There is a Jewish idea that saving one life is equal to saving an entire world, for each person is unique and precious. There is also a great book of stories and lessons called "Saving the World Entire" by Rabbi Bradley R. Bleefeld and Robert L Shook. I was looking for this book online and then realized I had it sitting on my shelf all along.

There are, according to the book, about 100 parables from the Talmud - the collection of Jewish law (also referred to as the Oral Law). But the one from which the book takes its name was the one I was looking for. Not actually the story, but the source.

"He who preserves a single human life has saved the equivalent of the entire world." (Talmudic Source: Sanhedrin 37a-b)

Often times, when we get together with Anna's foster family - very conservative evangelical Christians - Anna's former foster mother talks about how adopting or fostering a child is saving them. She said that she'd often say to herself that she was saving this baby.

Now, maybe she meant saving in the Christian sense of the word... and I'd often try to change the subject. But usually it made me think of this phrase. And if she meant saving in the literal sense, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that idea. I mean - yes - fostering a child is in a sense saving them from a bad situation, but the child could just as easily gone to another decent foster home.

Is adopting a child saving a life? I'm not sure that I agree or disagree. But using that language always made me uncomfortable - whether it was coming from Anna's foster mother or kindly people I meet who tell me what a saint I am for doing what I'm doing. What kind of an amazing person I am for taking in this child.

This child, I try to explain, is my daughter. And I'm no one special - this is just my life.