Ask The Rabbi
9 May 1998 
Issue #191 (Parshas Emor)
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This publication is available in HTML format at
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Researched at Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem
This Issue Contains:
1.  Intermarriage 
2.  Yiddle Riddle 
3.  Public Domain
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INTERMARRIAGE

Names@Withheld wrote:

Dear Rabbi,

I am in love with a Catholic woman.  I want to 
marry her.  She loves me as much but religious 
beliefs are getting in the way.  Please tell me what I 
should do, my parents say "no way."  Help.

Dear Rabbi,

I'm getting married in October to a girl who is not 
Jewish (she is Hindu, born in India) and we're 
having a difficult time finding a Rabbi who will 
marry us.  Why is this?  And do you have any 
recommendations for Rabbis that would consider 
performing the ceremony.  It's important to me and 
my family that we are married by a Rabbi.  Thanks.

Dear Rabbi,
I will be married (very soon) to a Jewish woman.  I 
am not Jewish, but would very much like to include 
several of the Jewish traditions in our wedding, to 
embrace her heritage as well.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dear Names@Withheld,

For Jews, "marrying within the faith" isn't a cultural 
preference or prejudice.  Rather, it is one the 
commandments G-d gave us at Mount Sinai.  A Jew who 
marries a non-Jew transgresses a Torah prohibition.

The practice of not "intermarrying" is in fact one of the 
oldest features of Judaism.  It dates back to Abraham telling 
Eliezer, his servant, not to find a wife for his son from the 
Canaanites.  It continues with Isaac's command to his son 
Jacob not to marry the "daughters of the land." The practice 
is mentioned in the Bible as a legal prohibition, and is 
also part of the covenant that Ezra the scribe had the 
Jews make when they rebuilt the Temple after the 
Babylonian Exile.

In all the above cases the underlying idea of the prohibition 
seems to be ideological.  As Jews, we have a unique 
identity that is connected to our purpose in the world.  We 
are the "chosen people."  We were chosen to propagate the 
ethical monotheism of Judaism.

In the words of Leo Tolstoy:
 "The Jew is that sacred being who has brought 
down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has 
illumined with it the entire world.  He is the religious 
source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of 
the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religious.  
The Jew is the pioneer of liberty.  The Jew is the pioneer 
of civilization.  The Jew is the emblem of eternity."

We were chosen as a permanent protest group against 
idolatry and immorality.  Intermarriage is therefore 
antithetical to the Jewish purpose and to the Jewish identity.

Can we prove that we are chosen?  Do we have evidence?  
Yes.  In a brief look at history we can see the antiquity, 
survival and impact of the Jewish people as unique and 
remarkable.  I don't think that I can put it better than Mark 
Twain, in his famous description of Jewish history, "An 
Essay Concerning the Jews":

 "If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but 
one percent of the human race.  It suggests a nebulous 
dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way.  
Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is 
heard of, has always been heard of.  He is as prominent 
on the planet as any other people, and his commercial 
importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the 
smallness of his bulk.  His contributions to the world's 
list of great names in literature, science, art, music, 
finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away 
out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.  He 
has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; 
and has done it with his hands tied behind him.  He 
could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.  The 
Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the 
planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-
stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman 
followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; 
other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high 
for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight 
now, or have vanished.  The Jew saw them all, and is 
now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no 
infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing 
of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive 
mind.  All things are mortal but the Jew; all other 
nations pass, but he remains.  What is the secret of his 
immortality?"

Intermarriage is a betrayal of our task and of our 
"choseness."  It is also a guarantee against Jewish 
continuity.

Let me illustrate with a conversation heard on the Dr. Laura 
Schlessinger show in the US:

A woman calls Dr. Laura:  "I'm Jewish," she says.  "My 
husband is not Jewish, but he is very active in the Jewish 
community.  We are trying our best to raise our children as 
Jews and give them a Jewish education.  Now my son is 
almost thirteen, and he tells us he doesn't want a bar 
mitzvah (celebration of the acceptance of one's Judaism).  
What can we do?"

"Let me get this straight," Dr. Laura says.  "You say your 
husband is not Jewish?"

"That's right," the woman answers.

"How do you expect your son to follow Judaism when you 
don't?"

Being Jewish isn't a cultural affiliation or a tradition.  It's 
being part of the Chosen People.  That means a 
commitment to the responsibility given to us by Hashem at 
Sinai.  Someone who understands this will obviously 
choose a partner who is likewise committed.  Otherwise, 
it's entering a relay race, but choosing a partner who's 
running towards a different finish line.

Who you marry affects every single aspect of your life.  It 
affects your community.  It affects your children.  It affects 
all future generations.  The Jewish home is the single most 
important establishment in Jewish life.  It outweighs any 
synagogue or temple, even the Holy Temple built by King 
Solomon.  By marrying a non-Jew one thereby ends over 
3,000 years of Jewish continuity, effectively cutting oneself 
and one's offspring off from what it means to be Jewish.

There have been many other arguments offered against 
intermarriage, below is a summary of some of the most 
famous.

1. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million 
were left afterwards.  Today there are only 13 million Jews 
in the world.  Where are the rest that by natural increase 
should number close to 20 million?  The answer is that the 
silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to 
disappear as Jews.

Intermarriages are twice as likely to end in divorce as same-
faith marriages (75% divorce rate!).  Some reasons for this 
are the different identities of the spouses and the differences 
in culture and family.  For example a Jew will naturally turn 
their head at the mention of "Israel" and "Jew."  A gentile 
who converts in superficial and insincere conversion only 
for the sake of marriage does not create a new identity that 
is now Jewish.

3. One is granting a victory to anti-Semites who seek to 
destroy the Jewish people.  Think of what has been 
sacrificed in the past by our own ancestors to keep their 
Judaism.  And think of the heritage that is being sacrificed 
for the sake of personal reasons.

Ultimately, however, all Jews must have a sense of pride in 
their own identity.  We cannot define ourselves by foreign 
ideologies, nationalities or religions.  As a great author 
once wrote:

 "Pride is faith in the idea that G-d had, when He 
made us.  A proud man is conscious of the idea, and 
aspires to realize it.  He does not strive towards a 
happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to G-d's 
idea of him.  His success is the idea of G-d, successfully 
carried through, and he is in love with his destiny. 
People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of 
G-d in the making of them, and sometimes they make 
you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or 
else it has been lost, and who shall find it again?  They  
have got to accept as success what others warrant to be 
so, and to take their happiness, and even their own 
selves, at the quotation of the day.  They tremble with 
reason before their fate."

 Let us not live by the "quotation of the day" but 
rather by our own heritage, the Torah.  When Jews study 
Torah, and identify as Jews they are really just returning 
to their true selves.

In the words of the Rebbe of Kotzk,

 "If I am I because you are you, and you are you 
because I am I; then I am not I and you are not you.  
However, if I am I because I am I, and you are you 
because you are you; then I am I and you are you."


Sources:
. Genesis 24:3-4 & 28:1
. Deuteronomy 7:1-5
. Nechemiah 10:30-31
. Exodus 19:3, 6; Deuteronomy 4:20, 26:17-19; Isaiah 
. Leviticus 22:32; Maimonides, Book of the Commandments 9
. A Book of Jewish Thoughts, compiled by Rabbi J. H. Hertz
. Shulchan Aruch Even Haezer 16:1
. Maimonides Hilchot Issurei Biyah 12:1
. Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
. Siach Sarphei Kodesh

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Yiddle Riddle

Women customarily light two Shabbat candles every Friday 
afternoon before sunset.  The Mishnah Berurah (263:7) says 
that if a women forgets to light Shabbos candles, she has to 
light an extra Shabbos candle for the rest of her life.  So, if 
she forgot to light candles the first week, she would have to 
light three candles the next week.  If she forgot the next 
week as well, then she would need to light four candles the 
third week.  If this continues over a period of 10 weeks, 
what is the total number of candles she will have used 
during this 10 week period?

Riddle submitted by Lev Seltzer <levs@virtual.co.il>

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THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
Comments, quibbles, and reactions 
concerning previous "Ask-the-Rabbi" features.

Re: Moshe's birth certificate; Regarding why the Torah 
chose the name "Moshe," being that it is not the name 
given him by his mother (Ohrnet Tetzaveh):

Moshe was drawn from the water and in turn draws 
all the world from the water.  The Talmud asks, 
"From where do we see Moshe in the Torah?" 
meaning "What is the source of Moshe in creation, 
where is his essence defined?"  The Talmud quotes 
the verse (Bereishis 3): "Lo yodun ruchi ba'adam 
l'olam beshagam hu basar," describing G-d's patience 
before bringing the Great Flood.   Moshe has the 
numerical value of the word in this verse, 
"beshagam" (see Daas Zekanim ad. Loc.).  The lesson 
is that Moshe - and the Torah that he brings down to 
earth - is the force that holds back the waters that 
threaten to flood the world.  It is he who splits the sea 
and brings the People of Israel across.  It is he who 
hits the rock and draws forth the water that sustains 
all life.  What name could possibly fit better?

                 Heshy Grossman <grossman@actcom.co.il>

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