Intermarriage Questions Go Beyond “How Will They Raise the Kids?”

A couple of years ago I received a call from a long-time congregant, Steve (I’ve changed his name and other identifying details). He’s very nice, not very involved in synagogue life at this point, though he might have been when his kids were in religious school, before I was the rabbi here. The particular role he takes on, year after year, is setting up for the break-the-fast after Yom Kippur. He enjoys it, and it’s important to him. A few years ago his wife died, too young. I did her funeral.

His call was to tell me that he was getting married again, to a Jewish woman—would I perform the wedding? Yes, I said, because under many circumstances, I do perform interfaith weddings. You see, my congregant was the one who wasn’t Jewish.

Steve’s first marriage had been an interfaith marriage too—she was Jewish, he wasn’t. He and his wife raised their kids Jewish, and he did not convert. When she died, he continued as a synagogue member. Naturally, when he was remarrying, he called his clergy-member: me, his rabbi. I think he probably would have called me about doing the wedding even if he had fallen in love with someone who wasn’t Jewish.

I am not alarmed by intermarriage (and it wouldn’t do any good if I were). I believe in raising our children to be joyfully Jewish, with Judaism ingrained in their lives so that they will want the families they form to be Jewish too, no matter who they marry. I am encouraged by the rising levels of children of interfaith marriage who identify as Jewish, and by all the interfaith families in my congregation who are raising Jewish kids. I’m also deeply grateful to the non-Jewish parents who have agreed to walk with their spouses and kids on a Jewish journey. They are wonderful.

When we talk about intermarriage, though, the conversation seems always to be about the beginning of it. Who will officiate at the wedding? How will the children be raised? We need to be aware that there are interfaith questions at the other end too. If our policies don’t allow a non-Jew to be a member unless married to a Jew, that can become a problem. We’ve welcomed the non-Jewish spouse as part of the community. If the Jewish spouse dies, we’re not going to tell the surviving spouse that they can’t be a member of the synagogue anymore, that they can’t have that support, are we? That would be heartless and wrong. And yes, if I am that person’s rabbi, I’m willing to do their wedding if they remarry, if they want a Jewish wedding.

We have arrived at a time when rabbis like me must be able to serve our Jewish and non-Jewish congregants alike, throughout their lives. This does not mean we have to compromise ourselves by performing liturgy that isn’t Jewish or invoking forms of the Divine that are not ours—I would never pray in the name of Jesus, for example. (I did once encourage a non-Jewish congregant to start going to church again, because it was clear to me that that was what her soul was hungering for.)

In the congregation I serve, though, everyone does Jewish, whether they are Jewish or not. I am proud to teach Torah to everyone in my Jewish community, whether they are Jewish or not, and to embrace them when the interfaith questions arise—at the beginning of a marriage and at its end.

Torah

Pronunced: TORE-uh, Origin: Hebrew, the Five Books of Moses.