16
Like many things in life, this will obviously depend on the specific situation. For example, if the relevant people understand your lifestyle and why you would be sensitive to this issue before it came up would be a very different question than if they are militantly opposed to your zealous bigotry.
I had a close relative marry a non-Jew, and I actually ...
15
There are numerous halahic problems in attending a mixed marriage:
Aiding one committing a sin. Sourced in BT AZ (6b). There is a difference of opinions among Rishonim if this applies to a scenario where the offender can still sin without aid (cf. Bet Yosef YD 151 & Rema ibid. 151:1). Some authorities argue that the disagreement is only regarding an ...
12
A non-Jew is in the category of Ein Kiddushin Tofsin Bam (marriage does not 'catch' them). (Mishna Kiddushin 3:12, ShA EH 44:8)
Thus there was not and cannot be a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, and giving a Get would serve no purpose as there is no marriage to sever.
11
Greetings and welcome to J.SE.
Many born-Jewish couples have worked out agreements whereby one spouse's level of observance is higher than another's. Some of the biggest questions involve matters that affect both of them; most significantly, taharat hamishpacha ("family purity" laws, which will affect both of you), and anything involving children -- at what ...
10
The Torah uses the male form for the words, and the Sages extrapolated from here that male Amonites and Moavites are banned from the congregation, but females are not.
It says on Chabad's Ask the Rabbi page that the decree was made against the men because they did no go to greet the Jews with food and drink. (See Devarim 23:5.) This was not expected of the ...
10
Sounds like you have a very complicated situation. This may be a job for a therapist.
Again, concepts of "sanctuary for repentance" don't really fit with the vocabulary of Judaism.
But for theory's sake: at your average Orthodox Union synagogue, if someone shows up and says "I wasn't raised observant, I was previously married to someone not Jewish and now ...
8
The current policy of Hebrew Union College - the primary Reform seminary in the United States (and thus I presume the world) - is not to admit rabbinic candidates with non-Jewish "significant others." This policy is currently being questioned in the blogosphere.
From their website:
Current policy states that applicants who are married to or in committed ...
8
There is no chain of descent. This is similar to the questions about relatives who convert and the various laws of inheritence. A man who has a child by a non-Jewish woman is not considered to have fulfilled the mitzvah of Pru U'Rvu and the child has no connection with him. This is analogous in the case of the person who blasphemed in the desert. The ...
8
Deut 7:3:
וְלֹא תִתְחַתֵּן, בָּם: בִּתְּךָ לֹא-תִתֵּן לִבְנוֹ, וּבִתּוֹ לֹא-תִקַּח לִבְנֶךָ.
neither shalt thou make marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
Also Ex 23:32-33, implicitly:
לֹא-תִכְרֹת לָהֶם וְלֵאלֹהֵיהֶם, בְּרִית. לֹא יֵשְׁבוּ בְּאַרְצְךָ, פֶּן-יַחֲטִיאוּ אֹתְךָ ...
8
A proof that one should divorce is Ezra ch. 10 where he tries to encourage everybody to leave their non-Jewish wives, he does not tell them to stay together to avoid the mizbeach shedding tears. Furthermore he makes no distinction between any cases.
8
There are several places in the Talmud which assume she was taken by force, e.g. Megillah 15a:
לך כנוס את כל היהודים וגו' עד אשר לא כדת אמר רבי אבא שלא כדת היה שבכל יום ויום עד עכשיו באונס ועכשיו ברצון וכאשר אבדתי אבדתי כשם שאבדתי מבית אבא כך אובד ממך
Rashi there:
עד עכשיו. נבעלתי באונס: ועכשיו. מכאן ואילך מדעתי: אבדתי ממך. ואסורה אני לך דאשת ישראל ...
7
Q. Judaism consists of many people blindly following what they are told,
A. While we have faith and a normative set of rules, there is constant learning, study and questioning. In some ways, Americans who drive the speed limit are simply following what they are told.
Q. ...are intolerable of others' lives,
A. I don't know why you would think that. While ...
7
Even people who care about kashrut sometimes find it challenging to manage. Asking someone who is not invested in it to maintain a kosher kitchen is, I suspect, very unlikely to work out, no matter how much good will the people start with.
In my marriage we have different opinions about kashrut, and what we decided was that, since I care more, I own the ...
6
The people you list did not marry non-Jews. Joseph and Moshe married before the giving of the Torah and the wives converted to the religion of their husbands according to the standards and practices of those times.
Rus was a convert and the prophet Samuel wrote Megillas Rus in order to show that she had converted legally from the beginning. I show in What ...
6
Halacha recognizes the difference between Jews and non-Jews. "Race" is such a hard-to-define concept that it would be pretty much impossible for any laws to exist in such general terms. You really would need to explain what you mean by "interracial" for us to give a concrete answer, but I would imagine that in any case, the answer to your question is that ...
6
The most straightforward halachic source would appear to be the prohibition of chanufa, falsely flattering a sinner by implying that his/her sin is permitted. (This is different than a vague statement of "you're an okay guy.") Rabbi Moshe Feinstein has a responsum in Igrot Moshe (OC 2:51) concerning giving synagogue honors to sinners. (He explains ...
6
The Mishna Berura concludes that even an unmarried woman who has had relations needs to cover her hair, although we won't force her to do so (M.B. 75:11).
ובתולות ארוסות אסורות לילך בגילוי הראש וה"ה בתולות שנבעלו צריכין לכסות הראש ומ"מ אם זינתה ואינה רוצה לצאת בצעיף על ראשה כדרך הנשים אין יכולין לכופה
6
To avoid repetition I will address only the relative prohibition of Jews and non-Jews, not the nature of the prohibition of non-Jews discussed fairly extensively in the linked page.
At face value the prohibition of a Jewish nidda indeed seems much more severe.
However, R. Yaakov Kamenetzky famously held that it was preferable to maintain a relationship with ...
6
Esther 2:8 uses the term "Vatilakach" - she was taken. While it doesn't clearly imply "forcibly", there are several hints that this was mandatory.
One is 2:3 that says that the king should gather EVERY virgin girl. The text alone doesn't state that Esther was married, so she might have been a betulah.
Even if we follow the explanations that she was married,...
5
This is pretty much open-and-shut.
Mishna, Kiddushin 3:13.
כל מקום שיש קידושין ואין עבירה, הוולד הולך אחר הזכר; ואיזו זו--זו כוהנת לוייה וישראלית, שנישאו לכוהן וללוי ולישראל.
...
וכל מי שאין לה לא עליו ולא על אחרים קידושין, הוולד כמוה; ואיזה זה, זה ולד שפחה ונוכרית.
Any union which is valid marriage and no prohibition, the child follows the father, namely: ...
5
"If she immerses in a Mikveh and a court of three observant Orthodox Jews finds her Giur to be successful, then she is a Jew, right?"
Right, though you'd want to make sure the beis din is widely accepted. See the list of RCA batei din (http://www.judaismconversion.org/batei.din.html), or the list of batei din accepted by the Israeli Rabbanut (http://...
5
I would say that the "engagement" "celebration would probably be seen as accepting the intended "marriage" as valid. One hashkafic discussion of this is in A People of Destiny
Note that "The Rav" referred to below is Joseph B. Soloveitchik who is called "The Rav" by those who learned at Yeshiva Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan (Yeshiva University).
Against this ...
5
Let's start with the captive.
This only applies when the Kingdom of Israel is going to war. That has to be declared at the national level and has a particular legal status. As an individual I can't do "war", only "self-defense."
What's more, Rambam Laws of Kings and Their Wars Ch. 8 spells out that the Jewish soldier is allowed to be with the captive one ...
5
I can offer you one anecdotal piece of evidence. My wife and I were married by a Conservative rabbi in a town we had lived in for only a few years. He was satisfied of my wife's status by her conversion certificate from the Bet Din. For me, it was an interview. He had to rely on my telling of my family history for my status. I know he wished for something ...
5
As explained in naming convention for a Jew with a non-Jewish father? such a person can be called to the Torah using his grandfather's name. Similarly, he would follow the minhagim of his grandfather. This is like a ba'al teshuvah whose (Jewish) father does not have a specific minhag, but who can identify the minhagim of his family farther back. That is in ...
5
Mefarshim from here.
The Mefarshim that say Zipporah was the Cushite do not necessarily get this from the simple reading of the verse. See Rabbeinu Bachya/Bechaye who bases this off of a Gematriya (based in Tanchuma here), so very not Peshat. See Ralbag who tries to prove that it is Peshat, as does Hakesav Vehakabbalah. See also Netziv for another take. ...
4
Recommendation: just send your regrets that you will not be able to attend. Explaining your issue will only cause hurt feelings, for no good reason.
More generally, I see only a few options.
Decline while challenging them directly and definitely hurt their feelings.
Or decline without challenging them and let them feel you're trying to be respectful about ...
4
The idea of Bashert is that soul-mates are actually two halves of a single soul. Jews and non-Jews possess different types of souls. Therefore, a Jew and a non-Jew cannot be two halves of one soul, and cannot be Bashert.
A convert is a different story. When a person converts, he receives in some way a new, Jewish soul (i.e. a neshama with a connection to ...
4
The Gemara in Yevamos (66a) says that we don't let a Kohen's illegal (Jewish) wife's (Melog) slaves eat Teruma, even though according to biblical law they should, since the Rabbis want her to get angry at her husband (I can't eat Teruma, my slaves can't eat Teruma, What am I, a Zona??!!) and get a divorce.
The Gemara doesn't differentiate if there are ...
4
The Gemara (AZ 36b), concerning non-Jew women, made a clear difference between two kind of man-woman relationship: marital or non marital. Marital relationship is a natural reality which was anterior to Matan Tora and is not a Jewish particularity. See Rambam, Nashim, Yishut, 1, 1:
Before the Torah was given, when a man would meet a woman in the marketplace ...
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