Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

As far as intermarriage is concerned, the surest antidote is anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites don't want anything to do with Jews. They want to keep them our of their neighborhoods, out of their businesses, out of their recreational clubs. Anti-Semites don't want to marry Jews. In an anti-Semitic society, intermarriage and mixed marriage are no serious problems.

In recent polls, 87% of American non-Jews welcome marriage to a Jew. A Jew has become a desirable in-law. As the philosopher Walter Kaufman commented on the contemporary phenomenon of intermarriage, "They don't want to kill us, they want to kiss us." From a sociological point of view, intermarriage is a sign of tolerance, acceptance and love in an open society and the triumph of Jewish integration. So what's wrong with integration and what's wrong with intermarriage?

Integration is desirable, but assimilation is threatening. Intermarriage, absent conversion, threatens Jewish identity and Jewish continuity. Most mixed marriages without conversion end in the disappearance of Jewish identity. A celebrated demographic study in Philadelphia, 1984 reported that not a single grandchild of mixed married couples without conversion was identifiable as a Jew. In short, as an early Reform Rabbi David Einhorn put it, "Every mixed marriage signifies another nail in the coffin of Jewish identity." In North America, more people have converted from Judaism to Christianity than from Christianity to Judaism. And overwhelmingly most people who intermarry do not convert at all. Social scientists like Dr. Egon Mayer have reported that:

1. Mixed marriage where no conversion has taken place by and large ends in assimilation. Children of mixed marriage have been marrying non-Jewish partners at a rate of 90%.  
2. But conversionary marriage scores highest in every aspect of Jewish attitudes and Jewish behavior, particularly with regard to affiliation with a synagogue, religious practice and providing Jewish education for the children. 
3. In some ways there is more reason for optimism about Jewish continuity in families where the born Gentile spouse has converted to Judaism than there is in the typical endogamous family. 

If that is the case, it would seem that the wisest way to deal with mixed marriage is for the Jewish community to engage in an active and serious conversionary mission. Come join us, become part of us. Why should Jews not follow in the footsteps of the first convert to Judaism, Abraham, our father? Abraham himself was told, "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house. I will make your name great and you shall be a blessing...and all the families of the earth shall bless you." This was Abraham's initial charge from God to become a great nation. And who was there in his time that was Jewish? There was no one. So, the rabbis comment, Abraham and Sarah made converts. And so successful a missionary was Abraham that God through him became known as King of the earth as well as King of the heaven.

Why not open our arms to those who seek a spiritual way of life? Are we not told in the classic text of Avoth DeRebbe Nathan (2ba) that Jews are urged to bring people beneath the wings of the divine presence exactly as Abraham and Sarah had done?

The logic is clear and so is the theology. Judaism is not an exclusive club of born Jews. It is a universal faith with an ancient tradition that has deep resonance for people today. The prophet Isaiah (42:6,7) declared "I the Lord have summoned you and I have grasped you by the hand. I created and appointed you a covenant people, a light for the nations." We read in the Talmud Pesachim 87b: "God exiled the Jews from their homeland for one reason; to increase the number of converts." The rabbis proudly inform us that Bityah, the daughter of the Pharaoh, and Yithro, the father-in-law of Moses, and Rahav and Obadiah were all Jews by choice. And we are told that Rabbi Akiba, that Rabbis Shmaiah, and Avtalyon were descended from proselytes. Every week we are bidden to read the entire translation of the scriptural reading along with a translation made by the Onkelos, the Ger – the proselyte. And most stunning of all, the book of Ruth identifies the king of Israel, David as a descendant of none other than Ruth the Moabitess. It is a blessing to have proselytes and we praise God in our prayers for "the righteous proselytes" three times a day.

Why not embrace the mitzvah of conversion with joy and pride? Conversion is not alien to Judaism. The idea that one can become a Jew by choice is a revolutionary breakthrough in Judaism. It declares that a human being's identity and salvation are not dependent upon biology or race or ethnicity, but is a matter of voluntary choice. Being Jewish is not restricted to the accident of birth but the willing acceptance of the fate and faith of a particular people. Judaism is a universal faith. The Torah begins not with the revelation at Sinai, but with creation. The first human creatures, Adam and Eve, blessed by God, were not Jews. And even at Sinai, as one Midrash declared, the desert was chosen, that this land of Israel or Egypt, because the wilderness belongs to everyone. Moses, says another Midrash, expounded the Torah in seventy languages because it was meant to be heard and embraced by all human beings. God and Torah are meant for all humanity. This is the sweeping theological implication of Jewish monotheism.

The mitzvah of conversion is not only evident in the Bible. It is instantiated throughout history. Jews in ancient eras converted non-Jews, not by coercion or bribery or deceit, but by offering testimony to the oneness of God and to the spiritual and moral uniqueness of God's word.

In matters of conversion, Jews were enormously successful in Roman times. The great Jewish historian Salo Baron estimated that Jews grew from 150,000 in 586 B.C.E. to 8 million in the first century of the common era. Baron makes the claim that two thousand years ago Jews were ten percent of the Roman empire.

Conversion of pagans worked, and Jews worked hard to convert them. We read in the Gospel of Matthew (23:15) the hostility toward the activity of Jewish proselytizers: "Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites — you travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte and anyone who becomes one you make twice as fit for hell as you are."

Judaism was successful in its conversionary efforts, and Christians entered the missionary field and transformed the meaning of Jewish conversion into its own terms. The church declared extra ecclesiam nulla salus  – outside of the church no one is saved.  If you would be saved, you must convert to Christianity. Christians following Paul further relaxed the rules of conversion. According to Paul, a convert did not need to observe the ritual laws of Judaism, and they did not need to have themselves circumcised. Jewish proselytism persevered and continued until Christianity took over the Roman empire. Then Emperors Domitian, and Hadrian turned proselytism into a capital crime. In 313 C.E., Constantine declared Christianity the religion of the State in his edict of Milan, and reenacted Hadrian's laws forbidding Jews to circumcise non-Jews. Those who join the nefarium sectam – the nefarious sect, meaning Judaism – would be burned alive. This was incorporated in the Codex Theodosius.

That was then. But why is Judaism so constrained today? Why do we tremble at the relationship between Jews and non-Jews and see it only as catastrophic, as opposed to seeing it as a remarkable opportunity to follow Abraham, to offer a unique faith and wisdom and spirituality to the tens of thousands of unchurched who hunger for spirituality and search all kinds of cults and religions to satisfy that spiritual hunger?

I have met with many non-Jews who have turned some to the University of Judaism, some to Hebrew Union College, some to synagogues and temples, to satisfy that hunger for an authentic, moving and relevant faith. When I meet with them, I ask them what attracts them to Judaism? They have instructed me. I list some characteristic answers I receive from these searching non-Jews:

1. I admire in Judaism the encouragement to inquire, to question, to seek for answers. I see this in the synagogue every Sabbath when the rabbis engage in a dialogue with questioning congregants. This I never experienced neither in my home nor in my church school.  
2. I love Judaism because of its absence of authoritarianism, its lack of dogma and doctrine; in short, its intellectual freedom.  
3. I am attracted to Judaism because it does not maintain that salvation comes only to those who are Jews. I was raised in a tradition in which those who do not believe in the principles of Christianity are doomed and damned to hell and perdition. I was never comfortable with that. I understand that Jews regard all righteous people as having a share in the world to come, no matter their faith. I like that. Jews don't save souls; they save lives.  
4. I'm attracted to Judaism because of its emphasis on the family. I have been with Jewish friends and I note the emphasis upon the primacy of the family, the warmth of the family, and the centrality of the family.  
5. I like the Jewish emphasis upon the deed rather than upon the theological doctrine. You are what you behave. Faith is in your hands and legs, more than in your mouth.  
6. I love in Judaism its remarkable common sense. It does not demand of me to flee to "miracles" and violate my sense of logic and of nature.  
7. I admire the fact that Judaism does not see sin as something that is inherited. I like that there is no concept of original sin.  
8. I love in Judaism that there are no infallibilities attached to its religious leaders, not in Moses nor in the rabbis.  

 Their testimonies move me. My rabbinic colleagues have spoken similarly of their pleasant surprise at the openness and the acceptance of very basic Jewish attitudes by so many of these people.

One would expect that a community that is so concerned with its own perpetuity, that is so aware of the erosions of assimilation and intermarriage, would reach out actively and enthusiastically in the spirit of keruv and embrace these people who quite seriously enjoy and are sustained by Jewish wisdom and faith. There are many non-Jews out there. Given the fear of mixed marriage and the promise in conversion, what is the stumbling block before a Jewish conversionary mission? One of the obstacles, I suspect, has to do with our own disbelief that there are healthy and normal non-Jews who find in Judaism such spiritual uplift and such insight. We never suspected it. Why does she or he want to convert? Is there something wrong with them? For many Jews there is such a profound incredulity, doubt and ignorance of the value of Judaism, that they can only suspect that the converts have something wrong with them or that they entertain some ulterior advantage.

It is difficult to understand such a choice, a free choice of an individual who is not a Jew to become a Jew. It is a little different, but not entirely, from the attitude of some of the rabbis in the Talmudic era. We read in the Talmud (Yebamoth 47) that if someone seeks to convert to Judaism, he is addressed as follows: "Why do you seek to convert? Do you not know that Jews at the present time are persecuted, oppressed, despised, harassed, afflicted?” And if he says “I know and yet unworthy,” he is accepted forthwith.

The idea of choice and of conversion is upsetting to some Jews because they feel Judaism is less an ideology than a biology, a matter of chromosomes, not choice.  A number of years ago, an Orthodox rabbi and professor of philosophy, Michael Wyschograd, published a book called The Body of Faith. The book argued that Judaism is a "carnal election."  God chose the route of election through the body of Jews. God chose to elect "a biological people that remains elect even when it sins." The Jew is corporeally chosen.

This metaphysical biology is evident in the Tanya, the 18^th century classic authored by the founder of Chabad, Schneur Zalman, that distinguishes Jewish souls from the souls of Gentiles. The souls of Gentiles emanate from "unclean husks which contain no good whatsoever." All the good that the nations do are only for selfish motives. In the sixth chapter, the Tanya asserts that from the lower grades of the "klipoth" – "altogether unclean and evil" –  flow the souls of all the nations of the world and the existence of their bodies and also the souls of all living creatures that are unclean and unfit for human consumption.

This metaphysical racism runs counter to the spirit of many pro proselyte passages in the Talmud, and the Book of Ruth. One must pause to appreciate the lure of that biologistic understanding of Judaism. Choice is chancy. You can choose one thing one day and then something else another day. But if you are wary of that kind of freedom of choice and want absolute security, then you will find comfort in supernatural election and in a genetic understanding of Jews. Necessity is surer than choice. So, for example, the Aggadah (Avodah Zadah 2b) declares that God did not consult with Jews as to whether or not they would accept the Ten Commandments.  But instead, God suspended a mountain over Israel like an upside down vault, saying, "If you accept the Torah it will be well with you. If not, then you will find your graves." It is not we who have chosen. It is God who has chosen us. And this offers a tremendous sense of security. It leads to the principle that "A Jew however he has transgressed remains a Jew.”  This is taken to mean that a Jew is a Jew not because of any ideology. A Jew is a Jew by virtue of biology. A Jew is a Jew through the womb. As far as legal status is concerned, whether the mother or the father believes, or whether the father and mother observes, or whether the infant is covenanted, are irrelevant. What is crucial is not the faith of the parent or child, but the birth of a child from the womb of a Jewish mother. A non-Jewish infant who is converted before the age of thirteen can, when he or she reaches the age of majority, protest the conversion. But that is not the case for an infant who was born of a Jewish mother. This genetic bias, this biological interpretation of Judaism is supported by others, including Yehuda Halevy and the Zohar.

In a more vulgar fashion, the idea of Jewish "carnal election" has filtered down to Jews who have no theological beliefs at all. You hear it from those biased against conversion, "You cannot really convert a non-Jew to a Jew because Jewishness comes with a mother's milk," because "a Gentile remains a Gentile." In my judgment this bias, is one of the blocks in preventing a national or international Jewish movement to educate, invite and embrace non-Jews into the fold. We are paying a terrible price for that prejudice. The importance of conversion to Judaism is not is not simply as a matter of numbers, a strategy to stem the hemorrhage of intermarriage. The biological view of Judaism that opposes conversion affects our own Jewish thinking. It is important for Jewish self-understanding, pride and dignity to regain the rabbinic idea of Jewish mission. If Judaism is a world religion, as I believe it is, then it has something of invaluable import to offer the world. If we could open our synagogues, our temples and our universities to those non-Jews who seek knowledge and insight into Judaism, it would affect not only the Jews by choice but also those who are native born, Jews by birth alone. Attention to those potential converts outside the Jewish circle will change the way in which the inner circle thinks of itself.

Conversion to Judaism is not for the sake of the survival of a group or for ethnic comfort. Becoming Jewish is not a matter of convenience for those born of Jewish parents. Judaism is not a matter of culinary taste, a familiar dialect or insider jokes. Conversion to Judaism is not an accommodation to the preferences of habit. In a loving conversion, the chuppah is not a cover for our embarrassment within the family. The chuppah is turned into a sacred canopy that covers bride and groom with the transcendent Jewish mission to reflect God's image in the world. Genuine conversion affects the native born and the Jew by choice. Conversion means that Judaism is not genes and chromosomes but a free, reasoned and passional choice. It is to fulfill the covenanted promise of our father Abraham, the first convert. Jewish mission does not mean denigration of other religions or the vulgar promotion of evangelical enthusiasm, cake and circus conversion. Jewish mission means that we act out our belief that far from being a parochial, sectarian, ethnic clan, we a people whose faith and wisdom and ethics has endured for four millennia. To those who thirst we declare with the prophet Isaiah: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth come to the waters –  even he that hath no money – bring wine and milk and drink."

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