Back in 2003, a bunch of teenagers—kids with too much time and too little to do—decided to get some attention by knocking over a dozen stones in the congregation's small cemetery. They also painted a swastika on the cemetery's storage shed. Pretty ugly.

In response, the clergy of every faith group in town came to stand with the Jewish community. They spoke directly to their churches, and to the community at large, with the message that antisemitism would not be tolerated. A blow against one religion, they said, was a blow against all. I was deeply moved by that experience.

Yesterday, in an incident far more grim and far more serious, a man with a semi-automatic handgun entered a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, with the intention of killing people simply because he saw them as being different. As you know, seven people, including the gunman, were killed. 

I attended a vigil tonight at the Sikh Society of Florida to show the solidarity of the Jewish community with our Sikh neighbors. I wanted to let them know that they have friends in the Jewish community. I wanted to pay back a debt I owe to others who did the same for me.

At the vigil, there were passionate speeches that sounded painfully familiar in the ears of a Jew born in the twentieth century. Sikh men and women talked about how their religion's highest ideal is the equality of all human beings. They talked about how ignorance and hatred have combined to turn their peaceful culture and religion into a scapegoat—and not for the first time in their people's difficult history.

They talked about how regrettable it is that the image of a man with a beard and a turban has been transformed in the West into a symbol of evil—instantly associated with the image of Osama bin Laden. Many Americans assume that Sikh men, who are religiously required to wear turbans and beards, are Arab Muslims. Sikhs, of course, are neither Muslims nor Arabs. 

They also tried to make sense of the senseless act of a deranged man who took so many innocent lives and left so many families heartbroken. For Sikhs—who, like Jews, are monotheists—this can only lead to questions about how an omnipotent and benevolent God could allow such a thing to happen. There are no answers for such questions.

They talked about those who sacrificed themselves to save others. Satwant Kaleka, the president of the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, was killed when he tried to stop the gunman. He was armed only with a knife. The Sikh community also declares with deep gratitude the heroism of Lt. Brian Murphy, the Oak Creek police officer who came to the aid of the shooting victims and was shot at close range at least eight times. He is now recovering in an area hospital following multiple surgeries.

For me, the deepest surprise about this evening was a mood that was more life-affirming than mournful. Certainly, the Sikh community is horror-stricken by the murders in Wisconsin. Yet, they are a people who greatly value community and the blessing of sharing what they have with others. There was a certain, modest satisfaction in this community that they could come together—and welcome others into their spiritual home—to draw strength from each other in facing a very dark time. 

If I came to the Sikh temple tonight thinking that I was paying off an old debt, I left feeling, instead, that I had received a further gift. The Sikh community showed me what my own tradition teaches—that in a time of darkness, we make our own light by sharing ourselves with others.

When I again approached my husband's father and asked to be given to his youngest son as wife, he was silent. I have worn a widow's garb now for four years and my womb cries out. My only wish is to bear a son who will establish the name of my husband who is dead. The agony of my soul is great. Please, grant me of your wisdom and inform me what I must do.

With respect,
Tamar

* * * * *

Dear Tamar,

God is so good! May the blessings of our Lord and Savior be upon you!

I was deeply moved as I read your letter. Your courage after the passing of your beloved husband is inspiring. I greatly admire your strength in wanting to be a mother. Our holy congregation has a support group for women, like you, who have lost their husbands. We also have a group for women who have been denied the blessing of children. You would benefit so much from this vital ministry.

I pray, Tamar, that God grant your wish to have a child! I know in my heart that the right man is out there, and with the Lord's help, you will find your soulmate. Our singles group, which we call "Partners in the Lord,"® is just the place for a righteous woman like you to find a life partner.

There's part of your letter that surprised me. It is probably just my own ignorance, so I want to ask you to explain it. Did you say that you are going to marry your late husband's brother? Wouldn't that be something! It must be a gift from God that the two of you have found love out of your shared loss. God bless you both! Also, so few people these days seem to understand the importance of asking a father's permission to marry. Good luck to the two of you! 

Still, I need to ask you something. How long after your husband's death did the two of you start dating? That seems awkward. Have you talked about this with a minister? I'd like to help.

Please accept my best wishes and hope for your future. May the love of the Lord be with you!

With God's love,
Pastor Scott

* * * * *

Dear Rev. Scott Goodheart,

Please forgive the presumption of your servant. I have not been in the presence of Shelah, my husband's youngest brother. My husband's father has not yet brought me to him. For this I weep bitter tears day and night, as I know my husband's name is left empty like the wind because of it.

You must not think that I, your servant, seek Shelah for my own benefit. My husband was a good and kind man. He did not beat me or mingle with the servant girls. While he died for his own sins, his memory should not be lost. In seeking to be sent to Shelah, I want only to make a name and a memorial for my husband. It is my dearest wish to be among Shelah's other wives. That is my duty and it is where I belong. 

I earnestly appeal to you. How shall I beseech my husband's father when he will not show his face to me? There is no man here who will speak to him on my behalf at the city gates. What shall I do?

With respect,
Tamar

* * * * *

Dear Tamar,

I must urge you to give up the idea of asking your father-in-law for permission to marry a man who is already married and whom you have not even met! I understand your grief at the loss of your husband, but marrying his brother won't bring him back. 

Marriage is a sacred institution, established by God, between one man and one woman. The purpose of marriage is to glorify God, and that can only happen when a husband and wife are joined in a holy covenant devoted to raising godly children. It is not right for you to try to have a child—with Shelah or any man—out of a selfish and futile desire to cheat death.

Forgive me for being so direct. I hope that you will understand how wrong it is for you to do this.

In this day and age, overrun by feminism and secularism, too many people are confused about the proper role of men and women. I see it all the time—people who think it's okay for men to marry men, women to marry women. I see people who think it's okay to have "open marriages" with multiple sex partners. God will judge them! Every perversion reviled by God has become acceptable as our society perverts the biblical foundation of marriage. 

With all the wimpified men in our society, I am not surprised that you have been so misled. For all I know, that's what you see in this man, Shelah. He sounds like the kind of guy who doesn't have the guts to say, "Back off, Tamar. I'm already married!" Believe me, Tamar, he is not for you. Find yourself a real, reverent man who will make you feel secure and help you get over your grief for your late husband.

You seem to me to be a God-fearing woman who is confused. I ask you to turn to your Bible for guidance and inspiration to help you find a marriage that will glorify God and bring you the children you seek, if you are so blessed.

May you find blessing and peace,
Pastor Scott

* * * * *

Dear Rev. Scott Goodheart,

Your most recent letter has confused me. Yet, I seek to follow the path of righteousness you teach. 

I have chosen, as according to your words, not to seek Shelah anymore. I see, as you have spoken, that this is a path that will not take me toward what is good and what God has commanded.

I have resolved, instead, to carry on the name of Judah, my husband's father, through his seed alone. I shall take off my widow's garb and cover my face with a veil. Thus wrapped, I shall station myself at the place called the Opening of the Eye, for it is you who have opened my eyes. There I shall meet my husband's father as he travels to Timnah for the sheep sheering. 

My husband's father is a man who lingers over covered women at the side of the road (his wife having died some years ago). I shall lay with him and get myself a child by him. Thus will I establish his name. I shall see that he does what is right in the eye's of the Lord, though he fears it.

I give great thanks to you, my honored lord, who has opened my eyes to the path of truth. 

With respect,
Tamar

* * * * *

Dear Miss Tamar,

I regret to inform you that, in light of your recent letter, I can no longer abide to offer you further counsel. You have clearly shown that you are not the person that you first presented yourself to be. You have clearly reviled the everlasting truth of our Lord and have embraced flagrantly the ways of a secular, permissive society run amok. 

For shame that you would scheme to seduce your father-in-law as a harlot! You do this only because he has tried to keep you from making lascivious advances on his married son. Have you no sense of decency?

I warn you not to seek further counsel from me until you amend your ways and seek forgiveness from the Lord who is ever merciful.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Scott D. Goodheart

cc: National Convention of Ministers of the Good Word

* * * * *

Dear Rev. Scott Goodheart,

It's a boy! Two of them!

With great gratitude,
Tamar


Other Posts on This Topic:
Searching for How the Bible Defines Marriage
What Does the Bible Say about Marriage? What Should We Say?

I am, of course, aware that there are people who feel uneasy about Jewish ritual circumcision. There are some who find it difficult to accept what they regard as cosmetic surgery for an eight-day-old boy, regardless of its spiritual significance and regardless of ample scientific evidence of circumcision's health benefits. I make no apologies for it. The ritual is emotionally difficult, even for those who most deeply appreciate its meaning. That difficulty, I think, is part of what makes the ritual so meaningful.

Looking over the table that the mohel set up for the bris, I saw a strange mixture of the modern and the ancient—surgical instruments and a tallit bag, anesthesia and a kiddush cup. Even after thousands of years, a bris still juxtaposes our fear of blood and pain with our reverence for the sacred and eternal. We confront our fears and our awe all at the same time.

There is a fitting connection to ritual circumcision in this week's Torah portion (Ekev). Moses stirs the Israelites with these words:

See, the heavens and the heaven's heavens belong to Adonai your God, the earth and everything on it. Yet Adonai fell in love with your ancestors and God chose you, their descendants, from all peoples, just as today. So, cut away the foreskin of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. (Deuteronomy 10:14-16)

The reference to cutting the "foreskin of your hearts" is dramatic, maybe even wince inducing. It is an uncomfortable metaphor for us, and it is meant to be so. We should feel uncomfortable about our reluctance to appreciate the gifts we have received.

With beautiful words, the Torah reminds us that we live in a universe that is wondrous beyond our ken. (What on earth are "the heaven's heavens"? It can only mean something that is a mystery to our feeble understanding.) Yet, despite our seeming insignificance in this vast reality, we have been given gifts of immeasurable love—life and earth, thoughts and feelings. We should live in perpetual gratitude. So, why do we forget so easily? Why do we dull our minds to the miracles around us and within us?

Moses pleads with us to remember. He extols us to cut away the barrier that stifles our awareness. And that, I think, is also the meaning of the bris. We are meant to be reminded, uncomfortable as it may be, of the fact that we are made of vulnerable flesh and blood ... but we are so much more. We are feeble creatures that, yet, can be joined in covenant with God. We are temporary and transient, yet we can be in dialogue with eternity.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Ekev: Deuteronomy vs. Job
Brit Milah

Clearly, there are a lot of people who are searching for that definition. If that is how you got to this page, let me just give you the quick answer: The Bible does not give any single, clear definition of marriage. 

So, as a public service, I offer an analysis of some of the biblical passages that are sometimes offered as evidence of a biblical definition of marriage. As I stated in my earlier post, I do not present this as a way of promoting what marriage "ought to be." The Bible's understanding of marriage is very different from that of the modern world. Marriage has changed many times throughout the centuries. Those who seek to enforce "biblical marriage" today are ignoring thousands of years of history and change.

Here goes:

Genesis 2:20-24
The man named all the cattle, birds of the sky, and wild animals, but no match was found for a man. Adonai God cast a deep sleep upon the man and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh in its place. Adonai God fashioned the rib that God had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. The man said, "This time [God has brought me] bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I will call this one 'woman,' since she was taken from 'man.'" That is why a man leaves his mother and father and attaches himself to his woman so they will be one flesh. (Genesis 2:21-24)

This is the most common passage offered as evidence of a biblical definition of marriage, although, usually only the last verse is cited. When you read the whole story, though, it is clear that this passage is not about marriage. 

This story is an etiology, a story that explains how the world came to be the way it is. The purpose of the story is to explain why human beings appear in two different forms, male and female. God determined that the man needed a match, a partner who was his equal. (The common translation "helper" or "helpmeet" is incorrect. The word ezer means "strength" or "power" in Biblical Hebrew, not "help.") God had to fashion a new being for the man from the man's own body, since none of the newly created animals could match him. That being was named "woman" (ishah) because she was taken from "man" (ish). 

The story also explains why men seek out women and why "he attaches himself to his woman to form one flesh" (I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out what that's talking about). The story explains that this desire to connect bodies is an impulse that overrides even a man's attachment to his parents. 

This passage does not define anything. Rather, it is an explanation of why the world is as we see it. There are two kinds of human beings who are made out of the same stuff and, because of that, they are attracted to each other in sexual union.

It is interesting that this, of all verses, is used to suggest that human beings should only partner with people who are unlike themselves, when the clear meaning is that the man and woman are right for each other because they are the same. Also, the passage makes no reference to having children. It cannot be argued from this verse that the sole purpose of sexual union is procreation.

Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17
You are not to murder, you are not to commit adultery, you are not to steal, and you are not to give false witness regarding your neighbor.

This verse (which appears both in Exodus and Deuteronomy) contains four of the Ten Commandments, including the prohibition on adultery. The problem for us is that the Bible's definition of adultery is different from ours. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, adultery is defined as sex between a man and a woman who is married or betrothed to someone else. (This is best exemplified by Deuteronomy 22:22). Nowhere does the Hebrew Bible prohibit a married man from having sex with an unmarried woman, except that he may be required to marry her and/or pay a dowery to her father (Exodus 22:15). (Remember that polygamy is normal and accepted in the culture of ancient Israel). The only definition of marriage that we can glean from this is that marriage affords the husband exclusive sexual rights to his wife, but not the other way around.

Malachi 2:12-16
May Adonai cut off the person who [marries a non-Israelite woman] from all living descendants, from the Tent of Jacob, and from making offerings to Adonai of Hosts…If you ask why, it is because Adonai has witnessed you and the wife of your youth with whom you have broken faith even though she is your partner and the woman to whom you are covenanted. Did not the One make everything and the remnant of the breath of life is His? What does the One desire but the seed of God? So be careful with your life and do not break faith with the wife of your youth, says Adonai the God of Israel, for I despise divorce and covering yourself with lawlessness like a garment, says Adonai of Hosts, so be careful with your life and do not break faith.

Again, most people leave out the first part of the passage that makes the rest of it sensible. In context, the passage is talking about a man who has sought a second wife who is a non-Israelite and neglected or divorced his Israelite wife. The relationship to the first wife is referred to as a covenant because that is what it is—an agreement in which both parties have obligations to each other. Covenant, though, does not necessarily mean "holy." There are plenty of "unholy" covenants in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Genesis 21:32, I Samuel 11:1, Obadiah 7). 

That is about as far as you can go in finding a definition of marriage here. Marriage is a covenant, a mutual agreement between two parties. There is no suggestion that marriage is an arrangement exclusively between "one man and one woman." In fact, the passage presupposes that a man might take a second wife while keeping the first. There are plenty of polygamous men in the Hebrew Bible and having many wives is generally considered a sign of prestige in the Hebrew Bible (for example, Jacob and David). Only Solomon is criticized for his many wives and that is because they led him to worship foreign gods, not because of their large number.

There is a bigger picture here, though. The passage in Malachi has to be understood as part of a metaphor that appears in many of the prophetic books of the Bible. The prophets repeatedly compare the covenant between God and Israel to the covenant between a husband and wife. This passage is unusual only in that the usual gender roles are reversed. Here, Israel is in the role of the metaphorical husband, not the wife. The image of a man abandoning his Israelite wife for a non-Israelite woman is a metaphor for Israel abandoning God and worshipping foreign gods. Marriage and divorce are not the real subject here, rather, the subject is loyalty to God and apostasy.

Also, this passage, in its original context, is not a prohibition of divorce. Divorce was an accepted and regulated act in the Hebrew Bible (see Deuteronomy 24:1-4). The meaning of "I despise divorce" should be understood in the context of the passage—God despises the abandonment of an Israelite wife for a non-Israelite. It is considered an act of lawlessness. 

In the Greek Scriptures (New Testament), Jesus says that Moses allowed divorce only as a regrettable concession to human nature (Matthew 19:3-6, Mark 10:2-9). This was a minority view among the early rabbis, but the majority favored a liberal interpretation in which a man could divorce his wife for any reason, but he would be required then to provide for her upkeep. Whether divorce is regrettable or not, it clearly is permitted in the Hebrew Bible.

John 2:1-11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding…

A rabbi may not be the best person to ask for an explanation of a passage from the Greek Scriptures (New Testament), but this passage comes up so often as a supposed source of a "biblical definition of marriage" that it has to be mentioned. I am not going to look at every passage in the Greek Scriptures that refers to marriage because, frankly, I have no great knowledge of it. I offer this as a non-Christian looking with scholarly interest at a Christian text.

This passage is mentioned at many Christian wedding ceremonies for one reason: It is the only place in the Jewish or Christian Bible that even mentions a wedding ceremony. Jesus was invited to a wedding and, in a metaphor for redemption, he performed there the miracle of turning water into wine. He observed that the wine steward served the inferior wine first and saved the good wine for later. The purpose of the story is to offer "the first sign" of Jesus' divinity. Just as Jesus miraculously transformed ordinary water into the drink of celebration on the third day, he eventually will miraculously transform sin into redemption on the third day after the crucifixion. The comment about the "good wine" serves to reinforce the redemption message—after this inferior world comes a world that is better.

The wedding is just the background for the story. It is a metaphor for the heavenly banquet that will accompany the world's redemption. To claim that this story offers anything like a "definition of marriage" would be like claiming that the parable of the bags of gold in Matthew is a lesson on finance.

A better passage to cite for the Greek Scriptures' attitude toward marriage might be I Corinthians 7:1, in which Paul advises that "It is well for a man not to touch a woman." Paul and the early church, it could be argued, were skeptical of marriage. Since they believed that the messianic redemption of the world was soon at hand, they thought it best for men not to distract themselves with the physical pleasures of marriage and to focus instead on God. This is a break from rabbinic Judaism which actually requires men in different professions to satisfy the sexual needs of their wives accordingly (B. Ketubot 61b).

What Does It Mean?
If a person wanted to offer an honest, historical definition of marriage based on the Hebrew Bible, it might be something like this: 

Biblical marriage is a mutual agreement between two families to have the son of one family acquire a woman of the other family as a wife, perhaps among his other wives. Marriage can also be coerced, as in the case of military conquest (Deuteronomy 21:10-14) or rape (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). It can also be effected when a man is required to marry the childless widow of his dead brother (Deuteronomy 25:5-6). Marriage gives the man exclusive sexual rights to the woman and marriage can be ended unilaterally if the man divorces his wife.

Doesn't sound too appealing, does it? Over time, the definition of marriage has changed for Jews and for Christians in a process that has sometimes been purposeful and intentional, and sometimes has just been a response to changing social mores. 

The rabbis of the Talmud intentionally changed the ground rules for marriage when they instituted the Ketubah (marriage contract) to prevent men from leaving their wives destitute following a divorce. Judaism and Christianity both gradually adopted a standard of monogamy from about the 7th to the 10th centuries. The acceptance of marriage as an institution in which men and women have equal rights did not appear until the 19th and 20th centuries. Marriage has changed.

In our own times, most western societies recognize a distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. Marriages solemnized under religious authorities today in the United States are becoming less prevalent. Many people today choose only a civil marriage, an arrangement that is generally accepted by society as a whole. 

Given that different religions in our society do not agree among themselves on a single definition of marriage, it makes sense that the standards for civil marriage need not conform to the standards of any one religion. What the Bible says about marriage may be important for different Christian and Jewish communities. It need not be decisive, though, for choosing a societal standard for civil marriage.

We should ask, "What standard for marriage would recognize the loving and committed relationships that society wishes to promote?" "What standard would create the greatest happiness and fulfillment for society as a whole?" Those, in the end, are better questions for determining a standard for civil marriage than the question, "What does the Bible say?"


Other Posts on This Topic:
What Does the Bible Say about Marriage? What Should We Say?
Weddings

Those six words of Hebrew do command a certain magic in the Jewish imagination. Even more than a secret password for Jews to identify each other, the Shema is like a password for identifying God.

שמע ישראל יי אלהינו יי אחד.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. (Deuteronomy 6:4)

Those words appear in this week's Torah portion (Va'etchanan) as a part of a speech Moses delivers to the Israelites as they await their entry into the Land of Israel. He implores them to obey their God and remain loyal to God. Those words are part of every morning and evening service. They are the words that a Jew is supposed to say every night before going to sleep and the words that one is supposed to say on one's deathbed in preparation for the final passage.

You would think that there is consensus on what the words mean. There isn't.

Here is the translation of the Shema in the Union Prayerbook, the siddur my Temple used when I was a child:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One."

Do you hear the emphasis on the final word "One"? This is a statement of God's uniqueness; a declaration of monotheism and the belief that the universe is ruled by a single, authoritative law. There can be no competing system to determine what is right and what is wrong. There is only one God who is the foundation of all that is true and right. That's what my Sunday School teacher told me and it never occurred to me that the Shema could mean anything else. 

That is, until I read this translation from the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Hebrew Bible:

"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone."

The movement of the verb "is" changes the meaning of the verse considerably. This, now, is a statement of the attachment of God to God's people. Our identity is inextricably linked to the God who is ours. No other gods could ever be ours. We are defined by our national relationship with this God. Where the first translation is universal in its message, this translation is particular. The watchwords of our faith are not about the world; they are about our special and unique relationship with God.

To be fair, these two translations have very different purposes. The old Union Prayerbook wants to give people words to pray that will elevate their spirits and that will conform to their beliefs. The JPS translation seeks to convey the ancient meaning of the Hebrew as revealed by the study of its historical origin. Those differences in approach lead to real differences in translation.

Here is another translation to ponder. It comes from Mishkan T'filah, the prayerbook most recently published by the Reform Movement:

"Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One!"

This translation puts the verb in both places. God is both the particular deity attached to the Jewish people and the universal and unique God of all creation. Using "Adonai" instead of "The Lord" also has an impact. It reminds us of the Name by which the universal God is known in particular to the Jewish people. "Adonai" is not God's name—the Name is understood to be unknowable and unpronounceable—so the word also calls attention to the mystery that surrounds God.

Finally, here is one more interpretation of the Shema. It is offered by Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, the Chasidic master known as the Sefat Emet. He wrote:

The meaning of 'Y-H-W-H is one' is not that He is the only God, negating other gods (though this too is true!), but the meaning is deeper than that: there is no being other than Him. [This is true] even though it seems otherwise to most people…everything that exists in the world, spiritual and physical, is God Himself. (Translation from Rabbi Arthur Green's These are the Words, p. 103)

The Sefat Emet espouses the most radical form of monotheism. Everything is God. We breathe God. We exist within God. We are part of God. The idea that God is, in any way, separate from us or from anything we experience is an illusion.  There is nothing that God is not.

So, the next time you recite the Shema—whether at services or at bedtime, whether sung loudly or whispered, whether three-times-a-day or once-in-a-while, whether standing or sitting—you can try to wrap your mind around all of these meanings. We declare, at the core of our belief, that God is the one, true and universal source of all law. We declare that, as a people, we Jews have a unique relationship with our God. We declare that God is a mystery who simultaneously can be our intimate partner and the foundation of all. We declare that God is all.

This is our password for identifying God in our lives. While it is not a secret, its meaning is not apparent on the surface, either. It is not a test for discovering other Jews. It is a test to discover the Jew within ourselves.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Va'etchanan: Finding God
Treasured and Chosen
Vayakhel: Being Part of Something Bigger