GEN154 The family creates, educates, and supports the next-generation. Sex within marriage has two distinct purposes: companionship and procreation. Thus, on the one hand, sexual relations are valued as a form of human love even when the couple cannot or is not planning to have children.  On the other hand, procreation is an important activity, so important, in fact, that it is the very first commandment mentioned in the Torah [this verse]. The rabbis later defined that obligation as the duty to produce minimally one boy and one girl—although this does not apply to those who cannot comply because of problems of infertility—and the ideal is to have as many children as one can.  On the minimum of two, see M. Yevamot 6:6 (61b); M.T. Laws of Marriage 15:4; and S.A. Even Ha’ezer 1:5. On the ideal of having more, see B. Yevamot 62b (based on Isaiah 45:18 and Ecclesiastes 11:6) and M.T. Laws of Marriage 15:16. Marriage not only provides the venue for having children but also, in the Jewish view, the context in which children are educated. Parents have the duty to educate their children in Judaism, including its moral components. Deuteronomy 6:7,20-25, 11:19. This was already one of Abraham’s duties Genesis 18:19.  Parents may use schools to help them fulfill that duty, but they must periodically check to make sure that the children are in fact learning what they should, because ultimately the duty to educate children remains theirs. Moreover, much of the Jewish tradition can be taught only at home, for this is a tradition that is not restricted to the synagogue or school: It intends to influence virtually every detail of life. DORFFLOV 27-8