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Infertility,
Child Loss And The Bible
©1998
Sarah Vita
 Personal
Introduction
It all happened so
quickly, too quickly. On September 19, 1997, she was
conceived, and on Dec. 12, 1997, I left the hospital without
her. I was gifted with the miracle of becoming a mother, and
then, just as suddenly, I stopped being one. Hardly anyone
knew of my happiness (Being 43, I was advised not to tell
anyone until "the event" became apparent.) and fewer knew of
my grief and pain.
I turned for
consolation to my G-d and the G-d of my ancestors. I set out
to understand why, now, I had been chosen to undergo such a
difficult challenge. I set out to find meaning in this turn
of events. And I set out to find the love and support I
needed to make it through this dark period.
On the Internet, I
found many places for consolation and medical information,
but none helped me put my situation into a Jewish context. I
looked in the Jewish liturgical books I had at home, but I
found nothing. I spoke with my rabbi, and, initially, he did
not have much to offer me. In the mainstream tradition,
there seemed to be no prayers for the loss of a child born
way too soon. Neither were there prayers of consolation for
a mother who had lost her child-in-the-womb. In the moments
of my most intense grief, I was forced to become a
researcher instead of a mourner. I had to shut off my pain
in order to do web searches and make phone calls. I felt
very isolated and very much cut off from my religious
community. I am far from being a Jewish scholar, but, the
way I see it, I don't think that a person feeling such a
tremendous loss should have to be one in order to find the
consolation she needs; in fact, I think that when she
extends her hand to the L-rd, it should not come up
empty.
Every day, Jewish
women suffer a miscarrriage, stillbirth, or death of an
infant younger than 30 days old. There are, I think, more
Jewish women who experience this event than there are those
who make aliyah to Israel; most prayer books contain a
prayer for those who want to ask for safe passage to the
Homeland, but none for those who have suffered the loss of a
pregnancy. When I went to Israel (in 1972), my rabbi AND my
congregation said an aliyah for me during the Shabbat
service, but neither my rabbi nor my congregation will ever
pray for the soul of my little girl who was gone too soon.
Losing a pregnancy is a common rite of passage for women.
G-d has a hand in this passage, and G-d recognizes it and
the pain that we suffer. Even though the mainstream Jewish
interpretation of the beginning of life is that it begins
when a child's head emerges (NOT when it is conceived) and
its interpretation of when a baby acquires a soul is that it
becomes fully developed after 30 days out of the womb, a
woman who suffers a miscarriage or death of an infant of
less than 30 days old does not lose a "potential" Jew, she
loses her "baby", her hopes for a family, and - literally -
a part of herself. This loss is a real as the loss of one's
health (there's a prayer for that) and the loss of one's
sibling (there's a prayer for that, too). Jewish women need
to be offered real prayers and real rituals to help them
through this time of real anguish. They should not have to
dig so deeply and make things up at such a difficult
time.
It is my hope that
this site will provide you with some information, prayers
and rituals that you can use to bring you solace. I pray
that what you find and those you speak to will help you move
from the darkness into the light, from the despair of the
other mourners in Zion to the hope and comfort that G-d
offers to each Jewish woman, at all times in her
life.
I do this in
memory of my little girl born too soon.
Families
Without Children?!
In Judaism, as in
most major religions, a big emphasis is placed on the
family. Jews are comanded by G-d to "be fruitful and
multiply"(Genesis 1:28), and, in our marriage ceremony, we
promise to have children that will be brought up according
to the laws of Moses. It says in the Mishnah Torah (Mishnah
Torah Hilkhot Ishut 15) that, after 10 years of infertility,
men are permitted to divorce and take another wife so that
they can have children. Where does that leave childless
women?
Many prayers refer
to the way in which we must pass to our children our
heritage, our customs, our values, our names. What about
those of us who also value children but, for one reason or
another, can't have any? What can we expect from G-d? What
can we expect from our Jewish community?
Modern
Medicine
Modern medicine
has been able to help some of us get pregnant. New drugs and
techniques have permitted previously infertile men and women
to conceive. In the past, these couples had no scientific
reason for hope for having children. Some were aware of this
even before they married, and, yet, they chose to marry and
have an otherwise fulfilling life. Others found out later in
their marriage, after long periods of 'trying', of
frustration, of shame and humiliation.
Modern medicine
has been able to keep women pregnant longer. Aided by extra
doses of progesterone, baby aspirins, and other medical
interventions, more women than before come to discover that
they have become pregnant and that their late, especially
heavy menstrual cycle is actually a spontaneous miscarriage.
In my case, even though my baby died at about 6 gestational
weeks (after I had seen her heartbeat in the first
ultrasound), because I was taking hormones, I remained
pregnant, growing and happy until my next ultrasound at 12
gestational weeks.
Modern medicine
has been able to change the way we 'see', literally,
pregnancy. After about 7 weeks, we can actually 'see' the
baby taking a form. We can watch her develop. We can see her
heart beating. We can view her sucking her thumb. As we
watch her grow, we can more easily imagine what she will
look like. We can more quickly see problems as they develop
and get prompt intervention. For some of us, that may make
the difference between having a healthy baby or no baby at
all.
Modern medicine
has its limitations, and, for most of us, none of these
'miracles' results in the baby that we are hoping for. The
suffering can be enourmous.
Infertility
in the Old Testament
In
Genesis
16:1-11, 17:15-17, 20:17-21:08,
Sarah, Abraham's wife, was 'barren', in Genesis_29:20-30:24
, Rachel, Jacob's wife, was infertile, in I
Samuel 1:1-2:10,
Hannah, Elkanah's wife, had trouble conceiving, and in
Judges
13:02-24,
Manoah's wife could not bear a child. Ever faithful and
hopeful, each one grieved and dealt with their pain in
different ways. G-d did not let their suffering go
unacknowledged; nor did G-d let their prayers go unanswered.
In each story, G-d delivered them from infertility to
motherhood.
In some places in
the Bible, infertility is seen as a punishment for a crime
(Leviticus 20:20-21). G-d punishes evil-doers by making the
land barren (2 Kings, Esther, etc.), and barrenness is
sometimes seen as a metaphor for Israel's exile. Some
scholars interpret this infertility of some of our
matriarchs as a religious ordination (Teubal, Savina J.
(1984). Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of
Genesis. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press). These 'barren'
women delivered us some of our most interesting leaders:
Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, and Samson, but what about the women
for whom G-d does not intervene? What consolation is there
for them?
Pregnancy
and Child Loss Before 30 Days
In Jewish law,
babies younger than 30 days old are not given full human
status. In the Babylonian Talmud (Yevamot 69B), a fetus up
to 40 days old is considered to be "merely water". Women who
miscarry a fetus that is more than 3 months in gestation,
may not perform a Pidyon Haben (first-born male ceremony)
for a subsequent son born alive because the fetus, in this
case, was considered to be the first issue of the mother's
womb. Still, there are not rituals for this 'first issue'.
When a fetus is 5 months old, some consider it to have
acquired a shape, and they permit some recognition of this
loss by permitting a burial (Eisenstein, J.D. 1938. A
Treasury of Laws and Customs. NY,NY: Hebrew Publishing Co.).
Fetuses older than 5 months, stillborn babies, and babies
under 30 days old are buried in family plots or in a
communal plot with others in that age group. Usually, for
fetuses, no formal ceremony is held. Stillborn children and
those under 30 days may be ritually washed, buried in a
casket, be the recipient of the El Malei
Rachamim prayer (asking G-d to watch and grant peace
to the departed soul), and be given a Hebrew name at
graveside. Circumcision of boys before burial is optional,
there is no ritual rending of garments, and some rabbis do
not permit the Kaddish Prayer to be said. A
baby who is born alive, but dies after from 1 to 30 days,
may be accorded a full burial by some of the more
contemporary Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative
rabbis. As it says in the Mishnah Nidah 5:3: A one day old
infant who dies is, to his father and mother, like a full
bridegroom.
Some say that
these laws were motivated by compassion; in the past, so
many women lost their pregnancies and their infants, and, in
the present, it permits Jewish women to have abortions. As a
result of this law, there are no routine mourning rituals
for women who have suffered this devastating
loss.
Maintaining
the Faith
It seems
impossible to understand why some people can have children
and others can't. We may have medical explanations, but it
is difficult to find the spiritual ones. There are those of
us who believe that, even though we may never understand
why, G-d does everything for a reason; we have a need to
search for explanations and a need for loving compassion.
Look to G-d (through yourself, your rabbi, or religious
people) for the spiritual insights and intervention you
need, look to friends and family (and angels in the form of
strangers) for the emotional support, and look to the
medical community for scientific explanations. Don't lose
hope! Keep the faith!
I pray that my
pages aid your journey. In my pain, I reach out to you in
love.
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