LifeOrdeals
A
By Bayla Sheva Brenner
LIF E
UNEXPECTED:
Frum and Childless “. . . and the childless one should not say, ‘Look, I am a shriveled tree.’ For this is what Hashem said to the barren ones who observe My Sabbaths and choose what I desire and hold tightly onto My covenant: In My house and within My walls I will give to them a place of honor and renown, which is better than sons and daughters. I will give them eternal renown, which will never be expired” (Isaiah 56:3-5).
E
ven though I married later in life, I anticipated having children. I still can’t believe it’s not going to happen. I wasn’t prepared for this. In the child-centered frum world, a childless woman comes face to face every day with reminders of what she lacks—at every school bus stop, supermarket, clothing store, shul, shiur, simchah; in every Jewish newspaper, every magazine and inevitably, every conversation. I longed to speak to others like myself—at once fully connected to the frum community, and galaxies apart. I networked, seeking childless women who had passed the point of trying to conceive. Potential contacts expressed reluctance about approaching the childless friend, neighbor or aunt. They said it was a “touchy” subject. Nevertheless, several women came forward to speak about their journeys. The majority of them chose to remain anonymous. The reasons for their inability to bear children varied. Either they married late or had medical issues. Some exBayla Sheva Brenner is senior writer in the OU Communications and Marketing Department.
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I JEWISH ACTION
Summer 5774/2014
perienced failed adoptions; for others, such a route wasn’t an option. Their common bond was their pain and the hard-won wisdom born from living without that which one wants most. “Since I was very young, I dreamt I was going to have ten kids,” says Bracha Melzer (her real name), in her sixties and living in Brooklyn. “Hashem decided that would not be my path. As difficult as it is to accept, ‘no’ is a full sentence.” Like many of us, Bracha sought medical help and prayed; like all of us, she cried. She says that letting go of the hope of ever having children proved the hardest part. For Chana, fifty-four, married thirty years and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who lost most of his family, [the hardest part] was relinquishing the expectation of continuing the family line. “It was really devastating for me,” says Chana, the only woman in her small Jewish community without children. The sense of urgency hit some of the women while they were still single. “[As I got older,] my dates would always want to know if I could have children,” says Tziporah, a Brooklyn therapist in her sixties who married in her