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Mixed Marriage or Mixed Blessing? Part One
by Chaia Kravitz
Intermarriage rates between Jewish and non-Jewish spouses is on a rising surge. Different cultures and religions can collide in a marriage, causing rocky times and difficulty in agreeing on how to raise the children. However, if Yeshua is at the center of a marriage, He can be a unifying force. Intermarriage between Jewish and non-Jewish spouses is nothing new. Mixed marriages have occurred throughout history, during whatever time periods in which Jews were not considered to be society's paraiahs and there have been Gentiles willing to marry them. Within the last fifty years, Jewish/non-Jewish intermarriage has risen to above the 50% point in the Unites States, with Canada following close behind. The Jewish establishment finds these statistics alarming, and for good reason. In many cases, the children born from such unions are raised in the religion of the non-Jewish spouse, or with no faith at all. Such children grow up unsure of their identity and are ripe for the pickings of cults and New Age sects. On the other side of the equation, Gentile spouses face friction with Jewish in-laws who often do not make them feel like a welcome part of the family. Gentiles who have spiritual conviction also meet with obstacles in passing their faith along to their children, in the face of pressure from their spouse and in-laws. Or, the parents comrpomise and attempt to raise the children in both religions, inundating the poor kids with conflicting messages. And, this is completely aside from the fact that in Rabbinical Judaism, only children born of a Jewish mother or whose mothers have converted through Orthodox means are considered Jewish. In other words, in many cases, intermarriage breeds marital discontent, family friction, and children who are half of one, half of the other, and all of nothing. Am I against intermarriage? Not exactly. While bearing in mind that we need differences between us to make life interesting, when two people come together and start a family they have to have certain basic fundamentals in common. When two people get married, it is like they are building a house together. And if the foundation is not in place properly, the house will not be stable and will eventually tumble. As a good friend of mine once told me: Opposites attract -- but they sure don't make for a lasting relationship! If faith is an important part of your life, it is as the very core of your being and is an underlying factor in everything that you do. When a spouse does not share that faith, it is like they are marching to the beat of a different drummer. That is why the Bible commands us not to tie ourselves to someone with whom we are unequally yoked. Even if we are not spiritual people, and marry an equally secular person from another religious tradition, problems can still occur. You get married with the agreement that you will live a secular lifestyle. How any future children will be raised is often not discussed, or glossed over with an over-simplistic, "We will worry about kids when they happen;" "We will raise them in both traditions;" or, the most unreasonable assumption, "We will let the kids decide what they want." 1) Children will most likely be a part of your marriage;2) It is best to decide what you are going to do before they arrive; and 3) Children are no more in a position to choose a religious path than to decide what time they will go to bed, what to eat for dinner and what television programs are acceptable to watch. As well, faith is something that often becomes more important to us when we have a family. We want to pass our beliefs and traditions down. And even in those cases where a couple decides to raise the children either as nothing or in one specific faith, suddenly this arrangement might become unacceptable for the other spouse. After all, how many of us have wanted something so badly only after we are told that we cannot have it? The good news is that there is an answer, a solution that can bring unity in a mixed marriage, and even turn it into a mixed blessing! Messianic Judaism is the bridge between the Jew and Gentile. In Yeshua, we are one, and in combinging Jewish traditions with faith in Yeshua, we can have families that are whole, children with a clear spiritual path and a marriage that has God at its center -- and foundation.Continued next time Copyright 2002
- Romans 1:16, NIV |