If only the bride is Jewish, can the two still have a formal Jewish wedding?
I’m Jewish- my boyfriend is not.
I want a Jewish wedding and he wouldn’t mind, but is that even possible? Or is that too unconventional?
First, I would like you to consider exactly why you want a Jewish wedding. If you are not going to have a Jewish home and raise your children as Jews, is a Jewish wedding appropriate? If you plan on both of those things, then as Ambivalent said, there are aspects of Jewish custom that you may find meaningful in your ceremony.
Intermarriage is a very common in Jewish life in the United States. Since non-Jews in this nation surround Jews (we comprise about 2 percent of the populace declaring any religious affiliation), many of us fall in love and marry non-Jewish spouses. I am married to a non-Jew. I must be one of those 25% of Jews that marry a non-Jew and have a happy marriage. My husband and I have been together since 1991. Even though my marriage is a success and I am raising my Jewish son as a Jew, I can certainly understand the dangers and problems.
Intermarriage can “lose” Jews. It is frowned upon for many reasons. I am not going to write here to debate that issue at all. I am writing about decisions that are necessary to be made once a Jew and non-Jew have fallen in love and are considering marriage or who have already married without making crucial decisions beforehand.
I strongly do not believe that a child should be raised in two conflicting belief systems. You do no service to either religion to try to make a blending of them where there is incompatibility of belief. Moreover, no rabbi I know of would perform a bris ceremony on a child who has been or will be christened. The bris is a dedication of that child to the covenant of Israel and you cannot be dedicated to two DIFFERENT covenants simultaneously. I believe a child needs a sense of identity and that if you do not give that child a clear identity they are easy prey for ANY cult as a young teen or adult when they are searching for their own identity. The strongest lure of the cult is a strong sense of identity.
Now this is where I often surprise some who see me as very strongly Jewish (and I am). I tell them with all sincerity, I would rather see a child raised Christian than raised in a dishonest and unintelligible mish mash that dishonors both traditions. I would also rather see them raised without any religion than the kind of confusion where a child thinks they can be both at the same time. Before I begin trying to explain in detail why I strongly believe that one should choose one or the other rather than try to make the children belong to two religions simultaneously I will let you know about my own family.
My husband and I decided before we married that any child we had would be raised Jewish. He was raised Southern Baptist, but not in a particularly observant home. His grandmother gave him much of his spiritual ethics and teaching and as he grew older he became an agnostic. He does not care to affiliate with any organized religion. I respect his decision. My husband is the most honest man I have known outside of my father. They also became best friends and grew to love each other. How much more blessed could I be?
This does not mean that we ignore or disrespect the religion of many family members on my husband’s side. He has a few members of his family that are active in their church, singing in choir, etc. We go to celebrate family gatherings with them on Easter and Christmas Eve. They are not religiously significant for us, but are significant times to connect to family and to help teach our son about this portion of his heritage. This is also important for him in developing a sense of self in relation to the world around him. My husband participated in the bris of our son and he participates with us in Jewish family life, in daily prayers, Shabbat dinner and candle lighting and in celebrations of holiday events. Obviously I’m not Orthodox, but I do practice my Jewish faith. He does not wish to convert to become Jewish and I am not going to try to convert him. He knows and respects that my Jewish faith is important to me and he understands that the ethics of Judaism is good for helping to build strong family values of our own. This works for us just fine. Our son is now studying to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah. Our son has a solid identity as a Jewish person in a Jewish home.
Reform Rabbis will not participate in a bris if the child has been or will be christened. You cannot honestly dedicate your child to the body of the Church in Jesus and also make the child a part of the Covenant Community of Israel. They are two distinct and doctrinally incompatible covenants. The very name of the ceremony means covenant. Brit/bris = covenant.
When it comes to religion; one is better than none and better than two. If child grows up with a solid and unambiguous faith identity giving them a feeling of “home” in the world when it comes to spiritual awareness, they are given a sense of belonging. A lack of a feeling of belonging leaves one vulnerable to identity crises or cults.
This can be a very tough decision when parents have strong feelings of connection to their own faiths or faith communities. Even if the parent does not have a strong sense of faith, grandparents often add their own hopes and the sense of family connection through faith identity can be strong. Both sides do not want to ask too much sacrifice from the other. Each parent usually has a sense of what he or she can and cannot tolerate. If the decision as to what your children will be raised waits until you decide to have a child or until after your child is born, this can create a volatile situation within the marriage and extended family. It is issues such as these that are very toxic to marriages.
Many parents who have put off the decision at this point think they can just “cover both bases” and appease both sets of families. They think, we are being tolerant and will please both families we will expose them to both religions in our family life and then let them choose which one they want to be when they are older.
I have known people raised this way and I have read stories from people raised this way and it is almost always a bad decision. Most of them speak of never feeling completely accepted by either religious community, going through worse self identity crises in adolescence than their peers and many became resentful to both parents in attempts to not hurt the feelings of either of them. A few of them have become the most rabidly anti-religion people I have ever met. Once grown, they often feel anger at their parents not having made the decision and putting them in the middle of an issue their parents could not resolve.
However evenhandedly “both” religions are presented, there is the unconscious or conscious sense that the child is choosing one parent over the other. One child said, “When I do the Jewish stuff, my Dad gets upset and when I do the Christian stuff, Mom gets angry” or ” I don’t feel like I fit in either group” The “anger” may not be apparent to the parent, but the child senses the unspoken and unresolved resentment.
If one parent feels stronger about their religion than the other then that is the religion that should be chosen, no matter which religion it is. I am not going to tell you, even as a Jewish mother with a strong sense of Jewish identity that you as a Jewish woman are a bad person if you choose to raise the child of your Christian husband as a Christian. It is better for your child to have an unambiguous identity than to be given a confused sense of self. Your child deserves better than that and I know that deep down you know that, too.
Whichever religion you choose, this does not mean that you cut your child off from the religion of the “other”. You can celebrate holidays with your extended family and teach them about the “other” faith with as much respect and dignity as you would want for your own faith. It may not be “our” holiday, but we are celebrating “their” holiday with them as they celebrate our holidays with us. There is a difference, and even a young child can readily distinguish it, between trying to be both rather than being one and learning about the other. Your child needs a sense of who they are. They need to feel at home in a “home” religion. When they are grown, then they decide as do all others which way they go “from home”.
I hope that if you and your boyfriend have not already worked through these issues, at the very least, you postpone your wedding plans until they are resolved.
Shalom and Good luck!
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