How to Help People Go Off the Derech, Part One
In this series, we will explore how to encourage your friends and loved ones (and complete strangers) to become more secular.
Did you know?
There are some rabbis who help people go off the derech. If you are an important rabbinical figure in your town, you too can help people become less observant. Read and see how it is done.
On a woman's forum, a woman writes that she has two children, the oldest of whom is two and the youngest is not yet a year old. Her birth control heter is up and they go see the rav about extending the heter. She wants to have more children, maybe even five or six, but doesn't feel ready just yet for another pregnancy. She doesn't want to change diapers all day and wants some space between her kids.
The rav says that this all is not a good enough excuse. The ideal is to be pushing a stroller while being pregnant, he says. If she actually cannot cope with another pregnancy, then okay, he can extend the heter. But if she can cope at all, in any way and is not yet bedridden, she needs to have more children and should not take birth control. The rav tells her that if someone asks their boss at work for a week off and then wants another week off and tells the boss that he's just not ready yet to return to work, the boss would not accept that as a valid excuse, now would he? The husband agrees with the rav.
The woman is to the point where she is wondering whether this type of life is for her at all.
Score one for the Rav. Hooray! The woman will either leave her lifestyle, or more likely, she will have more children and will resent them and this system. She will be a harried, crazy mother who will not be able to impart any joy in Judaism to her ever-growing brood. If nothing else, at least one of her children will remember religion with misery and will want nothing to do with it. Way to go, rabbi!
Learn from the best and remember: you too can emulate these rabbonim.
So, this week, try to find at least 3-4 women who have very small children and are not visibly pregnant. After introducing yourself and asking about their welfare, explain to them how assur birth control really is. If they don't want to listen, be sure to tell them that Moshiach will only come when all the neshamos are here on earth and by taking pills to prevent the bliss of another child, they are surely delaying the arrival of long-awaited redemption. If they still don't want to hear it, let them know that pills are dangerous and have not been approved by the Association of Homeopathic Rabbis. If all else fails, explain that our grandmothers were happy to have as many children as Hashem gave them and it is only this goyishe culture that is creeping in and poisoning their minds. That should work.