“The more they proliferated and spread.”

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

The demographic threat greatly preoccupied Paroh. He saw how the Israelites "were fertile and prolific, and their population increased. They became so numerous that the land was filled with them" (Shemot 1:7). As Rashi explains, they proliferated supernaturally. Women would bear six infants at once. Paro's solution for quashing Israel's growth was to subjugate and persecute them, as it says, "The Mitzrim appointed conscription officers over the Israelites to crush their spirits with hard labor" (verse 11). Yet the result was the opposite: "The more the Mitzrim oppressed them, the more the Israelites proliferated and spread" (verse 12).

Paroh's decrees about killing the male infants likewise failed. This was by virtue of the self-sacrifice of the midwives Shifra and Pu'a, who were G-d-fearing. "They did not do as the Egyptian king had ordered them. They allowed the infant boys to live" (verse 17). Despite the warnings and afflictions, "the people increased and became very numerous" (verse 20). Ultimately, the seventy souls who went down to Mitzrayim exited Mitzrayim triumphantly as a nation of six hundred thousand.

Even in our own day, we have to strengthen and encourage increasing the Jewish birthrate in Israel. As we know, in accordance with Jewish tradition, every traditional and religious family longs to have many children, eight, ten, or more. Through the return to our roots and to the Jewish tradition of the Jewish masses, the Jewish people's population in modern Israel will increase as well, just as we see in the religious, traditional, and Hareidi communities. Israel, the country, and the Israeli government need to encourage a return to Jewish tradition, and additionally, the government must provide assistance to families with many children, just as is the accepted practice in numerous countries that wish to increase their populations.

Likewise, we have to increase and strengthen the Aliyah of millions of Jews still in the Diaspora, and not just by economic incentives but chiefly by way of a spiritual and cultural change that will strengthen their Jewish identity and their connection to the State of Israel. Assimilation in Exile is eating away at our people. Only by returning to Judaism and Eretz Yisrael will it be possible to halt the assimilation process, as we indeed see at Machon Meir among the young men and women who arrive in our country and return to Judaism with love and faith, establishing beautiful, Jewish homes.

We are worried about the proliferation of Arabs living in our country. The solution to this problem is for the Jews to proliferate in their land. The stand taken by our heads of state, that the solution is to partition our country into two countries, is just wrong. They are making a terrible mistake, for by such means they will be enabling millions of Arabs who claim the "right of return" to stream into our country, thereby endangering the security and the very survival of the State of Israel.

The solution to the demographic problem is thus by way of Jews increasing and proliferating. And if the Israelites in Mitzrayim, at the nadir of their cultural existence, were able to proliferate in this manner, all the more so that we should be able to proliferate and spread in Eretz Yisrael, the land of the life's blood. By such means we will merit to be the living fulfillment of Tzefaniah (3:20): "At that time will I bring you in, and at that time will I gather you; for I will make you be a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I turn your captivity before your eyes – the word of G-d."

Looking forward to salvation,
With the Love of Israel,
Shabbat Shalom.