The Jewish Obligation to Teach Children to Swim
A talmudic requirement.
In Jewish law, parents are required to meet the material and educational needs of their children. Along with this, one of the most charmingly specific requirements for parents is teaching their children to swim:
A father is obligated to do the following for his son: to circumcise him, to redeem him if he is a first born, to teach him Torah, to find him a wife, and to teach him a trade. Others say: teaching him how to swim as well.
A father’s is obliged to provide for his son’s spiritual and material needs in the present while also paving the way for the child’s future. Circumcision brings the child into the Jewish covenant and fulfills a divine obligation. Torah learning prepares the child to navigate his spiritual life, while teaching the child a trade prepares him to support himself and his future family. Ensuring he finds a wife makes that future family a reality, and opens the door to another generation. But none of this is possible if the child never survives to adulthood.
They may not have lived in a world with backyard pools, but the ancient rabbis did live in a world with rivers, seas and cisterns. Therefore, according to at least some rabbis, teaching a child to swim is an obligation. Approximately 4,000 people die of accidental drowning in the United States every year — one quarter of them children. These deaths are largely preventable. Accidental drowning happened in ancient times as well. Swimming is a skill that saved lives and continues to do so.
There are other talmudic passages that describe parental obligations in more detail, some of which are omitted in this particular teaching — such as providing food and shelter. But the obligation to teach a child to swim stands out because it is so much more specific, and because the potential payoff is preserving the life of the child which, as we learn elsewhere, is akin to saving an entire world.
