The chat I was having with the German journalist sitting next to me at dinner naturally got round to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s victory in the elections a week earlier [Sept. 23]. We were a group of Israelis that arrived in Berlin for the annual meeting with our German counterparts over the last days of Sukkot, on a program that began in 2000 to promote Israeli-German leadership.

Once we had said just about everything there was to say about Merkel, my colleague told me about his wife, who was, like him, in her forties. He told me that she has a challenging job, so I asked instinctively, “Who watches your children when you’re both at work?”

“We don’t have any children,” he answered. I was stunned by his response for a moment — not least, in retrospect, because of my tactlessness. I was quick to apologize, but I immediately realized that he wasn’t embarrassed in the least. He and his wife had made a conscious decision not to bring any children into the world.

''We are not the only ones in the family with such an approach,'' he told me, adding that his brother, who is two years older, also decided not to have children. In fact, almost all of his close friends, every one of them well-educated with successful careers, made the same choice. They don’t miss the interaction with children, and his mother has long since given up on him and his brother. She realized that she will never persuade them to make her a grandmother. He and his wife have no regrets or second thoughts about their choice. They have a full, challenging life.