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Many aspects of Jewish life have both an individual and a communal dimension. For example, when we daven the amidah, we first pray silently, individually; then we repeat the prayers aloud, communally. When a new baby is born, we rejoice with the individual household, offering mazal tov to the parents, older siblings, if any, and perhaps other family members; but we also rejoice as a community, which has been increased by one little person who, we hope, will grow into an observant adult Jew, with potential for positive impact on the community. As far as such households are concerned, Miriam and I are so grateful to so many of you for your kindnesses and generosities. We’re very touched. We thank you for helping us with the arrival of Joseph and Gila, in honor of whose birth on May 2 I’m speaking today.

Often individual decisions are reflected in societal patterns or trends. It seems to me that, in Jewish life and more generally, it’s easier to discern these patterns and trends than to understand the underlying individual acts. For two reasons: First, some societal patterns are based on data amenable to quantitative techniques such as projections and statistical tests; these techniques are clearly inapt for an individual. Also, idiosyncrasies that render personal actions inscrutable or aberrant don’t carry much weight in determining societal patterns. For example, a well-established correlation in the United States shows that graduates of Jewish high schools are more likely to marry other Jews than are Jewish graduates of secular high schools. Although one can find the occasional yeshiva grad marrying a gentile, or a secular Jew with negligible Jewish education living in an area with few Jews marrying another Jew, these unusual education-marital combinations are too infrequent to distort the primary trend.

Among those attending Jewish schools are children from large families. In black hat communities, one often sees in these schools seven, ten, even more children from the same family, families that do not appear to be wealthy—at least judging by their modest houses and low to mid-range salaries jobs like theirs command. Indeed, in many of these families the father is learning part or full time and has only a part-time job—or no job. I’ve often wondered: How does such a family afford day school for so many kids?

Other observations I’ve heard: Some call such a family courageous, and view them as overcoming a great challenge to raise so many kids and send them all to day schools; this opinion is a positive comment on the parents surmounting difficulties of child-rearing. Others are critical, arguing that the family’s financial resources and the parents’ time are spread too thin among so many children; this opinion is a negative comment about the children’s welfare.

So who’s right? …Who knows? How can we evaluate the difficulty of parenting or the welfare of children from afar based on one or a few salient characteristics? Even my financial question may have an easy answer, not apparent to an outsider: a community benefactor may be heavily subsidizing day school tuition; perhaps the children’s grandparents are wealthy and contribute to the family. Despite scant knowledge of the family’s circumstances, some outsiders extend their opinions to advice—on such issues as whether this family should have another child.

Two parashas prevailed during the week Joseph and Gila were born: Acharei Mot and Kedoshim. Among the well-known phrases in Kedoshim is “lefnei iver,” meaning “before the blind,” short for: you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind. One major thread of rabbinic commentary considers as metaphorically blind naïve or unsuspecting people, and admonishes us not to take advantage of such people for our own benefit, for example, by hiding a defect in a car that we’re selling to a naïve buyer.

The emphasis here is on the metaphoric blindness of the advice-recipient. I think we also should consider the metaphoric blindness of the advice-giver. We need to be humble about forming opinions and offering advice. The conviction of our opinions and the intensity of our advice need to be tempered by our familiarity with the subject. There’s yet another reason for humility: people’s circumstances often do not reflect their preferences. Accidents, financial setbacks, health problems, family situations all prevent achieving our goals. In Yiddish: der mensch tracht und G-tt lacht. Men plan and G-d laughs.

We can do better when analyzing societal patterns. I’m going to focus on an issue that seems to be addressed in every Jewish publication nowadays, that of Jewish assimilation, intermarriage, the loss of Jews. My earlier examples of Jewish education and family size touch on this topic. In the assimilation debate are two related but separable issues, usually conflated, but distinguishable; one might be concerned with either, neither, or both. First: preserving the Jews we now have, staunching the attrition from our community. Second: arresting the decline of the Jewish population, not only by preserving the Jews we have but by increasing the Jewish population through such policies as promoting larger families, developing open-minded attitudes about adoption, and encouraging, or at least not discouraging, conversion. The adoption and conversion issues are closely related because there are so few Jewish babies available for adoption.

In any case, assimilation is an issue for which much data have been collected, particularly for the United States. You are probably familiar with the dire statistics. American Jewish women, like their gentile counterparts in North America, Europe, and some countries in Asia, are not producing enough children to maintain the population. The Jews have a further problem: many Jewish children intermarry and, even among those who marry Jews, their children’s Jewish education and identity are often too minimal to discourage intermarriage in the next generation. One succinct summary of the projected decline for the Jewish population in the United States: Every two generations the Jewish population will be cut in half.

Quite sobering. Statistics like these have sparked heated discussion on such topics as making day school more affordable, or whether Chabad or Hillel does a better job on college campuses.

I have good news this morning. The dire conclusion is wrong; it’s based on a flawed assumption. Is the flawed assumption that present trends will continue? No. Present trends don’t always continue, but the assumption that they will is reasonable, neither overly optimistic nor unduly pessimistic. The flawed assumption is treating the Jewish population as a monolith, not taking into account the heterogeneity in the Jewish community.

As we move religiously rightward—from secular to reform to conservative to modern orthodox to black hat orthodox—family size increases and assimilation rates decrease. The division is particularly marked between orthodox and non-orthodox. Orthodox Jewish women average more than four children per family and the assimilation rates are negligible. Non-orthodox women average about 1.5 children each and their assimilation rates are substantial.

Taking account of this dichotomy alters the conclusion. Present trends still imply that the American Jewish population will continue to decline over the next few decades. However, the proportion that is orthodox will be increasing. About 50 years from now, the American Jewish will bottom out at about 3.5 to 4 million, roughly two-thirds of today’s level. Shortly afterwards the orthodox will become a majority of American Jewry, and with each orthodox generation double the size of its predecessor, the American Jewish community will begin growing rapidly. By 2125, we’ll have about 10 million Jews in America, about twice today’s number. Such rapid growth is not unprecedented: For example, from 1850 to 1925, despite considerable assimilation, the world Jewish population tripled.

I have not seen this conclusion presented in any article or talk. It doesn’t require advanced mathematics, and I am surely not the first person who’s derived it. Journalists and community leaders do mention the orthodox exception to the general Jewish trend, but none of whom I’m aware have pushed this observation to its conclusion.

I conjecture three reasons for this omission. First, journalists and community leaders are not familiar with the math required to generate the result, hence don’t discuss it. I don’t think this is a compelling reason because they could follow the common practice of consulting specialists with the requisite expertise. Second, perhaps the writers and speakers are concerned about inducing complacency in their audiences. Third, it could be that those from other streams of Judaism don’t want to present a scenario in which the orthodox are heroically saving Jewry.

In any case, we can divide the Jewish community into three parts: an observant group relatively immune from assimilation; a secular group that is pretty much lost—although people from that background have returned to Judaism and we never want to write people off; and a middle group of those interested in Judaism but not as well educated—in the Hebrew language, in Jewish practice—as they would like to be.

Quite analogously to medical triage, this middle group should be the focus of those concerned about assimilation. Citing lifnei ivner from Kedoshim, this middle group can be viewed as metaphorically blind in its limited Jewish knowledge. Again following Kedoshim, we do not want to place stumbling blocks in front of their return to Judaism. We want to welcome them. Our shul, Ohev Sholom, with many observant congregants, also warmly accepts those in this middle group.

Among the many characteristics of this congregation that Miriam and I admire is its open welcome to all. We count among our blessings, looking forward, G-d willing, to raising Joseph and Gila within this wonderful shul.