By Ohad Ezrachi
Population Explosion
The earth today is over populated. If the population growth rate continues, experts say that we will soon arrive at a population explosion, with a shortage of water, energy and food, and exploitation of all the open spaces on the face of the planet.
In Israel, for example, calculations show that if drastic changes are not made in managing water resources and the production of agricultural produce, then within thirteen years, the population will multiply beyond what the land's resources are capable of sustaining.
Anyone that identifies with "living green" and is aware of the rapidly increasing growth of humanity, must ultimately ask themselves if it really is right to bring another child into the world today, and if we can not help but want to have babies, should we have any limits on how large a family to have?
The urge to give birth and multiply is mostly understood as an inner biological urge and the question of - Is it right to bring children into a world that is over populated? is a question that I believe can not be ignored.
Also the choice to bring children into the world is the choice to become a parent. And, parenting is a big chore that along with the positive aspects comes with many challenges.
The Parents Role
Personally I feel that it is the parent's role to encourage their children to have an awareness of the need to bring healing to the world. Every child absorbs values from its parents - both consciously and unconsciously and so it seems to me if more people 'feed' their children awareness for healing the world - along with their mother's milk - there is a greater chance that humanity can heal the damage we have done to our enviroment.
Jewish Wisdom
It is told that a certain Jew came to the Rabbi Chefetz-Chaim with a question about educating his small children, and the Rabbi said to him that he had come too late. The man pondered this and claimed that his children were still very small, how was it possible that it was already too late?
The Rabbi explained to him that he would have needed to start educating his children thirty-five years ago by educating himself first, because there is nothing a child will absorb more than the personal example of the parents.
He added that it doesn't matter which educational ideology the parents preach, rather it is up to them to give a personal example themselves if they want to instill their children with the values they believe in.
From this story we learn that it is our responsibility to educate ourselves first - perhaps even to parent ourselves, even before the sperm meets the egg to form the fabric of life that carries the soul in the body.
The Importance Of The Soul
Every person is born with a unique soul, and in principle there is no connection between the spiritual state of parents and the greatness of a child's soul. An example of this in Judaism is the spiritual state of our father Abraham born of Terakh, who was not very evolved.
Many of us know examples of how in a family completely lacking awareness, sometimes children are born with great and magnificent souls that escape from the environment they grew up in, becoming bringers of light to their generation.
The Soul's Attire
However, between the inner layer of the soul itself and the outer layer of the body there is an additional layer that is sometimes referred to by Kabala as the 'Soul's Attire' and on it parents have a wide influence.
What is the soul's attire responsible for? It is responsible for the reflection of a person's soul in the body, and for how easy or hard it will be for the soul to shine through.
The learned men of the Kabalah say that a child's soul's attire is greatly influenced by the mental and spiritual state of the parents. And therefore, it is within our ability to provide our child's soul with clean, pure and bright attire - through which it will be easy for the soul to shine out to the world, or contrarily, attire that is clouded or awkward, and will hinder the soul shinning through the body.
How do parents influence the purity of their child's soul's attire? It begins with the quality of each parent's relationship with the other and themselves, and how well they truly allow love to unite them.
The wise men of the Kabala have already written that when a couple joins out of true love for each other, they create with that same connection attire for their child's soul. Every time that we really connect heart to heart, without deception or fear, in discovery of love we create attire that is pure, brilliant and clear for the souls of our future children.
Coping With Fertility Treatments
For some, having children comes easily, but one out of every six couples needs medical help in order to bring children into the world. Fertility treatment is not easy and puts a couple in unpleasant situations, physically and sometimes mentally. Where is the soul's attire created when a child is born through In Vitro Fertilization? We don't know how to answer that with complete certainty of course, but perhaps the soul's attire is created during the treatment period, while the couples may face hard emotional tests.
If you are going through In Vitro Fertilisation it is important to go through the process with an open heart and without blame towards your partner.
To remember at all times that the important thing is the inner connection between two people - heart to heart, soul to soul.
Despite the hardness of the situation - will you let love slip away, or learn with every step how to increase your love and go forward with an open heart?
Even during intense fertility treatment a flower on the pillow in the morning, a love letter in the e-mail, or loving, smiling eyes across the table can turn the whole day into paradise and weave golden treads through the soul's attire that we knit with such care for the children we invite into this world.