Moshe, Herzl and the Single Genius

Marriage and family occupy a central place in post-Holocaust Judaism. Already ensconced by halakha and tradition, the loss of about one-third of our people in only a few years led to an almost unspoken consensus that we all have a mission to bring as many Jewish children as reasonably possible into the world. It is accordingly extremely rare to find dedicated Jewish singles who don’t see getting married and starting a Jewish family as being at the top of their agendas. And yet it is not at all clear that this should always be the case. At the very least, someone who fails in this goal should not automatically decide that they have been denied their greatest possible contribution to the Jewish people.

Even assuming one’s potential children and their descendants turn out well (which is often not obvious), marriage and children represent an opportunity cost. Given a finite number of hours in a day, the more one is involved with one’s family, the less time one has to benefit others outside of the home. Ideally, we marrieds try to balance the two, but balance automatically means a cost on both sides.

That children are not always preferable to other accomplishments is encapsulated in a famous discussion of Rashi about the offspring (toledot) of Noach. Rashi ponders whether this refers to his children or his good deeds. In other words, even if we have children, living one’s life properly means that their significance may be trumped by the weight of our actions.

In looking for a precedent, we don’t have to reach very far. In parashat Yitro, we encounter a Biblical anomaly seldom discussed: Moshe’s sending away Tziporah and their children on his return to Egypt. True, the midrash offers a likely explanation that Aharon dissuaded Moshe from adding another family to the difficult Jewish experience in Egypt. But given the tradition that Moshe soon separated from his wife once again – and this time for good – separation seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Hence a better strategy to arrive at an explanation may be to look for something more general in Moshe’s life that prompted it. Here too, there is no need to look far. Tradition roots Moshe’s permanent separation from Tziporah in the need to subsequently commune with God at all times, something that other prophets – like Miriam and Aharon – do not have. True, as this suggests, Moshe was sui generis and certainly an act that we are not expected to follow. But he is not the only one who followed this path of choosing other accomplishments over family.

Many of the last two centuries’ greatest and most prolific Jewish lights had no children. Some of them had almost no marriages either. To mention only a few, R. Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg (Siredei Esh), R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook, R. Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Nechama Leibowitz were all childless. All of these thought leaders brought tremendous gifts to the Jewish people – so tremendous that it is hard to imagine that we would have been better off if they had children instead. Nor is this limited to Jews. It is well known that many of the world’s greatest philosophers and artists had no family or a very limited connection to it, if they did.

And if all of these examples were not enough, it is worthwhile looking to the founder of the modern Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl. He was no Moshe. But like Moshe, he succeeded in an unlikely campaign to bring Jews back to the land of Israel. And, also like Moshe, he was only able to do this by almost completely ignoring his family.

Perhaps this is why Yitro good-naturedly suggested that Moshe should have delegated some of his workload to others, something which Abrabanel tells us Moshe did not actually accept! But even if he did, that simply allowed him to survive, not to devote any time to his family (although the thought that it might do that may well have been one of Yitro’s motivations). Indeed, Herzl’s famous micromanagement and inability to delegate were presumably largely responsible for his early demise.

Granted, marriage and parenthood usually enrich a person and enhance their understanding of people and the world more generally. Time taken away from one’s main occupation improves the quality of that occupation even if it necessarily takes away from the time one can spend on it. But that equation depends greatly on the circumstances; moreover it still does not create more hours in the day.

Hence, if forced to choose (and within the stipulations of halakha), it is not clear that one should always choose children over other accomplishments. More to the point, when circumstances make the choice for us and prevent us from getting married or having children, it should hardly be a cause for mourning. More healthily, we should take it as a sign that God is more interested in our accomplishments. As with children, it is not up to us to determine events but to use our best efforts to maximize them.