Napoleon and Abortion

Every once in a while I get a call asking about my views on abortion. With so much being debated it's hard to take a side. However, I would like to relate the following story that happened to me.

In my last year of post-graduate rabbinical studies, I became a close personal student of the old venerable rabbi, Rabbi Zalman Shimon of Lubavitch. He was a Russian rabbi who lived through the Stalin persecutions of Jews and spent his last years teaching many student rabbis in Brooklyn, New York. I considered myself a fortunate student to have had him as my mentor.

It was twenty-three years ago that I sat in the rabbi's study when I was suddenly asked: "What will you do when a woman comes to you with the following request?  "I want an abortion! I am not ready to start my family! I am too young to be tied down to a child!" What would you tell her?"

I sat in my chair, completely dumbfounded. I was a young ordained rabbi, newly married, busily preparing for a test in Jewish law. I wanted to become a Dayan - Jewish judge, and now I was being tested about my understanding of life and law. This wasn't a question I had expected to be asked.

I squirmed in my chair and did not know what to answer my teacher. The seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours. What would I tell a woman if faced with such a predicament? I thought, perhaps it depends on how she became pregnant, why she became pregnant, and how far into the pregnancy she was. I had a very vague idea of when a life begins and  a lesser idea of how one can terminate a pregnancy. 

My rabbi smiled and said, "Enough of your thinking. Let me tell you a story. When the great French leader Napoleon was sentenced and banished to Devil's Island, he did not protest. On the way to the island, an officer asked him, "Are you the great Napoleon, who fought great battles and was even able to take the Russian capital and conquer many countries? How is it that you have lost your pride? You should commit suicide and die with your honor, rather than be reduced to a prisoner!"

"Napoleon answered the officer the following: "I have never done anything that I could not regret and change. If I commit suicide, I would not be able to regret or change my act."  With that, my rabbi ended the lesson and left me to my thoughts.

Thirteen years ago, I received a call from a distraught woman I had never met. "Rabbi, I have a problem. I have a small income, my husband finally got a job and now I am pregnant. What am I to do? Can I have an abortion?

"What bothered me most," she said, "was remembering what  I was taught by my religious Sunday school teacher; that having an abortion is murder, that G‑d would be very angry at me. And I really don't want G‑d to be angry at me." I called my own rabbi and told him my problem. The rabbi told me that he doesn't believe G‑d would be angry at me. After all, He gave me my body to do with as I wish. "What kind of G‑d do you think you would have if he would get angry at you for having an abortion!? I don't believe in angry G‑ds," said the rabbi.

The woman felt that what she heard from the liberal rabbi made sense, but in her heart she felt it was wrong. So in desperation she called me. I realized that she was a sensible and a healthy woman, but going through hard times.

Now I remembered the words of my teacher.  "What would you tell a woman who wanted an abortion?" I knew that this woman wanted and  needed a caring person who offered more then than just the cold law, more then an easy way out based on a  philosophy of a "G‑d who won't be angry." She wanted to be told something that would make her mind and her heart feel at peace.

So, I told her about Napoleon: what a great man he was and how he once made a great decision. I likened her to a great woman battling with her feelings and emotions. The choice of life and death were in her hands. She, too, could make that decision. The woman listened and thanked me. I always wondered if she did have that abortion or not.

Recently I was in my office at school. A woman came by and asked my secretary if she could come in for a short visit. She explained that she wanted to see the rabbi and speak to him for a moment. I admitted the woman to my office and the following took place:

"I am here to ask you to bless my son who has just turned thirteen years old. He had his bar-mitzvah this month. I feel that you should see him," said the woman. I wondered why was this so important to her that I bless the boy-especially since I really did not know who the boy was. Reluctantly, I made the time to see the boy and took the opportunity to bless him. I said a prayer with him and had him put on Tefillin, a religious ritual item worn by a thirteen-year-old Jewish boy.  I had  a strange feeling about him but felt good that he had stopped by.

The boy thanked me and left with his mother — who left behind a short note: "Thank you, Rabbi, Napoleon was truly a wise man."