Why I Won't Perform an Intermarriage: A Reform Rabbi Responds
DAVIS, MAURICE
Inter marriage WHY I WONT PERFORM AN INTERMARRIAGE A Reform Rabbi Responds MAURICE DAVIS The problem of whether to officiate at intermarriages is primarily one for Reform rabbis. Conservative...
...They told me not to be ridiculous...
...I apologized for having suggested it and said, "How about the above scenario but on Shabbat...
...Some drew it early, and some drew it late...
...At one of my luncheon discussion groups a father once told me, "If one of my sons came home and said, 'But Dad, why are you opposed to my marrying a non-Jew when Rabbi Davis is willing to perform the ceremony?' I would feel betrayed...
...That is why the decision has been so painful...
...It is being where he should not be, doing what he should not be doing...
...I chose to draw mine at the beginning...
...they marry themselves...
...To those who preferred that I take another stand, I said, "How many would approve of my performing an intermarriage with a priest in a church on Yom Kippur...
...But I will not officiate at their wedding...
...Perhaps...
...Again, no one would approve...
...I have officiated at a great many conversions during my tenure, a great many deeply moving and meaningful conversions, many of which would never have taken place had I been willing to officiate at intermarriages...
...Or I could play with statistics about the eventual demise of the Jewish people, which I do not believe...
...I meet with couples planning an intermarriage...
...And I simply am not into make-believe...
...But do I not have compassion for the couple and for the pleading parents...
...No one would approve of that...
...And I deeply resent those who demean the honesty or the sanctity of those conversions...
...That, too, has meaning...
...Conservative and Orthodox rabbis are forbidden to participate in such marriages, both halachically, and by their own rabbinic associations...
...In order for me to officiate at an intermarriage, either the non-Jew has to pretend that he or she is Jewish, or I have to pretend that I am not a rabbi...
...I tell the non-Jew, "I cannot ask you to do what you cannot do, and I cannot ask me to do what I cannot do...
...Of course I do...
...How about with a priest but not in a church...
...But it is not a Jewish marriage...
...But I also have compassion upon other parents as well, the ones who struggle to instill in their children the desirability of marrying within the faith, the ones still trying to hold the line...
...On more than one occasion, in great personal anguish, I have reviewed the reasons for the stand I have taken...
...In an intermarriage, either the non-Jew pretends that those words have meaning and relevance, which they do not, or I leave them out and pretend that I am a justice of the peace, which I am not...
...I hope not...
...I suppose I could play with statistics about the incidence of divorce among intermarrieds, which I do not understand...
...I have compassion for that father, too...
...One who converts to Judaism is a Jew, and there is nothing hyphenated about it...
...I represent the Jewish heritage and the Jewish people, and in their name I authenticate the ceremony Jewishly by having the couple state their affirmation k'dat moshe v'yisrael, according to the faith of Moses and of Israel...
...I enjoy living in freedom...
...I welcome them into my temple, into my home, into my heart...
...I do not "marry" the couple...
...I could even seek out the proper halachic argument, which I do not accept...
...And yet I doubt if there is a decision I have ever made that has been as painful as the decision not to officiate at intermarriages...
...Doesn't that tell you something...
...But perhaps...
...I have had to refuse people who are very dear to me, including members of my extended family...
...When all possibilities had been analyzed, and people had chosen the one they found acceptable, I told them, "Every single one of you has drawn a line somewhere...
...The role of a rabbi at a wedding is somehow to certify, declare, indicate or imply that this is a Jewish wedding...
...Yes, and how they feel about it along the way...
...I had not expected it...
...And that is fine with me...
...For me there is something inauthentic about a rabbi officiating at an intermarriage...
...For me, the decision not to perform intermarriages is rather personal...
...At an open meeting of our congregation, I raised the issue of my stand against performing intermarriages, a stand I sensed was something less than popular...
...It is a legal marriage...
...As one young lady said to me, after having commuted from Manhattan to White Plains for one full year, "If you had performed intermarriages, I would never have had this chance to learn and to experience...
...I decided to bring the entire matter out into the open, and was surprised that the majority agreed with me...
...Do I turn people off...
...And gradually I softened the scenario step by step...
...I meet with them as long and as often as they wish...
...All I care about is how they feel when that study period is concluded...
...But now my life is changed for all time...
...First, there is the matter of pretense...
...Principiis obsta—Resist the beginnings...
...I probably would never have chosen the path of conversion because I would have had no idea what Judaism was...
...My sense of what a rabbi is will not permit it...
...In Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, while consistently opposing the practice, has never forbidden its members from officiating at intermarriages...
...I enjoy taking a stand—not because it is written down somewhere, but because I have examined my faith and my conscience, and because, as someone else once said in a vastly different context, ich kann nicht anders, I cannot do otherwise...
...I do not care why anyone begins to study Judaism with me...
...Since Reform rabbis are not bound by halacha (traditional religious law), we alone are confronted with this problem...
...An intermarriage is a valid marriage...
...Be thou consecrated unto me with this ring, as my wife (husband), k'dat moshe v'yisrael...
...And the presence of a rabbi improperly implies that it is a Jewish marriage...
Vol. 12 • January 1988 • No. 10
