I recently had the unique experience of
attending the wedding of my daughter Tirtzah to her husband Damon.
The wedding was unique to me for a number of reasons beginning with
the fact that Damon is not Jewish.
If you feel a priori that such a
marriage is not to be sanctioned in any way or that reading about
such a marriage will disturb you deeply and would rather not, let me
advise you now to leave this page and to say that I understand.
Interestingly, though, the Pew Survey
of American Jews just came out this week. Some of what I say here is
pertinent to how I relate to some of the results of that survey. But
I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.
I asked to speak at the wedding and
found myself by that time in front of a group of one hundred some
guests, many of whom I had just met for the first time in the
previous hours or days. Many of them, perhaps most (I didn't make a
count) were not Jewish. I took this into account as I formulated what
I wanted to say and the following is based on that talk:
Tirtzah's marriage to Damon is not a
simple thing in my mind and in the mind of many who attended the
wedding. I am speaking mainly of perhaps most of the Jewish
participants. You see, for a Jew to marry a non-Jew is not at all
simple in the eyes of the Jews. Reasons abound as to why it is not
simple and I will try to summarize my own feelings.
Historically, Jews have been separated
from non-Jews by a kind of de facto mutual choice; that is, non-Jews,
particularly in Christian Europe, did not want Jews mixing in their
society and thus put Jews into ghettos and did not grant them
citizenship until beginning around the Enlightenment. Jews, for their
part, did not want to mingle with non-Jewish society and quite a bit
of Jewish law which developed in the Diaspora reflects this.
Jews suffered a long history of
oppression at the hands of Christians from at least the time of
Constantine and up to the present. The idea of marrying someone of
Christian background was, and still is, anathema to many Jews. The
marriage was seen as consorting with the enemy and a rejection of
one's heritage.
While many Jews are acutely aware of
this long history of antisemitism, generally, in my experience,
non-Jews are not. Non-Jews have by now heard of the Holocaust if only
by way of certain pop culture phenomena, such as the movie
“Schindler's List” or hearing about one Holocaust museum or
another.
In the 'melting pot' atmosphere in the
United States, non-Jews may have a hard time grasping why Jews would
be reluctant to marry them. After all, we're all human beings,
citizens of the world.
I am not advocating intermarriage, I am
merely trying to relate to this particular marriage.
Clearly, Damon is a wonderful, caring
man. I can see that he loves Tirtzah very much and that she loves
him. But, as we Jews often ask, is this marriage good for the Jews or
bad for the Jews?
Whereas in the past (and even in the
present) when a Jew married a non-Jew they were often making a
declaration of disconnection from their Jewish identity.
Intermarriage generally led to assimilation and loss of Jewish
identity and therefore loss of another Jew and all their future
offspring to the Jewish people.
But when I witness Tirtzah and Damon I
see something else happening. This wedding, while not halachic
(adhering to Jewish law) could only be categorized as a Jewish
wedding. We all saw the procession of the bride and groom with a
klezmer band (and an outstanding band at that). We all saw the bride
and groom stand under a chupah, the traditional Jewish marriage
canopy where they read their self-composed ketuba to each other in
Hebrew and in English. And we all saw as seven close friends and
family, both Jewish and non-Jewish, came under the chupah to bless
the couple, reminiscent of the Jewish tradition of reciting seven
blessings at a wedding.
Rather than a rejection of Jewish
identity and Jewish tradition, this wedding embraced those elements
of Jewish tradition which the couple finds meaningful and attempted
sincerely to make the ceremony meaningful to all.
So while Jews have very good reasons to
remain apart from non-Jewish society, this wedding has brought to
mind an oft overlooked and perhaps misunderstood story of the Torah.
That is the story of the Tower of Babel.
Just before the story of the Tower of
Babel begins, in Genesis 10, we read a list of the generations of
Noah's sons. If we count them all up we get a total of 70.
We then read the story of the Tower of
Babel. Let's set the scene: This story takes place in the first
generations after the Deluge. The Deluge wiped out all of humanity
save Noah and his family. Now people are regenerating but perhaps
carry with them the fear of being wiped out again despite God's
promise that he will not bring another flood to destroy the earth
(Genesis 9:11).
At this time, they were all one nation
and spoke one language. They plan to build a city and a tower that
will reach to the sky in order to make a 'name' for themselves lest
they be scattered on the face of the earth.
It is not clear why, and there are no
shortage of explanations, but God does not see this as a good thing.
Perhaps, though, it is simply their desire to stay together for
protection and that they did not trust that God wouldn't try another
flood. A tower could possibly afford them some refuge in the face of
another deluge.
I believe that at minimum we understand
that while the people were united, they did not see themselves as
being united with God.
God understands that it is precisely
the fact that they are united as a single nation with a single
language that allows them to make such a plan. As such, in order to
thwart their plan, God confounds their language and, as a result,
they no longer understand each other and the building stops. Not only
that, but they are scattered over the land, exactly the situation
they wanted to prevent!
Chazal understood that this story
serves as the basis for the notion that the world is made up of 70
nations. But what is to happen to these nations? According to Chazal,
they will wane over time until just one nation remains.
We read in Zechariah, one of the latter
prophets, an account of 'the end of days.' Chapter 14 verse 9 states:
והיה יקוק למלך על כל
הארץ ביום ההוא יהיה יקוק אחד ושמו אחד:
And the Lord will be as king over the entire world. On that day the
Lord will be One and His name One.
In other words, the ultimate goal of
humanity is to come together as a single nation recognizing the
Oneness of God. It is not the ultimate goal that everyone become
Jewish. The Jewish task in this world is primarily to promote the
idea of the One God. It is only by embracing that idea that humanity
will be truly united.
You might well ask: If God wanted
everyone to be united, why didn't He leave well enough alone at the
time of the Tower of Babel? But we understand the answer is that this
was not true unity as God was left out of the equation.
You might further ask if God wasn't
being a bit petty and petulant? After all, is He so concerned with
Himself that he had to break up a nice party and wait for God knows
how many millenia until they get it together again?
My personal answer to these questions
is based on my own notions about God and the nature of God. I will
expound on this more in later posts. However, for now, I will tell
you that God is not some old man who sits on high and looks down upon
us. This is the image we get by reading the story of the Tower of
Babel. But I would argue that the account in the Torah here is what
those who experienced the dispersion may have felt and perceived and
not necessarily the best way to understand God.
In short, I believe that while God is
unknowable per se, all of us have a soul and the soul is the spark of
God and the Divine within us. Thus, true unity of mankind can only
come about when we all recognize and embrace everyone else's humanity
and that humanity includes the idea that we were all created in God's
image, that all of us are connected to the Divine by being connected
to each other.
We don't know the way in which the
scenario of ultimate unity will play out. Perhaps, though, when
people like Tirtzah and Damon get together, they are actually making
their own step toward the coming together of all mankind. May their
union be a blessing to us all.
