I will not say that I am a proponent of intermarriage. The ideal is still that a family would share religious and cultural values in addition to love. However, I am a proponent of love and also of communication and compromise and I have firm conviction that Judaism and its people share these ideals. I believe it is easily possible and can be biblically alluded to that a partially Jewish family could-- and many families do-- maintain a Jewish household. We are commanded to let the stranger among us observe rest on Shabbat and to make sacrifice at Pesach and many of our forefathers and foremothers were non-Jews or married to non-Jews.
Our history seldom denies intermarriage (it would be detrimental to our survival), it instead protests the worshipping of false gods and idols that sometimes accompanied, usually lust and military strategy and once or twice legitimate marriage. THAT is what we need to be combating. Not intermarriage (marriage [theoretically]=love and we should not be fighting love), not even assimilation really, but a wholesale fleeing, running-away from Judaism.
There is also no reason for the alienation of someone who loves, which I regard to be-at least in part-causal of interfaith assimilation. If the response to someone’s love, love strong enough to motivate a life long commitment, is rejectionalism, OF COURSE they will turn away from that which rejected them and their love. That will never be a difficult decision.
We certainly do not get to chose whom we love. We do not get to choose their gender, their looks (however, we have mild to impressive influence on their mode of dress), their age, their music selection or their nascent religion. Our only hope is that if the other person reciprocates real love and connection, they will cultivate our faith with us.
Our goal should not be fighting intermarriage. It is merely the symptom of a much greater, festering, destroying disease. Every time we create the dichotomy between love and an angry, biased Judaism, the choice will always err toward love rather than fighting and Judaism will lose. The goal becomes instead, to instill such a sense of Judaism that the person of intruding religion or irreligious disposition, will be delighted to cultivate and express and live the frumkeit of the Jewish partner regardless of halikic status.
The candle is burning at both ends right now. The Jew emerges from a lukewarm pool of Judaism. Half-hearted religious school memories, ambivalent home practice and a lack of personal Jewish identity and meets their wonderful, funny, shiksa or shaygetz. Then the parents and/or the religious figures (rabbi, old teacher, whoever) puts an electric smack-down on their partner and them and their relationship. In actions, more than words, this is what is happening. Then the couple, rejected from a Judaism which offered them nothing either goes with the competing faith, finds a new one or gives up on theology and faith in general. And it is our fault as a misguided Jewish community.
Here is a better mini-narrative: A Jew of marriageable age emerges from a lifetime of being a baby Jew and playing at shul, of maybe only part-time but fulfilling adolescent study and practice. They wear their magen david which was a present from Bubbe for being bar/bat mitzvoth, every day. They participated in a couple of Hillel/Chabad/Jewish Union events in college-or at least scammed a few nice dinners while they were on hard times. They went on a birthright or to camp and just remember other Jewish kids, more and less observant and having a great time. Then they meet the non-Jew of question and interest. The Jewish partner calls up Abba, or Ima and says, “I met someone….” Maybe they had Shabbos dinner seven times as a family from kindergarten through earning their Bachelor’s degree but Mom or Dad says, “bring them over for Challah and candles and wine.” If after a solid, family Shabbat the shiksa/shaygetz and partner are not completely won over, maybe they’ll only split the faith 50/50. That’s still 50% more frumkeit than the preceding scenario and instead of anger and rejection it’s vibrant and compassionate Judaism thriving not only within the interfaith couple but as viewed by the opposing tradition and all other third parties.
In this, we might discover the saving grace of our plateaued Jewish status in a pluralistic, globally interdependent world. Hopefully soon it will be a world where we have spent more time and effort ensuring a stable and vibrant Judaism which embraces love. This might mean bacon in our households, but in our households with mezuzot and children bringing home colored pictures of Moses and Joseph and Rebbe Nachman to their maybe, lapsed-Catholic fathers donning kippot and pulling fresh challah out of the oven on a Friday evening. Let the other faiths and traditions worry about intermarriage if they want to; I promise that if we pour this energy into education and outreach and retention and tikkun olam, we won’t have to.
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