{"id":13845,"date":"2011-07-14T08:50:08","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T08:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/mm_intermarriage\/"},"modified":"2015-11-03T05:27:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T10:27:33","slug":"mm_intermarriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinchas: Intermarriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In our parsha, Pinchas receives a special eternal blessing for his zeal in preventing intermarriage between the Jewish men and the Midianite women. Intermarriage is considered one of the most severe breaches in Jewish tradition, and the desire to prevent it is the main reason for the prohibition on many kinds of foods prepared by non-Jews. This includes non-Jewish bread (YD 112), cooked dishes (YD 113), milk (YD 115) and wine (YD 123-138), and eating together with them at a festive meal (YD 152).<\/p>\n<p>At the same time that our sages decreed that we should be involved in acts of mutual help and loving kindness with our non-Jewish neighbors, they were concerned that excessive familiarity could lead to intermarriage.<\/p>\n<p>Let us examine some of the reasons for this aversion.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dilution of faith<\/li>\n<li>Intermarriage<\/li>\n<li>Assimilation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The most explicit concern is that the non-Jewish spouse will draw the Jewish one away from proper Torah observance. The Torah tells us (Devarim 7:3-4) \u201cDon\u2019t marry with them &#8211; don\u2019t give your daughter to his son, and don&#8217;t take his daughter for your son; lest he should turn your son away from Me, and they will worship other gods. Then the wrath of HaShem will burn among you, and He will quickly destroy you\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Even those non-Jewish religions which preach monotheism and believe in Moshe\u2019s revelation are very far from the way of faith and from a proper understanding of that revelation. The Divinely-guided words of the Sages, which for us are the very spirit and continuation of the Torah of Moshe, are for the non-Jew at most a collection of inspirational folk sayings. Even a spouse who is favorably inclined towards the Jewish religion is certain to have deep misconceptions which are likely to lead the partner, and especially the children, very far from the faith of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>This concern may be hinted at in the prohibition on non-Jewish foods. Our Sages explain that they prohibited certain ordinary foods \u201cbecause of their wine, and their wine because of their daughters\u201d (Shabbat 17b). One may ask why it is necessary to mention wine, since the foods themselves also lead to the intimacy which could encourage intermarriage.<\/p>\n<p>One explanation is that the prohibition on non-Jewish wine is more severe than that on other foods, because it relates also the the concern that the wine could be an idolatrous offering &#8211; a libation to a pagan god. Connecting food with intermarriage through the connection of wine may suggest that all along we are worried about the connection with wine &#8211; the symbol of pagan worship. (See Likutei Halakhot, Breslav.)<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Alienation from the faith community<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another concern is that even if the Jewish spouse would keep all the commandments, this observance would necessarily be a private rather than a communal observance. It is impossible for a Jew\u2019s communal affiliation to be complete if the spouse is not a member of our faith community. For the Jew, the highest significance of the observance of mitzvot is not as a private submission to God\u2019s command but rather as a sign of the covenant between HaShem and the Jewish people as a whole. The commandments are our side of the \u201cbargain\u201d in this covenant, and they are our way of demonstrating our loyalty to HaShem and our devotion to the immense historical responsibility which He entrusted us with &#8211; making His name known in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the Rambam writes (Teshuva 3:11), \u201cOne who parts from the community, even if he doesn\u2019t do any transgressions but merely separates himself from the congregation of Israel and doesn\u2019t perform their commandments in their generality and doesn\u2019t take part in their sorrows nor fast with them but rather goes his own way like one from the nations of the world, as if he is not one of them, he has no portion in the next world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The phrase \u201cin their generality\u201d may refer to the commandments, meaning that he doesn\u2019t perform the commandments as part of a general complete system of belief, as an expression of a transcending covenant between HaShem and the people of Israel. Or it may mean \u201cin the generality\u201d of the congregation, in which case it means he views the mitzvot as a purely personal obligation. Either way, the half-hearted community affiliation which is certain to be the lot of the intermarried Jew points in the direction of one who \u201cparts from the community\u201d.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Rabbi Asher Meir is the author of the book Meaning in Mitzvot, distributed by Feldheim. The book provides insights into the inner meaning of our daily practices, following the order of the 221 chapters of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our parsha, Pinchas receives a special eternal blessing for his zeal in preventing intermarriage between the Jewish men and the Midianite women. Intermarriage is considered one of the most severe breaches in Jewish tradition, and the desire to prevent it is the main reason for the prohibition on many kinds of foods prepared by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":27739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage","category-torah","series-meaning-in-mitzvot"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pinchas: Intermarriage - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We should be involved in acts of help &amp; loving kindness with our non-Jewish neighbors but were concerned excessive familiarity could lead to intermarriage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pinchas: Intermarriage - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We should be involved in acts of help &amp; loving kindness with our non-Jewish neighbors but were concerned excessive familiarity could lead to intermarriage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-14T08:50:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-03T10:27:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Wedding-Bands.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"849\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"565\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Asher Meir\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Asher Meir\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/\",\"name\":\"Pinchas: Intermarriage - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Wedding-Bands.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-07-14T08:50:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-03T10:27:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/4c2f4ad1d72111dec1fdf83f0a909af9\"},\"description\":\"We should be involved in acts of help & loving kindness with our non-Jewish neighbors but were concerned excessive familiarity could lead to intermarriage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/relationships\/marriage\/mm_intermarriage\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Wedding-Bands.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Wedding-Bands.jpg\",\"width\":849,\"height\":565,\"caption\":\"Wedding ring\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/\",\"name\":\"OU Life\",\"description\":\"Everyday Jewish Living\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/4c2f4ad1d72111dec1fdf83f0a909af9\",\"name\":\"Asher Meir\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0510faaa140f017ea10abbcd307dd7f96ad61b6976b05c887145d87bd1d3a4cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0510faaa140f017ea10abbcd307dd7f96ad61b6976b05c887145d87bd1d3a4cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Asher Meir\"},\"description\":\"Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir is one of the Jewish world's best-known lecturers and educators in the area of business ethics. 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