The most popular days to get engaged are Christmas (and I assume Hanukkah!), New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day. That means this time of year is one when rabbis like me get lots of phone calls to officiate at upcoming wedding ceremonies.
One of my favorite parts of my rabbinate is officiating at weddings. It is such a joyous time in people’s lives, and they are eager to share their stories, to plan a wedding that celebrates their values, and to bring their friends and families together for a wonderful celebration. As a rabbi, I get to learn about people and to work with couples to think about their future together and the family life they are beginning to create.
Of all the weddings that I do each year, most are for interfaith couples. This makes sense, since most couples getting married include partners with diverse backgrounds and religious identities. As my colleague and friend Rabbi Jesse Gallop often says, “interfaith families are modern Jewish families.” I agree; they are not outliers or some group that needs to be treated as outsiders to the Jewish community.
READ: Finding a Rabbi or Cantor to Officiate at Your Interfaith Wedding
Today’s Jewish community is beautifully diverse. Whether a Jewish person marries another Jew or someone who identifies with a different background, what I believe matters more are shared values. Yes, it is possible for a person who is Jewish and a person who is Christian to have very different values, just as it is possible for two Jewish people to have very different values. It is also possible for someone who identifies as Jewish and someone who identifies as Christian to have common values. At the end of the day, conversations about values, traditions, rituals, and frameworks for living one’s life are more important to me than a conversation exclusively about religious identity.
READ: Intermarriage Is A Scapegoat
It is for these reasons, among others, that I am happy to officiate at interfaith marriages, including some ceremonies where I co-officiate with clergy of another faith. In recent conversations with InterfaithFamily, a group that (among other activities) matches couples with prospective of officiants, I learned that they get many requests for rabbis to co-officiate and that many rabbis are unwilling to do so.
Of course, I respect that my rabbinic colleagues can and should make individual choices about which ceremonies they are comfortable officiating. That said, I am here to say that I have had only positive experiences working with co-officiants. When I officiate any wedding, whether between two Jews or a Jewish person and a non-Jewish person, I make case-specific choices about whether it’s a wedding I am comfortable officiating. There are times that I say no because I am not comfortable for any of a number of reasons; a couple wanting an interfaith ceremony or a co-officiant is not a reason in and of itself for me to say no.
In those ceremonies, I bring Jewish elements and my clergy colleagues bring elements from their tradition into the ceremony. We make sure we are all comfortable with the specific elements chosen. We each explain what we are doing so that all of the people there understand the elements of the service. We work with couples to talk about what matters to them – so they are very intentional about the choices they are making for their ceremony, which is really just the beginning of a series of choices they will make throughout their married lives. I would so much rather an interfaith family hears welcoming and positive messages from a rabbi rather than being told “no, I can’t be there for you.”
Throughout my rabbinate, I have seen how amazingly involved non-Jewish parents often are in their children’s Jewish identity. They are often the ones driving kids to Hebrew school, helping them prepare for their bar or bat mitzvahs, and volunteering at synagogue. There are so many parents who do not identity as Jewish who still strongly cultivate their children’s Jewish identity. Let’s celebrate that. Let’s also celebrate the families where couples choose not to become parents and have a wonderful marriage celebrating both of their religious identities, learning from one another.
READ: Bar/Bat Mitzvah Planning Issues for Interfaith Families
So to all of the couples who just got engaged or are about to get engaged, mazel tov and congratulations! If you’re looking for a rabbi to officiate at your interfaith marriage, we exist and are happy to do it. Don’t give up. Keep calling, and you will find a community that welcomes you.
mazel tov
Pronounced: MAHZ-ul tahv or mah-ZAHL tove, Alternate Spelling: mazal tov, Origin: Hebrew, literally “good luck,” but usually used to mean “congratulations.”
