these various passages has allowed God fearing public all through the generations to find a variety of expressions of God’s will. Obviously, the greatest opportunities for happiness will likely be found within marriage, but there have always been individuals, responding to strange circumstances, who have found fulfillment, and even greatness, in a more solitary existence.

Therefore, I would propose that your daughter can certainly not be considered evil in any way for considering living her life without her own family. It seems fair that she should manufacture some effort to find a husband – there are, indeed, special young men out there who themselves have experienced challenges in life, and who would be additional sensitive to the fundamental aspects of life—  rather than what’s superficial. But whether that somehow doesn’t work out, your daughter is fully justified in looking for meaning and success in other fields.

I wish you both the very best in that!

Rabbi Boruch Clinton

Original post by ATR