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From: trb@masscomp.UUCP (Andy Tannenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Mixed marriages
Message-ID: <191@masscomp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Feb-84 18:48:39 EST
Article-I.D.: masscomp.191
Posted: Fri Feb 24 18:48:39 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Feb-84 08:41:33 EST
References: <121@nwuxd.UUCP>
Organization: MASSCOMP, Littleton, MA
Lines: 84

Darryl Baker brings up the problems of being a Jewish man who married a
woman who wasn't Jewish.  I'm Jewish and not married, but I have long
considered these problems and therefore have some opinions to offer.

Darryl is bothered by Catholic statuary (the rabbis at my yeshiva
called these graven idols, as I recall) and by various Catholic
influences in his family.  He realizes that it's hard to live in the
middle of the road.

Indeed, I have decided that it's impossible for a person of integrity
(me, in this instance) to live in the middle of the road.  I am apalled
by people who warp the Jewish laws to suit themselves, for instance:  A
Jewish man intermarries and says "I'll raise the boys Jewish but not
the girls."  That ain't the rules, friend, I'm sorry.  Judaism states
that Jewish children come from Jewish mothers (or conversion, NOT a
simple process).  Period.  No bullshitting around, ok?

Lots of people go to reform temples where they hack Judaism and its
customs in various ways.  In Morristown, NJ, there's a temple where
they blow a french horn with the shofar on Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur.
Quaint, but not proper.  Rather disgusting, actually, as the hooplah
distracts attention from the shofar and its purpose, which is not,
after all, to sound pretty.  The reform movement always seems to be
beautifying Judaism where it isn't exactly necessary, sort of like
Muzak.  Maybe they should change the name to Jewzak.

Anyway, I really should not be casting aspersions on sects of Judaism,
but I emphasize that when I talk about Judaism, I mean Judaism by the
book, as practiced by what today is called the orthodox sector.

Back to the problems of intermarriage.  If you want to intermarry,
that's your business (btw, that's my opinion, one certainly not shared
by much of the paranoid "Jewish community").  If you want to violate
the laws of Judaism, that's your business and your responsibility.

The important thing to realize is: what you do with your life is your
business, and other people, even other Jews should not be able to
control it, and indeed they can't.  They aren't affected by it in a
major way, which is why it's none of their business.  On the other
hand, if you go around saying that your tailor made beliefs are
accecptable Jewish beliefs, then you are hurting all Jews by diluting
their beliefs in the eyes of society.  For instance.  A Jew says:  I
don't eat trefe (non-kosher), but I don't buy my meat at a kosher
butcher.  There are people out there who think that this is acceptable
modern Judaism.  There might be children or other people ignorant in
Jewish law who see this practice and accept it as Jewish law.  There,
you're misleading others, which is something I find reprehensible.

This goes, of course, for violating other Jewish laws, like marrying a
woman who isn't Jewish and saying "we'll raise the boys Jewish."  This
one is worse, MUCH worse, because you're misleading your children, and
you could be preparing them for disaster should they be "uncovered as
goyim" in later life.  Again, nothing wrong with being not being
Jewish, something very wrong with misleading people.

This note has gotten out of hand, reading it myself, I sound like the
narrator from the movie "Reefer Madness" ("Tell your children!").  I do
want to emphasize that living a lie is a horrible idea; go one way or
the other.

Note well, that your religious practices don't make you any more or
less a Jew, they just make you more or less of a practicing Jew.  For
instance:  I don't keep certain Jewish laws right now.  I don't
restrict my diet, I work when it's forbidden (right now, for
instance).  I'm still a Jew, as much as any other Jew.  What I feel is
important though, is that I don't masquerade.  I don't claim that I'm
"kosher in the house" or that I eat kosher food when I go out and eat
food that would be kosher if it were prepared properly (e.g. a roast
beef sandwich from some random place).  I know that by Jewish law,
there is a penalty for me to pay later.  If you're going to live your
life by some rules, than do it with some integrity.

One thing about Darryl's note which disturbed me, he said:

	One last comment is that I don't like the word Jewish, you can
	say Hebrew but you sometimes get a debate about that being the
	language not a religion.

I don't understand this at all.

I guess my main point here was to elucidate some Jewish beliefs through
my opinions, I hope Jewish part survived through the opinion part.  Nu?

	Andy Tannenbaum   Masscomp Inc  Westford MA   (617) 692-6200 x274