Q&A: Lucy, Come Home
Lucy, Come Home
Question
As was publicized at the Bible conference of the 929 project of Rabbi Benny Lau
there is a panel (“Torah for All the Peoples of the World”) hosted by Lucy Aharish
and that led some rabbis to protest the fact that specifically an intermarried woman is hosting such a ceremony
I’d be glad to know what the Rabbi thinks about this.
Answer
First of all, she isn’t intermarried but intermixed.
I don’t see what the big deal is with these ceremonies. All kinds of people want to “study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)” and celebrate it for themselves. Good for them. If they were studying Ketzot, I’d understand the excitement. It seems to me that Sabbath desecrators and people who have relations with menstruating women are going much more directly against the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and their transgressions are more severe too. And for some reason, there nobody says a word.
Discussion on Answer
With God’s help, the 25th of Adar II, 5782
Aside from the intrinsic severity of the prohibition of intermarriage itself, about which the prophet says: “For Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord which He loved, and has married the daughter of a foreign god” — there is also a ‘point of no return’ here. Someone who violates the prohibitions of Sabbath, kashrut, and family purity is not risking the loss of his Jewish identity, and there is always, especially if he studies the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), a chance that “the light within the Torah” will bring his study into action.
By contrast, someone married to a non-Jewish woman — even if thoughts of repentance arise in him, it will be very difficult for him to separate from his wife and children, who are non-Jews like her. This situation of ‘intermarriage’ is easy to enter when love is burning, but very hard to leave when one begins to wake up from the ‘dream.’
In past years, intermarriage was a ‘taboo’ even in the secular public in Israel; even among those who observed none of the commandments between man and God, they were careful about this in order to preserve Jewish identity. Today, when winds of ‘openness’ are already blowing through the public, there is already in Israel a phenomenon — still limited — of intermarriage. Having a non-Jewish woman married to a Jew host the ‘Bible Conference’ is almost a ‘bridge too far’ for the phenomenon.
I understand that it would be unpleasant to cancel Ms. Aharish’s invitation after she has already been invited. I would therefore suggest moving her to a panel on ‘Binational Marriage in the Biblical Period and Today,’ in which, for balance, representatives of Lehava and Yad L’Achim would also participate 🙂
Best regards, Yiftach Bar-Koshev Arubinsky
The idea of the ‘Ketzot Project’ is an excellent one, since we are dealing with legal topics that are relevant to jurists of all nations and faiths. Let’s invite the honorable Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to moderate a panel on “A Doubtful Woman in Testimony and Law” 🙂
Best regards, Yosef Tzvi Bidani Levi-Trumpist