"BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY"

reflect personal and communal concerns about survival in times of persecution. Would there be more than a saving remnant? Would it be blessed and expand? We now ask the same questions in a time of prosperity and assimilation. The Holocaust decimated us and assimilation has not permitted sufficient recovery. There are various ways of correcting the imbalance. One of the easiest and most likely to succeed is an increased birth rate so that we will have numbers with which we can struggle against assimilation and guarantee survival and a blessed influence in the world.

Our theology sees the tradition in a broader light with primary emphasis on the balance of the Creation story; humanity is the caretaker which dominates the world but does not destroy it. Within that broader framework, balance applies not only to species of plants and animals but also to groups of people. What may be demanded of some groups as appropriate birth control measures for the sake of their future and well-being, as well as that of all of humanity, is the caretaker which dominates the world but does not destroy it. Within that broader framework, balance applies not only to species of plants and animals but also to groups of people. What may be demanded of some groups as appropriate birth control measures for the sake of their future and well-being as well as that of all humanity may not be appropriate for another group which needs to exercise its reproductive options in order to remain a significant part of the broader human equation. These thoughts are contained in the original Genesis story. The commentators and the rabbinic sources have elucidated the story from the vantage point of their generations and its problems. As they treated their issues, so we must deal with ours and see this wonderful story applying to us and to all generations.

MARRIAGE AND SEXUALITY

Let us continue with sexuality and family considerations. Normal sexuality was considered as willed by God ; was its sole purpose for procreation or could it be enjoyed for its own sake? Sexual pleasure as a positive good became the norm in Judaism which has been made clear through the halakhah and many stories which are more picturesque, for example, the tale of the yetzer hara given into the hands of the pious, who imprisoned it.

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