Does Intermarriage Work? - Learning & Values

Question:

I am Baptist and my boyfriend is Jewish. Can we still make it work? I am trying to learn about Judaism.

Answer:

I've had a lot of experience with these kinds of relationships. Real short, I'll try to describe what's involved:

There are two stages in a long term relationship between a man and a woman. First, they fall in love. That's a kind of insanity that befalls most of humanity at some point. Without it, no one would ever get married.

But--and this is the crucial point--that insanity almost never lasts too long. One day, you wake up and here's this guy that you've hitched up with forever and ever--and you can't for the life of you remember why. What got into you? This is nuts!

That's when real love has to enter. Real love is when you find you have common goals, a common vision in life, way of looking at things....and you put all that together to make a marriage.

What we find, over and over, is that when a couple marries that has a vastly different background, the first stage can go great--but that second stage is a disaster.

You have to keep in mind that being Jewish isn't just a religion or a faith, like being a Baptist. A person is Jewish because he shares a huge heritage of thousands of years, a big long story, with all the other Jews. Wherever he goes, he carries that story with him. There's no way, as hard as he may try, that he can escape it.

Right now, that story he's carrying is not getting in the way of your relationship. But inevitably it will. We've seen that over and over.

My advice? if you want what's best for yourself and what's best for him, make it a nice friendship. And then look for someone that you can build a home together with. A home that will last.

By Tzvi Freeman

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription.

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May 17, 2012

What do you mean by the word "work",

Rabbi? That covers all sorts of areas.

Karen Joyce Chaya Fradle Kleinman Bell
Riverside, CA, USA

December 19, 2010

Dvorah, I heard that in Israel,

A marriage between an Orthodox Jew and a Reform Jew is forbidden in the Synagogue. Is that true? In fact, they can't get a marriage license? Is that true? In those cases, this would be considered an intermarriage? A civil union, not religious?

Karen Joyce Chaya Fradle Kleinman Bell
Riverside, CA, USA

December 17, 2010

Definitions

BS"D

There have been a couple of attempts at defining the terms by the commenters. Kalev Zalman did an excellent job and I took a stab at it, for example.

The vagueness of the question may have been to encourage dialogue. If Rabbi Freeman had defined terms too tightly, he would have answered the question in the question. At the same time, isn't it a given that on a Jewish website, intermarriage refers to Jewish/non-Jewish intermarriage?

It goes without saying that the Chabad position will be that there shouldn't be intermarriage. So we must move on to the next question: Why is it a problem according to Jewish law? Being deliberately vague gives us all a chance to see the various perceptions and misperceptions of what being Jewish is, what marriage is, what a successful marriage is etc. Only when we can figure out where our thinking is getting confused can we then figure out why we are having trouble with the idea that intermarriage is a mistake.

Dvorah Chanah
Minneapolis, MN

December 17, 2010

Let's just analyze HOW the question is worded.

DOES intermarriage work. Not SHOULD there be intermarriage. Not any definition of what kind of intermarriage. No definition of "work". I wish the rabbi would be more specific. We are going all over the board here with answers depending on how we read the question

Karen Joyce Chaya Fradle Kleinman Bell
Riverside, Ca, USA

December 16, 2010

To RachelIS

BS"D - You wrote: "I'm jumping into the pool, this is not a subject to molly coddle or handle gently-I am a child of intermarriage-both sides of the families rejected each of my parents, one side sat shiva, until now I have no Jewish family on my fathers side. It was a journey to be converted correctly and very difficult to find a shidduch (marriage partner)-I am alive because of Chabad and the Rebbe. The effects of intermarriage is not between 2 people, it is on entire families, the children born into such relationships and no manner of modern living, excuses about old fashioned ideas or assimilation will change what G-d asked of Jews, be seperate, protect yourself by separation and daily remind yourself of the need to separate (tzitsis etc.) There is not enough space or time to convey here what intermarriage means and does to Jews."

And to Kalev Zalman ben Immanuel RODRIGUEZ.

Thank you. Read and take to heart what intermarriage does to the children. It is a selfish decision.

Dvorah Chanah
Minneapolis, MN

December 15, 2010

Chaya Fradle Kleinman - dear sweet lady....

First of all, thank you so much for your compliments of my name. I thank G-d both names often. I like to think I am a bit of a spitfire, like Dvorah the prophetess, that maybe I have a spark of her amazing soul.

Second, it appears to me one outstanding characteristics of your soul is mercy. My soul focuses more on truth, often to the neglect of mercy. But, please consider the possibility that mercy misplaced is not mercy, and so often, a very merciful person simply can't see it when it happens.

If one takes into consideration not only where the couple makes a home (their local community) but also larger than them considerations such as; what their place in the World to Come will be, how their choice will limit their children, etc., claiming that intermarriage can be successful is not at all merciful. It's simply not the truth. Not for them, not for their children, not for their parents...not for the Jewish people. Really, it's not all relative.

Dvorah Chanah
Minneapolis, MN

December 15, 2010

Dvorah, you have a beautiful name.

When my grandma came over from the Old Country, the American customs agents changed her name from Dvorah to Dora. I like your name better. Anyway, this is an issue one can view from at LEAST two viewpoints. If you hold to the viewpoint that a loving and supportive Jewish community which all agree on Halacha laws is the BEST for people, and the individual is not as important as the end result of promoting the Jewish nation as it has been for thousands of years, then of course, intermarriage would be frowned upon. It would not work WITHIN that community. The couple would have to go outside the community to find their social circle where they would "fit". The great sadness of many of our elders is that the young sometimes rebel and take the viewpoint that individuality is more important in the long run, and their own freedoms are paramount in importance. So, WITH a mixed marriage, there would have to be responsibility of the couple to find their own niche in life.

Karen Joyce Chaya Fradle Kleinman Bell
Riverside, CA, USA

December 14, 2010

Within the context of this website....

BS"D - ...the question is not merely about personal happiness of the marriage partners, nor the longevity of the marriage. The stakes are much higher than these issues, yet so many comments here limit to that realm alone. By those standards, Ahab and Jezebel had a deleriously successful marriage.

Their legacy tells us otherwise.

Dvorah Chanah
Minneapolis, MN

December 14, 2010

I didn't say the 50 years marriage was endurance.

"and their parents all had conniption fits, saying all sorts of horrid things about how terrible the marriage will be. Yet, they've been married over 50 years now. This WAS a mixed marriage (2 different cultures), and they WERE happy. So, my answer was that yes, a mixed marriage can work and also no it can't. It ALL DEPENDS on individuals and how accepting they are and how accepting they are for how LONG. The Jewish law and halacha says it MUST NOT be done: Jew/non-Jew and also most probably Orthodox/Reform. Reform says it CAN be done. The question was not CAN IT, but if it is done, would it work. Again, I say it is all up to the individuals. Yes, it may be harder. So? People should be free to marry whomever they love. My opinion.

Karen Joyce Chaya Fradle Kleinman Bell
Riverside, CA, USA

December 14, 2010

happily married?

It's implied when someone states a marriage has lasted 50years, that the marriage was happy, at least reasonably so. Why would we assume it was a statement of endurance, only?

Elaine Thompson
Alpena, Michigan

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