What was going on when I was born?

A dispatch from Jerusalem yesterday about the Israeli Cabinet's troop- withdrawal plan for Lebanon incorrectly characterized the position of Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai. Mr. Modai, a Likud official, left the Cabinet meeting before the vote was taken and did not cast a ballot.

The Going Out Guide last Thursday gave an incorrect date for the American premiere of the opera ''Dreyfus'' at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It will be performed at 8 P.M. tomorrow and Saturday.

It was an ordinary day for Dr. David Finley, the chief of intensive care at a Manhattan hospital. There were seven terminally ill patients in his ward, and he had to decide how long to keep them alive. He called a lawyer. Dr. Finley oversees seven doctors in an 18-bed world of tubes, capsules, wires, pumps and pins that allow modern medicine to keep the heart beating, lungs breathing, kidneys pumping and immunological system fighting - long after the body has given out. It is the most expensive unit of Roosevelt Hospital, a place that sparkles with large metal monitors whose screens blink green squiggles and lines all day long. Buzzers, bells and gongs punctuate the otherwise soothing sound of running oxygen. It is the place where day after day, hour after hour, the most difficult new issues of dying are played out.

A caseworker at the Hull Avenue emergency shelter gave Virginia Agosto a fistful of subway tokens at 9 A.M. yesterday and sent the pregnant woman and her five exhausted children back to their local welfare office in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. There, her face pinched and pale and her belongings stuffed in one brown paper bag, Miss Agosto resumed the dispiriting process of finding another night's lodging for her family, which had been homeless since being evicted from a dilapidated Bronx building that was about to be renovated. Miss Agosto - Case No. 2910296-1, according to the records of the city's Human Resources Administration - is just one of the more than 20,000 homeless men, women and children who have been spending these bitter winter evenings shuttling through the five boroughs seeking shelter and solace. Miss Agosto's seven-month odyssey has included a stay in what officials have called one of Manhattan's most pernicious welfare hotels - the Martinique on West 32d Street, which she said sent her away because her children made too much noise in the lobby - and a period when she put her youngsters in foster homes in the false hope that, unencumbered, she could find an apartment. Journey of Desperation On Monday, her children reclaimed, the wandering began again for Miss Agosto, with 10-year-old Jimmy, 9-year-old Steven, 6-year-old Jasmine, 5-year-old Edna and 2-year-old Richard weeping through a long night.

Industrial production spurted by six- tenths of 1 percent in December, the biggest increase in five months, in another sign that the economy is picking up steam after its fall pause, the Government said today. The Federal Reserve Board's report said the increases touched almost all major industries. Utilities were the only major group to show a decline, with the drop of nine-tenths of 1 percent attributed primarily to reduced electricity generation. ''This suggests that the economy is proceeding pretty much on an even keel,'' said Michael Evans, president of Evans Economics, a Washington forecasting concern.

The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 today that the Constitution permits public school teachers and officials to search students as long as there are ''reasonable grounds'' for believing that the search will yield evidence of a violation of the law or school rules. The decision, which grew out of a New Jersey high school official's search of a Piscataway student's pocketbook for evidence of smoking, was one of the Court's most important rulings on the constitutional rights of students. Associate Justice Byron R. White wrote the opinion. The Court steered a middle course between two competing visions of the relationship between the Constitution and the public schools. The opinion rejected the argument that the Fourth Amendment's limitations on search and seizure do not apply at all in the school setting as well as the argument that the limits apply with full force.

The Reagan Administration will ask Congress to increase charges for some financial services the Government provides, including home mortgage insurance, farm credit and export loan guarantees, Administration officials said today. The charges, being sought to help shrink the Federal budget deficit, would be paid either by the individuals benefiting from the services or, in some cases, by the agencies involved. But the proposals, to be submitted in the President's budget on Feb. 4, are likely to run into stiff opposition from Congressmen sensitive to the pleas of those affected. Timing of Plan Is Challenged ''With many farmers going broke, I really don't think O.M.B. picked a very auspicious time for such action,'' said Senator John D. Melcher, a Montana Democrat, referring to the Office of Management and Budget. ''If they attempt to do this, I'm sure we can block it.''

ORANGES, for those of us living in the snowy North, used to come once a year, a mid-winter treat that was tucked in the toes of Christmas stockings, a flash of color from the tropics to brighten the winter blahs. But since 1946, when Vacuum Foods, a Florida company later known as Minute Maid, produced the first commercially viable can of frozen orange juice concentrate, year-round consumption of oranges in America has grown dramatically, most of it in the form of frozen or reconstituted concentrated juice. Brilliant pyramids of fresh oranges are piled high in Northern markets this month - juice oranges from Florida and fat, succulent California navel oranges to peel and eat in hand. In the orange groves the harvest is in full swing, while growers and government experts continue to keep a wary eye on the weather and on the citrus canker that caused havoc in Florida tree nurseries late last year. Meanwhile, imports of Brazilian orange juice concentrate, described by an industry analyst as ''minuscule'' just five years ago, have surged. Some industry experts estimate that as much as 40 to 50 percent of the frozen juice concentrate sold in America today comes from Brazil.

Despite the indictment of some of their leaders, church groups here and elsewhere said today that they would continue to give sanctuary to Central Americans they consider to be political refugees. Supporters of the sanctuary movement, reacting to the indictment of 16 people on charges of conspiring to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States, declared they would put the Government ''on trial'' for its policies in Central America and in dealing with aliens. In addition to the 16 indictments, returned by a Federal grand jury in Phoenix last week and announced Monday in Washington, more than 60 other people, mostly Salvadorans and Guatemalans who entered the United States with help from the sanctuary movement, were arrested over the weekend. Seen The nationwide crackdown sharply aggravates the conflict between liberal church groups and the Federal Government, which says the aliens are fleeing poverty, not persecution, and do not qualify for political asylum.

For nearly three years, the Datapoint Corporation, one of Wall Street's high-technology favorites in the early 1980's, has been struggling with only modest success to reverse the misfortunes caused by an accounting scandal. Analysts say that the company, distracted by the after-effects of the scandal, has been slow to adapt to the rapid technological advances in the computer industry, and that the market response to its newer products has been slow, too. As a result, its earnings performance has been poor since 1982, and analysts do not see much improvement before 1986. In the fiscal year 1984, ended July 31, Datapoint earned $26.4 million, or $1.29 a share, on $600 million in sales.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1985 The Economy The Administration will ask Congress to increase charges for a number of financial services the Government provides, including home mortgage insurance, farm credit and export loan guarantees, officials said. The charges would be paid either by the individuals benefiting from the services or by the agencies involved. But the proposals, intended to raise up to $4 billion a year in added revenue, are likely to run into stiff opposition. (Page A1.) Fed Chairman Paul A. Volcker asked for a cut in the budget deficit of at least $50 billion in the next fiscal year to impress the financial markets and achieve a decline in interest rates. (D21.)

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating whether some cordless telephone manufacturers may have deceived the Government by marketing phones different from those they submitted for approval. William A. Russell, an F.C.C. spokesman, confirmed yesterday that an investigation was under way and that findings could be announced today. He declined to comment further.