What is Judaism's take on never marrying or procreating?

Question

I take it from the Torah that G'd commanded mankind to procreate and that pre-marital sex is forbidden and all that, But what happens with people who either choose to remain unmarried or otherwise virgin for their whole lives or the opportunity just never presented to them to marry or have children when they die? What do we learn from the Kabbalah of these people after they reincarnate?? what would their next life be like?

Answer 1

The book "Piety and Fanaticism: Rabbinic Criticism of Religious Stringency" by Sara Epstein Weinstein has entire section 3. The Ascetic Woman (Ishah Perushah) p.107 - 141.

The case is brought in Mishnah Sotah 3:4, where the "ascetic woman" is a sexually abstinent woman. Rabbi Yehoshua says: A woman desires to receive the amount of a kav of food and a sexual relationship [tiflut] rather than to receive nine kav of food and abstinence. He would say: A foolish man of piety, and a conniving wicked person, and an abstinent woman [perusha], and those who injure themselves out of false abstinence; all these are people who erode the world.

The case is discussed in the baraisa. Talmud Bavli Sotah 22a gives an additional example of a praying virgin: The Sages taught: A maiden who prays constantly, and a neighborly [shovavit] widow who constantly visits her neighbors, and a child whose months of gestation were not completed, all these are people who erode the world.

Additionally, Talmud Yerushalmi Sotah 3:4: *They added to these (To the list of the destroyers of the world) a fasting virgin (vs. the Babli (22a): A praying virgin), a neighborly widow, ... A fasting virgin; she pretends to have lost her hymen by fasting (or fasting causes her lose her virginity; another comment: but in reality she slept around)... A neighborly widow, by running around (The Geniza ms. probably has another reading which, however, is not readable. The translation follows Arukh, s. v. חגל. she spreads bad reputations.)

These descriptions complete the the portrait of an ascetic woman, condemned by tannaim as a destroyer of the world. The mishna wording of isha suggests that the ascetic woman may have been married but separated from her husband. The two baraisos add a virgin and a widow as further examples of the ascetic women. All different types of women are thus included in the tannaic condemnation of the female ascetic - a married woman, an unmarried virgin, and a widow.

There is a further discussion in the book of various amoraic sources which relate extra piety as a cover for witchcraft, etc. It appears though, the criticism is directed towards women who intentionally choose self-imposed religious stringency because their behavior destroys the world: it leads to sin and destruction of families.

Answer 2

I can't speak for Kabbalah. But otherwise, I don't think there's anything specific about virginity per se.

Talmud Chagiga 14b says Ben Azai got too close to knowing God for a mortal, and therefore died. The verse remarks about him: when the pious die, it's costly to God. Rashi comments -- that he died as a young man.

So perhaps "oh what a shame", but that's about it.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein was asked about not naming after a relative who suffered from particular poor fate; he wrote that someone who had children and then died of natural causes in their 50s is not, in the overall scheme of things, considered to be "an ill-fated relative." Of course does that mean that someone who lived to 110 and never married or had kids was "ill-fated?" I doubt it, but somehow having kids seems to weigh in to some degree.