Jew-Hindu Marriage with Equality possible?

Is Jew-Hindu marriage with Equality possible? Are Jews any different than Christians and Muslims when comes to interfaith marriages?

Source: IM IN LOVE WITH A NON-JEW

Q: Dear Rabbi, I am in love with a Catholic woman. I want to marry her. She loves me as much but religious beliefs are getting in the way. Please tell me what I should do, my parents say “no way.” Help.

Q: Dear Rabbi, I’m getting married in October to a girl who is not Jewish (she is Hindu, born in India) and we’re having a difficult time finding a Rabbi who will marry us. Why is this? And do you have any recommendations for Rabbis that would consider performing the ceremony. It’s important to me and my family that we are married by a Rabbi. Thanks.

Q: Dear Rabbi, I will be married (very soon) to a Jewish woman. I am not Jewish, but would very much like to include several of the Jewish traditions in our wedding, to embrace her heritage as well.

Answer from a rabbi:
Dear Names@Withheld,

For Jews, “marrying within the faith” isn’t a cultural preference or prejudice. Rather, it is one the commandments G-d gave us at Mount Sinai. A Jew who marries a non-Jew transgresses a Torah prohibition.

The practice of not “intermarrying” is in fact one of the oldest features of Judaism. It dates back to Abraham telling Eliezer, his servant, not to find a wife for his son from the Canaanites. It continues with Isaac’s command to his son Jacob not to marry the “daughters of the land.” The practice is mentioned in the Bible as a legal prohibition, and is also part of the covenant that Ezra the scribe had the Jews make when they rebuilt the Temple after the Babylonian Exile.

In all the above cases the underlying idea of the prohibition seems to be ideological. As Jews, we have a unique identity that is connected to our purpose in the world. We are the “chosen people.” We were chosen to propagate the ethical monotheism of Judaism.

In the words of Leo Tolstoy:

“The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religious. The Jew is the pioneer of liberty. The Jew is the pioneer of civilization. The Jew is the emblem of eternity.”

We were chosen as a permanent protest group against idolatry and immorality. Intermarriage is therefore antithetical to the Jewish purpose and to the Jewish identity.

Can we prove that we are chosen? Do we have evidence? Yes. In a brief look at history we can see the antiquity, survival and impact of the Jewish people as unique and remarkable. I don’t think that I can put it better than Mark Twain, in his famous description of Jewish history, “An Essay Concerning the Jews”:

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other nations pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

Intermarriage is a betrayal of our task and of our “choseness.” It is also a guarantee against Jewish continuity.

Let me illustrate with a conversation heard on the Dr. Laura Schlessinger show in the US:

A woman calls Dr. Laura: “I’m Jewish,” she says. “My husband is not Jewish, but he is very active in the Jewish community. We are trying our best to raise our children as Jews and give them a Jewish education. Now my son is almost thirteen, and he tells us he doesn’t want a bar mitzvah (celebration of the acceptance of one’s Judaism). What can we do?”

“Let me get this straight,” Dr. Laura says. “You say your husband is not Jewish?”

“That’s right,” the woman answers.

“How do you expect your son to follow Judaism when you don’t?”

Being Jewish isn’t a cultural affiliation or a tradition. It’s being part of the Chosen People. That means a commitment to the responsibility given to us by Hashem at Sinai. Someone who understands this will obviously choose a partner who is likewise committed. Otherwise, it’s entering a relay race, but choosing a partner who’s running towards a different finish line.

Who you marry affects every single aspect of your life. It affects your community. It affects your children. It affects all future generations. The Jewish home is the single most important establishment in Jewish life. It outweighs any synagogue or temple, even the Holy Temple built by King Solomon. By marrying a non-Jew one thereby ends over 3,000 years of Jewish continuity, effectively cutting oneself and one’s offspring off from what it means to be Jewish.

There have been many other arguments offered against intermarriage, below is a summary of some of the most famous.

1. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million were left afterwards. Today there are only 13 million Jews in the world. Where are the rest that by natural increase should number close to 20 million? The answer is that the silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to disappear as Jews.

Intermarriages are twice as likely to end in divorce as same-faith marriages (75% divorce rate!). Some reasons for this are the different identities of the spouses and the differences in culture and family. For example a Jew will naturally turn their head at the mention of “Israel” and “Jew.” A gentile who converts in superficial and insincere conversion only for the sake of marriage does not create a new identity that is now Jewish.

3. One is granting a victory to anti-Semites who seek to destroy the Jewish people. Think of what has been sacrificed in the past by our own ancestors to keep their Judaism. And think of the heritage that is being sacrificed for the sake of personal reasons.

Ultimately, however, all Jews must have a sense of pride in their own identity. We cannot define ourselves by foreign ideologies, nationalities or religions. As a great author once wrote:

“Pride is faith in the idea that G-d had, when He made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to G-d’s idea of him. His success is the idea of G-d, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny… People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of G-d in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason before their fate.”

Let us not live by the “quotation of the day” but rather by our own heritage, the Torah. When Jews study Torah, and identify as Jews they are really just returning to their true selves.

In the words of the Rebbe of Kotzk,

“If I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I; then I am not I and you are not you. However, if I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you; then I am I and you are you.” – A rabbi.

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This article raises some questions:
If you are a non-Jew and in love relationship with a Jew, what would you do to answer concerns raised by the rabbi here?
Should a Muslim, Christian or Hindu in love with a Jew agree to have children Bris/Bar Mitzvah to announce them as Jews?
Can your child be a pluralist, meaning have Bar Mitzvah and also Baptism (or Sunat to announce Muslim)?
Should one let the interfaith child decide his/her faith as an adult at age of 21?


More information: Interfaith marriage with equality, Hindu-Jew Relationships, Bible on Hindus? Jew-Hindu Marriages, Marriage and Divorce Laws.
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2 Comments

  • Tenali
    June 4, 2013 7:25 am

    My advice is not going to please you but never the less I will try. Ideally you should have continued in your respective faiths and tried to convince your parents for the marriage. You mentioned that your boy friend will convert to Islam hence I am not very surprised with his parents reaction. I am sure reaction from your family will also be similar if you disclose to them that you are converting to his faith. When you loved each other, you very well knew that you are not from same faith. If so, where is the need for conversion? Which country are you living in currently? Are you financially independent?

  • June 4, 2013 3:49 am

    Hi every body,

    I am a Muslim girl and I am in love with a Jewish guy. We have known one another for a year and a half now and we have the same feelings for each other. We started off as friends, and things just got so deep and we can’t hold ourselves back anymore (our love so far is purely platonic – we are both practising and believe in sex after marriage) – we want to get married, but there’s a problem..

    My family are practising muslims so believe I can marry him if he embraces Islam (which he is planning to do, for God, because he believes Islam is the truth religion), however, his family abuse him after finding out we were best friends, and now in love, they are furious and they abuse him and kicked him out the house many times (and he would live in my house secretly).
    His family hate muslims and are very racist and extreme. They are orthodox Jews btw, but my Jewish lover says his family are actually zionists, and that he doesn’t like them and their ideas. He doesn’t like his religion at all and says only Islam gives him peace.

    I am really worried about him, about us, our safety and happiness. We want to get married but if his family find out, we are literally dead (his family supports honor killings, whereas my practising muslim family do not).

    I am really distressed and haven’t slept properly for a long time. I am constantly worried and sorrowful. I love him so much, but it hurts me to see how his family are.

    I really want some advice, please. I am in tears..

    Reply at https://www.interfaithshaadi.org/?p=5658

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