Question

Hello Rabbi. Yesterday a good friend of mine called me. He’s very right-wing politically, but clearly secular. He told me that for a few months he had been dating a woman who is eligible under the Law of Return but is not Jewish according to Jewish law. He said it was an amazing relationship, and that they broke up because of the halakhic issue. She took a Nativ course in the army, but at the last moment decided not to immerse in a ritual bath, claiming that “God asked her not to.” He asked me, as his religious friend, to convince him why he shouldn’t get back together with her, and why it’s so terrible that she’s a gentile, etc. He said their worldview is pretty similar. And given that he is a Jewish nationalist, that means she too very much sees herself as Jewish in the national sense. I answered him that if Jewish law doesn’t interest him anyway, I wonder why this is such a deal-breaker for him, and that if Merav Michaeli was flexible enough to have a child through surrogacy, it seems strange to me that he isn’t willing to be flexible for the sake of a relationship. I made clear to him at the outset that this is an absolute halakhic prohibition and there is no way to permit it, even if his children convert in the future. I was really horrified by the answer I gave him, because in a certain sense I convinced him to assimilate (he also kind of said that). But what could I have answered him?
In any case, after the conversation I told him to speak with a rabbi whom I respect very much, but I still feel awful and terribly confused. What would you have answered such a question? And what should I do to atone?
Thank you, Noam.