Editor: Hasidic Judaism is a rapidly growing sect, in large part because birth control is forbidden and large families – eight of more – are encouraged and the normal. Not only does the movement have influence in the USA, but it has a strong hold on the Israeli government. (The recent Israeli government coalition is the first without the Hassid party participation.) At a time that non-Catholics have shown so much interest in the Papacy, an article concerning the Hassid might also be of interest.
THE FORWARD: … I remember what it was like for me. I was 21, married for two-and-a-half years, and a student at the kolel — yeshiva for married men — in our Hasidic village in Rockland County, N.Y. Our second child had just arrived, 16 months after our first. Rent was overdue. We’d maxed out our credit at the supermarket, the fish market and the butcher. A seemingly endless list of expenses was weighing us down.
It all seemed so sudden, and no one had told me that $430 a month — the amount of my monthly kolel stipend — would not suffice for a growing family.
I remember the panic, anxiety and depression that followed for a long time after, as another and yet another bundle of joy arrived. Each child was a blessing, of course. But how was I going to provide for so many blessings?… (more)
