Yeshua Explored

27th December 2022

The Family

What do families look like these days?

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We see here the importance of the biological and spiritual relationships that comprise the structure of a basic family. Father and mother coming together biologically to create the next generation in collaboration with Our spiritual Creator who:

… created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)

… made you, who formed you in the womb. (Isaiah 44:2)

… before I formed you in the womb I knew you. (Jeremiah 1:5)

This is the context of the basic family structure, as referenced in the “Ten Commandments”. But what of today? What of the “Sinner’s Charter”? For instance, does it demand that we honour our parents? We now live in a world where the concept of family is not as straightforward as it once was. Here is a passage on the Wikipedia page for “history of the family”:

“There were two distinct family patterns that emerged in Christian Europe throughout the Middle Ages. In most of Southern and Eastern Europe, marriage occurred between two individuals who had lived with their parents for a long period of time. The man involved was older, usually in his late twenties, and the girl was often still a teenager. Their household would contain several generations, an occurrence demographers denote as a “complex” household. In contrast, areas in Northwestern Europe gave rise to a familial structure that was unique for the time period. The man and woman were typically around the same age, and would wait until they were in their early twenties to marry. Following the marriage, the couple would set up their own independent household (termed a “nuclear” household structure). This led to a lower birthrate, as well as greater levels of economic stability for the new couple. This also served as a check on the increasing population in Europe. Many women in this region during this time period would never marry at all.”

This is an interesting observation. The first pattern is the one perhaps closest to the Biblical ideal, with households functioning as mini-clans, cramming together many generations into one home. This has certainly been the Jewish model up to current times. Here’s a snippet of how I described it in “Shalom”, in the Chapter on Mishpocha.

The key concept with mishpocha is that it is not the nuclear family of 2.4 children that we have been brought up with, but the extended family that includes grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, where the cooking pot is in permanent use, where the atmosphere jangles with human voices, cries, prayers and laughter, where caring and sharing crosses the generations. This has become an utterly alien concept to most of us these days. We strive for our own space, we crave personal expression. Community has been replaced by individuality as we disengage our lives from people and replace them with stuff, such as consumer electronics, furniture and objets d’art. Stuff doesn’t answer back, stuff doesn’t have demands, stuff doesn’t need looking after.

But stuff doesn’t look after you when you’re poorly, stuff doesn’t go that extra mile for you, stuff doesn’t love you. Mishpocha ensures that the wisdom and stories of your grandparents are not lost, mishpocha celebrates family occasions as extended times of joy and sharing, mishpocha provides an endless supply of babysitters, household operatives and shoulders to cry on. Mishpocha means you never need to be lonely, though it could also potentially be stifling and claustrophobic. Mishpocha, though, does require a big house.

Mishpocha is most accurately defined as ‘the entire family network of relatives by blood or marriage (and sometimes close friends)’, so in its widest definition it is talking about a small community, united either by blood or friendship, or in a Christian sense, by conviction (or, in fact, all three). Church families ought to be mishpocha, but with that added divine ingredient that ensures relationships are vertical as well as horizontal.

Of course, as described in the Wikipedia article, we now generally follow the Northwestern Europe model,

… Following the marriage, the couple would set up their own independent household (termed a “nuclear” household structure). This led to a lower birthrate, as well as greater levels of economic stability for the new couple …

This is also becoming the norm in secular Jewish families, as well as in other communities, such as Asian and African, who live among us in our multicultural melting-pot. The lure of economic stability has generally trumped the need for traditional multi-generational family structures and sons and daughters have flown the nest to set up home wherever career prospects are maximised. But the “downsizing” trend continues, fuelled by the individualism of our age. More and more people are now choosing to live alone or as couples with no children, the nuclear family is becoming a quieter place, perhaps as electronic gadgets take the place of flesh and blood. In the UK, the number of people living in family homes with kids fell from 52% in 1961 to 36% in 2009, no doubt even lower now.

It’s been a downward trend, a shrinking of families from double figures, to single figures, to a solitary person in a bedsit surrounded by a virtual family brought to their electronic screens through social media. In this context, how does the fifth “commandment” hold up? Are we honouring our parents less by distancing ourselves geographically from them?

This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp