In 1989, a British epidemiologist named David Strachan noticed that children from larger families had fewer allergies. That observation gave rise to the \u201chygiene hypothesis\u201d: an immune system kept away from germs may never learn to fight them, so a very clean childhood can leave a child more vulnerable, not less. Whatever science finally decides, the idea raises a question that goes well beyond medicine: can a child be too protected? The Torah raises it too, in Rivka\u2019s origin story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Torah only hints at how toxic Rivka\u2019s childhood home was. When it introduces her as Yitzchak\u2019s bride, it calls her the \u201cdaughter of Besuel the Aramaean, of Padan Aram, sister of Lavan the Aramaean.\u201d The Midrash reads the doubled \u201cAramaean\u201d as a hint at their guile, not their ethnicity, and it sees the mention of Padan Aram as an allusion to the corruption of her hometown. Rivka, it says, was a \u201crose among the thorns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read simply, the contrast highlights her righteousness: She blossomed despite her surroundings. On this reading, she is the exception to the rule that bad environments corrupt. That same worry leads many religious communities, Jewish and otherwise, to circle the wagons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
R. Joseph Ber Soloveitchik reads it far more optimistically. Building on one extra word in Targum Yonasan ben Uziel, he writes that exposure to Egypt\u2019s immorality allowed Avraham\u2019s descendants to become a great nation. They could not have developed mercy, modesty, and chessed without meeting the opposite in Egyptian cruelty. Had Yosef not known Potiphar the executioner, he would not have appreciated Yaakov\u2019s greatness. And had Rivka not grown up in Besuel\u2019s house, she could not have embraced the world of Avraham with such enthusiasm. The rose does not bloom despite the thorns. It blooms because of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Economist Thomas Sowell likes to say that there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. Rivka\u2019s story suggests that shielding children from negative influences is one of those tradeoffs. How much protection is right depends on each family, each community, and each child, but purity is never free. At the very least, when we do meet less-than-virtuous influences, we can do what Rivka did and use them to deepen our appreciation for goodness and our commitment to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wishing you a wonderful, healthy, and peaceful Shabbos!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1989, a British epidemiologist named David Strachan noticed that children from larger families had fewer allergies. That observation gave rise to the \u201chygiene hypothesis\u201d: an immune system kept away from germs may never learn to fight them, so a very clean childhood can leave a child more vulnerable, not less. Whatever science finally decides, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,40,43],"tags":[183,180,179,184,185,8,178,163,181,169,182,170,154,162],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-machshava","category-parsha","category-torah-and-culture","tag-child-protection","tag-david-strachan","tag-hygiene-hypothesis","tag-jewish-education","tag-midrash","tag-parsha","tag-parshas-toldos","tag-pulse-of-the-parsha","tag-rabbi-joseph-ber-soloveitchik","tag-rivka","tag-thomas-sowell","tag-toldos","tag-torah","tag-young-israel-of-phoenix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yiphoenix.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}