Parshah Moment
Children's Math

How long since you had to look inside a math book? Because here's a question that might have got by you:

A down payment on a home costs $5,000.

Housing one brain-damaged man for a year costs $20,000.

How many families lose homes to mental retardation?

This extra-credit teaser comes from a Nazi-endorsed schoolbook (currency adjusted). It was the first step in curing society of the unneeded. Shortly after, with the country now ready, beautiful killings ("euthanasia" in Latin) began.

It is comforting to think that Nazis were demons rather than humans. But following their defeat you couldn't find an anti-Semite west of the Elbe. When questioned by Allied troops the mayors around Dachau professed no hard feelings to the Jews. They were not demons; they were people who legalized euthanasia.

Euthanasia makes sense. The animal kingdom, Greek culture and Darwinism all lend their credence. The only one withholding credence is a pesky verse in our parshah forbidding murder and suicide, "for in the image of G-d I have created you." An absurd abstraction in the face of home ownership.

What is this "image" of an allegedly formless being?

Who are you to tell me how to spend my money?

How to run our affairs?

You're nothing but a stranger amongst us.

Do you know the suffering of caring for this person?

Must we foot your bill? Who asked you anyway?

Many if not most Jews of Germany did not see themselves as bearers of any message. Regardless, the messenger with a bad message must be liquidated.

It seems so foreign: jackboots and German shepherds, J’s on Jewish stores, marches in the night.

It is so foreign, so unreal, so out of our context, so un-American.

True, it is also the very opposite of what this country was built upon. But...

Nothing ever happens in a vacuum.

The juxtaposition is so stark that the Talmud equates the lack of procreation with murder and spilling blood... Both at some level deny the G-dliness, the holiness, the sacredness of the human soul and form Always an abstract, vague undercurrent feeds into, and later evolves into, bold statements and policies. Just after this verse about the murder-image thing, follows the verse to be fruitful and multiply. The verse is repetitive and the juxtaposition so stark that the Talmud equates the lack of procreation with murder and spilling blood. Both at some level deny the G-dliness, the holiness, the sacredness of the human soul and form.

Logic it makes. If human image is divine then it must be furthered and multiplied. If it is not multiplied, then the sanctity is diminished -- and on some level -- questioned.

The highest birthrate in the world, I am told, was in the Jewish Displaced Persons Camps of Europe following the war -- a courageous and bold revocation and retort to the Final Solution.

My father was once challenged by a woman, "But I want my girls to have the good things in life, dance classes and party dresses. You can’t give them these things when you have too many kids."

"Would your kids prefer," asked my father, "to have one sister and four party dresses or two sisters and two party dresses?"

I have heard it said that having children could tie up free money.

To not have a child because of financial considerations?

Should we do the math?