From: Terry M. Gray (grayt@lamar.colostate.edu)
Date: Sat Oct 25 2003 - 20:55:10 EDT
Rich,
This post seems to be making George's point. The "centrality of
Jewish endogamy" seems to have less to do with tribe, ethnicity, or
genetics and more to do with religious faith. I.e. it's okay for an
ethnic Jew to marry outside the ethnic circle if the person professes
the Jewish faith. Is this the case?
Of course, this is also the case among Christians, they are not to be
"unequally yoked" with unbelievers. Marriage is one of the
applications of this principle.
TG
>Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
>Content-Language: en
>
>The following excerpt is from Maurice Lamm's The Jewish Way in Love
>and Marriage, Harper & Row 1980
>
>In the acknowledgments:
>"My brother Dr. Normal Lamm, my mentor and colleague, president of
>Yeshiva University, who sacrificed precious hours to review the
>entire manuscript
>Rabbi Zvi Schacter, Rosh Yeshiva, and head of the Kollel at Yeshiva
>University, who tested all my halakhic decisions."
>
>
>"There have been many reasons given throughout Jewish history for
>the profoundly negative attitude toward interfaith marriage. This
>attitude appeared at various times to be based on political or
>military considerations, or motivated by ethnic pride or the danger
>of social disintegration. But whatever the given reasons, the
>primary motive was to keep the religion of the Jew intact. (note:
>the religion OF THE JEW)
>The threat of interfaith marriage is graphically illustrated by the
>following story:
>When the Jews were still wandering in the desert, they had an
>enormous population, were militarily well prepared, and were
>virtually inconquerable. But the pagan prophet Balaam, recognizing
>the destructive influence of mixed relationships, simply loosed
>idol-worshipping Moabite women upon them, recounts the Midrash.
>Immorality, idolatry and assimilation quickly weakened the Jews
>and wrecked their cohesiveness, and their will.
>The historical tradition of marrying within the religion at any cost
>is evident from Abraham's choice of a wife for Isaac (genesis
>24:3).; Rebekah's sending Jacob back to her family to marry
>(Gen.27:46); Esau's marriage to Hittite women, which brought grief
>to his parents (gen:26:34-5); and Jacob's sons who were horrified
>that their sister Dinah might be married to one not circumcised (Gen
>34:14). When Samson fell in love with a Philistine, his parents
>sought to dissuade him; "Is there no wife among the daughters of
>thy brothers or among all my people that thou goest to take a wife
>from the uncircumcised Philistines? (Judges 14:3). Thirty nine kings
>of Judah and Israel reigned for three hunderd and ninety three years
>and ONLY TWO MARRIED OUT OF THE FAITH. Exogamous marriages were
>contracted by Judah, Simeon, Joseph, and Moses but these came before
>the legal restriction was pronounced at Sinai. (It is traditionally
>assumed that all their wives were converted).
>Jewish literature in different centuries cites interfaith marriage
>as the cause of a number of communal failures and historic
>tragedies. The blasphemy recorded in Leviticus 24:20 is
>specifically ascribed in the Torah to a child of a mixed marriage
>(an Egyptian man and his Jewish wife), and the inordinate
>difficulties of the Jews during the early period of the Judges is
>blamed on those who "resided in the midst of" the local nations
>(Judges 3:4-5).
>King Solomon's decline is attributed to marriages to foreign wives
>"who sacrificed unto their gods." and caused him to "do evil in the
>eyes of god" (I Kings 11:1-6). The murderers of Joash (IIChronicles
>24:26) are listed as children of mixed marriages of Jewish fathers
>with Shimmat the Ammonite woman, and Shimrit the Moabite woman.
>The prohet Malachi attacks interfaith marriage: "Judah has dealt
>treacherously and an abomination is committed in Israel and
>Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord. For he
>has loved and married the daughter of a strange god. May the Lord
>cut off the man that does this, that calls and answers from the
>TENTS OF JACOB and offers an offering unto the Lord of Hosts."
>(2:11-12)
>The history of Jewish exogamy goes on for another full page.
>It ends thus:
>Two centuries later, (after the Hasmoneans) the rabbis could relax
>somewhat on the more stringent details of the social ordinances,
>but NO ONE EVER COMPROMISED ON THE UNQUALIFIED, UNYIELDING
>PROHIBITION OF INTERFAITH MARRIAGE. IT KEPT THE JEWS INTACT AND
>ENABLED JUDAISM TO LIVE TO THIS DAY.
>------------
>
>On the inside cover of a Passover Jewish Action Magazine distributed
>in local supermarkets in 2001 by the Union of Orthodox Jewish
>Congregations of America is an unselfconscious letter addressed to
>Jewish children:
>
>"...Our aim is nothing less than to convince a record number of
>Jewish youngsters that interdating and intermarriage are a betrayal
>of who they are."
>
>
>Of course, All of the religions in the OT (except at the very end
>with the maccabees) are tribal religions, ethnically based.
>Hellenism, Christianity, and Buddhism, all universalist
>ideologies, were yet to come.
>
>rich faussette
>
>
-- _________________ Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist Chemistry Department, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/ phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
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