Some Thoughts on Love, Marriage and Going the Distance, by Aaron Hecht

Spring, that time of year when, as the poet says, "a young man's thoughts turns to love."

That's true of young women too, of course, and that is why there are always so many weddings in the Spring.

My own wedding occurred in the Spring, 14 years ago. My wife and I just celebrated our anniversary a few days ago in fact, and like many other people who are in their late 40's, I've developed a strong desire to help younger people who might be in need of some guidance as they navigate the seasons of life I've already passed through.

So I'm hoping this blog will be read by anyone who is either newly married or getting ready to be married and that the experience and observations I'm going to attempt to share will be of some benefit to someone. I hesitate to call this "advice" because a conclusion I've come to in my nearly five decades of living on this planet is that advice is kind of overrated.

No two people are alike, and so no two journeys are alike. Trying to tell a younger, less experienced person what they should do, or not do, based on one's own experience, is seldom helpful, because the younger person is on a different journey, living through a different season of history, and on their way to a different destination. So any "advice" they get is more likely then not to be "bad" advice or at best "irrelevant" or otherwise unhelpful.

For instance, because my parents got divorced when I was 13 (and had had a very unstable marriage for several years before they got divorced) I was given some very well-meaning advice by several people not to get married myself, because statistically, I was likely to have an unstable marriage and eventually also get divorced just like my parents did. It would be better, these well-meaning people told me, not to get married in the first place.

Some of these people even quoted passages of Scripture to back up their advice, and I would be lying to you if I said I did not give it serious consideration and even came very close to calling off the wedding because of it. But in the end, I decided that I had good reasons to think I would not make the same mistakes my father had made and thus I would be a better husband and father then he had been and so I would not divorce this woman I was about to marry the way my father divorced my mom.

In the event, I turned out to have made the right move, and some of the people who advised me against getting married have quietly come to me and told me they're glad I didn't listen to them.

So, all of that is to say, brothers and sisters, that what I'm about to tell you is indeed just some of my own thoughts, musings, analysis and observations based on my own experience and the experiences of people I've known, some of whom had (and still have) great marriages and some of whom stayed married to someone even though they didn't want to and some of whom got divorced WAY too quickly and later regretted it and others who got divorced and said it was the best thing they'd ever done.

Like I said, everyone's on their own journey, and you can learn things from everyone, even or perhaps especially if they're making mistakes.

So, with all of that in mind, here's a few anecdotes and the things I learned from them, starting with the warning from II Corinthians 6:14-15.

My wife and I are products of two VERY different times and places. I grew up in the United States in the 1980s and 90s, while she grew up in the Soviet Union in roughly the same time frame. The USA is (or maybe I should say WAS) a Western country with a strong Judeo-Christian foundation, while the Soviet Union was an Eastern country with an Orthodox Christian tradition but which was officially Atheist. The music, movies, books, plays, etc. I grew up listening to, reading and watching were VASTLY different then everything she grew up consuming. The same is true of the food we both grew up eating, many of the things we both learned in school, and, needless to say we grew up speaking different languages.

Our family situations were also quite different, beyond what I've already mentioned about my parents getting divorced and hers being still married. In fact, when we started dating, I had been living by myself for many years after leaving my mother's house at the age of 18 and she was living in a small house here in Jerusalem with not only her parents, but her younger sister who was married and had three children. Yes, that's right, my wife was living in a small apartment with seven other people, while I was living in an apartment by myself. I didn't even have a goldfish.

For the first year or so after we got married and my wife moved into my tiny little apartment to live with me, there were a LOT of issues that came up because we were both used to very different circumstances and personal living space arrangements.

But there was one thing we had in common and that was Jesus Christ. In fact, that might have been the ONLY thing we had in common, and it turns out that this was enough. All the other issues were manageable because of this, and over time, we made NEW family traditions, adapted to NEW personal living arrangements, and so on. In time, we became ourselves, and not just the sum of what we had brought with us into the marriage from our previous experiences.

Now, after 14 years (and counting) I can say without hesitation that my marriage is in fantastic shape and I know my wife agrees, because I ask her about it on a regular basis. This leads me into my next point, which is about communication.

As I said before, my wife and I grew up speaking different languages. In fact, on our first date (which happened without any planning whatsoever from either one of us) we both had very poor Hebrew, but we talked to each other because everyone else in the group of people we were there with didn't speak Russian. I was the only one who spoke any Hebrew at all, so I felt obligated to make sure she didn't feel left out, and the only way to do that was to talk to her in Hebrew, despite the fact that I wasn't very fluent (and she later told me she barely understood anything I was trying to say to her that day but she appreciated the effort I was making so she did her best to understand and she WAS somewhat entertained.)

From that inauspicious beginning, our relationship grew. The very next day, I asked her (again, in my lousy Hebrew) to go to a restaurant with me after work, just the two of us. She told me later that she opened her mouth to say "Nyet" but instead heard herself saying "Okay" and off we went. It was very difficult to talk to each other, and we both used a lot of sign language in those early days, but with time, we both got better at Hebrew and the rest is history.

I know I said I wasn't going to give advice, but I do NOT recommend this path for everyone. If possible, try to fall in love with someone who speaks the same language you do, because there are a lot of things that a married couple (or even a dating couple) need to work out that require a common language.

However, once again, it CAN be done, and that leads into my next point, which is about expectations.

Some people will disagree with me, but I think a lot of what determines whether or not people are happy or satisfied depends on what they were expecting. The circumstances they find themselves in might not be bad, but if they're not what they were expecting or hoping for, they're likely to be unhappy about it.

I regularly ask my wife if she's happy and she usually says "yes" but when she says "no" I ask her why she's unhappy and I try to help her address the issue if I can. Most of the time, it's because something isn't going according to her plans, and obviously, that's what is also most likely to make me unhappy about this, that or the other. So if I'm really unhappy about something, I tell her and ask her to help me with it. If we're working and praying together, most of the problems we have get worked out pretty quickly and we can go back to being happy.

Now, here's a piece of advice I WILL give.

Everyone has hopes, dreams, and expectations going into marriage. If you don't tell the person you're planning to marry what your hopes, dreams and expectations are, and ask them to tell you about their hopes, dreams and expectations, you're kind of setting yourself up for problems you don't need and certainly don't want.

Don't assume the person you're madly in love with wants the same things you want, has the same hopes for the future you have, the same priorities you have, etc. You need to talk about these things, set some ground rules, accept some possibilities, make peace with the things you can't agree on, decide which things you can come to some kind of compromise about and (this is the tricky part) if you discover in the course of these discussions that there are some things that you're a bit too far apart on, you need to do some hard thinking (and praying) about whether or not you want to actually go through with marrying this person.

Before you get married, it's a really good idea to talk about expectations. Sit down and ask each other about what the plans are for the future. Where do you see things going in a year, or five years, or ten years, or whatever? Be realistic, but don't be cynical. Don't stomp on the other person's ideas, even if you don't think they're very practical. Be patient and kind. Be ready to work hard to help each other be happy and content.

But before you get into the long-term things like careers, home ownership, etc. start with some more basic things you'll probably be dealing with almost right away.

Things like how long dishes can sit in the sink before "someone" needs to wash them, or how many days should go by between washing sheets, pants, etc. General home maintenance is something that people can have surprisingly different ideas about, and you need to get that part straightened out because you're going to be living together in the same space.

That includes the refrigerator, and so you should also talk about what kind of food you're used to eating and what foods you don't like and would rather not have in the house (I hate eggplant and my wife likes it but said she can live without it, so it only gets bought at the grocery store once or twice a month and it works well that way.)

You should also talk about money. Most people are surprised to hear this but the Bible talks about money more than any other single topic, and I think the reason is simply that this topic causes more drama and problems between people, (including people who are married to each other) then anything else. So before you get married, it's a very good idea to talk about your thoughts on money and get it straight who will pay what bills, how much you'll save, what you'll invest in, what you DON'T want to spend money on, etc. If you have debts before you get married, let your future spouse know about that and try to think about ways you can manage this issue together. It's a VERY bad thing for a spouse to be surprised by that after the wedding, so it's better to clear the air beforehand.

Obviously, you should talk about sex, and the closely related topic of children. These are topics that you can be quite certain your future spouse has hopes and expectations about. If those hopes and expectations aren't met, the disappointment can and probably will bleed into many other aspects of your relationship. If your sexual relationship is going well, everything else will be good or at least manageable. If your sexual life isn't going well, everything else will be more difficult and usually less enjoyable.

Another thing you should speak at great length about is each other's family of origin. What were parents like? How many siblings were in the home? Were there pets?

These are important points because they're part of the expectations your future spouse has for what they hope and want the family you're going to make together to be like.

For instance, despite the vast differences in our formative circumstances, I sometimes suspect that my wife married me because I'm so much like her father. The first time I mentioned this possibility to him he nodded matter-of-factly and said "Kan Yeshnah" which is a Russian phrase that translates into the English phrase "of course" but depending on the tone it can also mean something more like "well, YEAH! Obviously!" and I think that's what he meant.

Another example is that a few years ago, my son wanted a dog for his birthday. My wife wanted to get a breed of dog that her family had when we started dating, but I had had a different breed of dog when I was a kid and that was the only kind of breed I thought I could be comfortable with. She graciously agreed and that's the kind of dog we got and it turned out to be a good choice for everyone. I might have been able to cope with a different breed of dog and maybe that other breed would have been okay for everyone else too, but I'm glad things turned out the way they did.

As a footnote to this example, a neighbor of mine who lives on our street has three kids who absolutely love our dog, and they come over to our apartment to play with her sometimes. I told him to get them a dog of their own, but he refused, for a surprising reason. He said he had a dog when he was a kid and he loved that dog very much, but it got hit by a car and was hurt so bad that his parents had to take the dog to the vet to have him euthanized. That event traumatized my neighbor so badly that he never wanted to have another dog himself, and he doesn't want to risk his own children having to cope with something like that happening to them.

This leads me into my final point, which is about baggage.

Everyone brings baggage into their marriage that their spouse has to deal with.

This baggage consists of attitudes, ideas, habits, standards, memories, traumas, triumphs, expectations, etc. that are all informed by everything that a person experienced leading up to their wedding day.

I've talked about some of the sources of baggage in this blog. They include music, books and movies people consume, the things they saw their own parents and other married (or perhaps not married) couples doing and not doing, other relationships they might have had, things they learned in school, or church, or on the street, or wherever.

Not all of this baggage is bad, but even the good things we bring into marriage usually need to be adjusted a little in order to accommodate the other person and THEIR baggage.

Once again, the more you discuss each other's baggage BEFORE getting married, the easier it will be to make the necessary adjustments after getting married and moving in together, living in the same space and eventually having children together. 

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, there's a lot more I could say on these topics, but this blog has already gone much longer than usual, so I'll sum it all up thusly.

If you think you've found "the one" for you and you're ready to get married, congratulations. It is one of the most exciting and exhilarating times in life, and having a good marriage and a happy family is one of the best things in life.

Just remember that it takes a tremendous amount of hard work, sacrifice, having grace for each other (and later for the children), and above all it is absolutely imperative to keep a sense of humor.

The more you communicate with each other, seek counsel from trusted elders and spiritual leaders, pray together, and plan together BEFORE the wedding, the more likely it is that you'll be happy with the result. The opposite is also true. If you don't communicate with each other, seek counsel from trusted elders and spiritual leaders, pray together, and plan together, you'll start breaking down almost immediately, and you'll be very unlikely to go the distance. 

In any event, there will be good days and bad days, there will be easy days and hard days...you get the point.

A last thing I'll say is that some people will tell you that each partner must give 50% to the other in order for a marriage to work. This is incorrect. Each spouse must give 100% to the other in order for it to work. The mathematicians among us will say this is impossible, and they're right. But that's what you gotta do.

Oh, one last thing.

The best breed of dog for a family is a Welsh Corgi. Some people will disagree with me on this point, but they're wrong.

That's what I've got for you this week brothers and sisters. I hope it blessed someone. If you know anyone who is getting married this Spring, feel free to share this with them.

Loneliness and the Divine Ideal

Dennis Prager on the foundational Biblical statement, “It is not good for man to be alone”:


I find Prager’s statement profound:

It says that male-female marriage is the divine ideal — when society says there is no ideal.

It says children are not a replacement for a spouse — when many divorcées burden their adult children as such.

It says that communities — even religious communities — are not a substitute for a spouse.

It says that marriage is the highest form of commitment — when society says two people living together is just as acceptable.

It says that men and women need each other — when feminism says “women need men like fish need a bicycle.”

It says that God sees loneliness as “not good” — in our age where divorce rates, out-of-wedlock births, and loneliness are at all-time highs.

It says monogamy is the best condition for human happiness — at a time when polyamory and sleeping with many partners is increasingly accepted as normative, and at a time when certain religious fundamentalists -- Mormon, Hebrew Roots, Islamic fundamentalists -- are pushing for a return of polygamy.

Does a relationship with God fix human loneliness? Prager says no:

“God declared Adam “alone” despite the fact that Adam had a relationship with God. The lesson? God declares that even He, God, does not fully assuage our aloneness. God is essential, but we also need people.”

Officiating a Messianic wedding

Summary: Officiating a Messianic wedding? Here are the words I used. Thoughts on becoming a minister in the US.  Plus, Messianic wedding music.

I officiated my first wedding the other week. The couple attend my congregation and asked me to officiate the wedding. It was a real honor to do so and join two Messianic believers together in marriage.

Seeing as how I’ve never officiated a wedding before, I had little idea what to say. I did a bit of research and found some traditional words spoken at Jewish and Christian weddings. Things like Ruth’s vow, the Shehekianu, etc. But I also wanted to add my own words as well. (I’ve been married for 11 years, after all! I have some wisdom to contribute. )

What I put together for the wedding may be useful to you, fine Kineti reader / Google searcher.

Below is my Messianic Wedding Officiating template. Feel free to use it as-is, or tweak for your liking.

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Dearly beloved and honored guests, friends, family, and disciples of the Messiah, we are gathered together today to join ___ and ___ in the holy covenant of marriage.

Marriage is a divine institution that God ordained in the beginning. He says in the opening chapters of the Scripture, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

So as ___ and ___ join in marriage today, they are in fact fulfilling a mitzvah, a commandment of God, by joining together as God intended.

Marriage itself is woven throughout the Scriptures. In the Hebrew Bible, God relates to his people using marriage terminology, saying in the prophets, “I am a faithful husband to my people Israel.”

And likewise in the gospels, Yeshua the Messiah is likened to a bridegroom coming for his people: we who are to be the wise, patient and faithful bride of the Lord.

Messiah himself amplified and strengthened marriage: when the religious authorities of the 1^st century permitted divorce for almost any reason, Messiah rebuked them and called for husband and wife to remain as one barring only extreme circumstances.

Marriage is not something to be entered into lightly or flippantly. The Scriptures present to us a high calling of marriage, one in which the bride is prepared with purity, clothed in righteous deeds, a lesson of kindness on her tongue, having eyes only to please her groom.

Likewise, the groom comes to the bride willing to sacrifice his own life for her, and forsaking all others in order to love and serve his wife alone.

When husband and wife are in mutual submission to one another, a peaceful and holy environment for raising Godly children is created. And in doing so, the couple fulfill the mitzvah to be fruitful and multiply.

Marriage is accomplished by three unions: a union of the heart, of the mind, and of the flesh.

In the union of the heart, the husband and wife share the same desires and work towards the same life goals for their marriage and their family. Instead of individuals traveling in separate trajectories, the hearts of a husband and wife work together and encourage one another in their unified direction. Together they are stronger than they were as individuals, their goals and desires of their heart now closer and more attainable as each spurs on the other.

In the union of the mind, husband and wife are no longer dueling intellects with disparate and diverging views. Instead, the minds of husband and wife in a God-ordained marriage converge, complementing the other’s understanding and wisdom, each filling in for the other’s weaknesses. The two minds of husband and wife become a unified, complementary intellect, making whole and complete both husband and wife, to the glory of God the Father.

In the union of the flesh, husband and wife are no longer distinct individuals to be addressed alone. When the husband is blessed, so is the wife. When the wife is blessed, so is the husband. When a person speaks to the husband, he is speaking also to the wife. When a person speaks to the wife, he is also speaking to the husband. As a unified front standing together, being bound together by their joining today, ___ and ___ no longer belong to themselves alone, but each to the other.

With this knowledge, as set-apart children of God and adopted son and daughter of Israel, ___ and ___ come now to be wedded as one before the Holy One, blessed be He."

This day, ___ and ___ both take up and commit to the ancient Biblical covenant:

___ and ___ repeat after me:

“Ani l’dodi
V’dodi li”

“I am my beloved’s,
and my beloved is mine.”

Therefore, let no man come between these two, as God has called ___and ___ to join together this day, and to remain as one until the last day of their lives.

Today, ___ (groom) confirms the words of Ruth, as he says to his bride,

“Wherever you go, I will go
Wherever you stay, I will stay.”

Today, also, ___ (bride) confirms these words and says to her groom,

“Your people will be my people
And your God will be my God.”

For this reason, a man shall leave his parents and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

___ (groom full name), I pray this blessing from the Scriptures upon you as you join yourself to your bride this day:

“Blessed are you, ___ (groom full name), man who fears the Lord
Blessed are you, ___ (groom full name), who walks in the ways of the Lord
May you eat the fruit of your labor
May you be joyful and prosperous
May your bride be as a fruitful vine in your house
May your children be as olive plants around your table
May the Lord bless you from Zion
May you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life
May you live to see the return of Israel’s king
May you live to see your children’s children
And may you live to see God’s shalom upon Yisrael.”

___ (bride full name), I pray this blessing from the Scriptures upon you as you join yourself to your groom this day:

“Blessed are you, ___  (bride full name), woman of valor
Blessed are you, woman who fears the Lord
Your value is beyond pearls
May your husband’s heart trust in you
May you prove to be your husband’s greatest treasure
May you bring good, and not harm, to your husband and your home
May the Lord bless the work of your hands
You will be like a merchant ship, bringing sustenance from afar
You will extend your hands to the needy
And you will open your arms to the poor
You will rise while it is still nighttime and provide food for your house
Strength and dignity will be your clothing
You will neither worry nor fear, but you will laugh at the days to come
You will open your mouth and speak wisdom
You will be known for your kindness and gentle spirit
Charm and beauty are temporary
But you, ___, woman who fears the Lord, will be praised.”

Amein.

Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech haolam
Shehekianu v’qimanu v’higianu lazman hazeh

Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe
Who has kept ___ and ___ in life
Sustaining them both, and preserving them until this special time

Amein.

Do you, ___ (groom full name), take this woman of God, ___ (bride full name), to be your lawfully wedded wife, to live with her in obedience to the Most High and trust in the Messiah?

[Groom says, ‘I do’]

"Do you, ___ (bride full name), take this man of God, ___ (groom full name), to be your lawfully wedded husband, to live with him in obedience to the Most High and trust in the Messiah?"

[Bride says, ‘I do’]

___ and ___ , what further vows and tokens do you bring to seal this union today?

[Exchange of vows and rings]

These solemn vows and rings are given as seals and outward signs of the covenant of marriage and as a public acknowledgment of the holy union between this man and woman.

In accordance with the Torah of Moses and the covenants of Israel, by the power of the Ruach HaKodesh, in the authority of the Master, Yeshua the Messiah, King of Israel, recognizing the authority of the Holy One alone in ordaining marriage, I declare this union sealed in the name of the Messiah, and now pronounce you, ___ and ___ , as husband and wife.

___ , you may now kiss your bride!

[kiss]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you Mr. and Mrs. ___

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There you have it, folks! These were the words I used in officiating a marriage of two Messianic believers. I hope it is useful to some of you.

Who’s a minister? Everyone! And no one.

As a side note, becoming an official minister in the eyes of the United States government is, shall we say, a low bar?

While I actually am a minister in the real sense of the word – I help run Tabernacle of David Messianic congregation – I didn’t have to prove that I was a minister in any real capacity. The state government didn’t care whether I was actually a minister. It seems almost anyone can be a minister in the eyes of the US government, given a page or two of paperwork and $20 at the county courthouse.

In my opinion, that cheapens marriage and lessens the sanctity of the role for those who do minister and perform weddings.

Even so, I recognize the authority of God alone in ordaining marriage. The local government is a mere formality along the way.

Messianic wedding music for the reception

At the wedding reception, I played some Messianic songs appropriate for a wedding. Live music is always best, IMO. Then you can lift the groom on a chair and parade him around the room to Hava Nagila! (We did this and had a real joyful time.)

But, if you need some background Messianic music fitting for a wedding, see my previous post 14 Messianic Wedding Songs. Some beautiful, some joyful, all fitting for a Messianic wedding.

Cheaters, Ashley Madison, and why God forbids adultery

Shalom, folks. Every Tuesday, we examine a Biblical commandment and add it to the massive EtzMitzvot visual. This week we continue with our commandments on marriage, examining the prohibition on adultery. I was spurred on to examine this commandment with news of the recent hack of a website promoting adultery.

If there ever was a clear indicator of the cultural decay of the United States, it’s that we have a popular website whose copyrighted tagline is, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

(Over 37 million members – should we be weeping, or what?)

But, in a brief moment of vigilante moral justice, the cheating website was hacked this week, and the hackers are threatening to release the juicy details of all the would-be cheaters unless the website shuts down immediately.

Upon compromising the site, the hackers claimed to have discovered that the owners of this pro-adultery website are…wait for it…unethical liars! (You don’t say!)

In the words of the hackers,

“We expose that ALM management is bullsh** and has made $1.7 million from the fraudulent ‘full delete’ paid functionality alone...”

Hey, once you’ve started down the path of promoting adultery, what’s a little fraud mixed in?

If the hackers do release the private details of 37 million adulterers…well, let’s just say divorce lawyers are about to receive a bumper crop of new clients and fresh cash.

Sick yet? Enough of this trash - let’s talk about something righteous, shall we?

Civilizations need Torah

The more I study, the more I internalize the reality that the Torah has a commandment for nearly every important matter in life.

The Torah is God’s civilization kit. Sure, we glean commandments for individuals from it, but the Torah is really designed to be implemented in a society. It is a manual for how to create a sustainable and upright and just society.

It should be no surprise, then, that the Torah forbids adultery. Just as it is with homosexuality, adultery undermines a civilization by threatening the family unit – the core building block of societies.

Adultery undermines the family unit through reasons that should be obvious: it breaks up families by destroying a spouse’s trust, often resulting in divorce, broken homes, kids growing up without their mom or dad really there. That brokenness is witnessed and experienced by the children, who often perpetuate the cycle in their future marriages.

“How much more likely are children to imitate their parents’ infidelity and family dysfunction?”

Broken homes and missing-in-action parents result in broken kids who witness the marital fights, suffer through their parents’ divorce, reap the reward of the decreased role of their parents in their life, often required to accept a replacement in the form of a step-mom or step-dad.

These negative influences affect kids for life; how much more likely are they to imitate their parents’ unfaithfulness and family dysfunction with their own future spouse?

Fidelity and faithfulness in the Bible

We often use the term infidelity to describe adultery. This is a good term. Fidelity – loyalty, faithfulness – describes the righteous state as defined by God; infidelity describes a lack of faithfulness, disloyalty.

Infidelity is the antithesis of God’s faithfulness. In the Hebrew Bible, the Torah is likened to a marriage contract, and God himself is compared to a faithful husband:

Israel broke my covenant,
Even though I was a husband to them.

-Jeremiah 31:32

If God is the faithful husband of his people, a person’s own infidelity towards his spouse is all the more egregious, a corrupted reflection of a divine image.

Adultery in the 10 Commandments

There’s an old joke about the 7th commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” Moses comes down from Sinai and announces: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I got Him down to 10. The bad news is that adultery stays.”

It’s funny because it reflects a basic truth: fidelity to one’s spouse for an entire lifetime is no easy task given the reality of the powerful human sex drive.

Dennis Prager writes in Still the Best Moral Code,

The prohibition on a married person having sex with anyone except his or her spouse is, for many people, the most consistently difficult of the 10 Commandments to observe. The reasons shouldn’t be hard to guess.

Prager goes on to list 3 major reasons it’s difficult to remain faithful in marriage:

1. The enormous power of the human sex drive combined with a sex-obsessed culture.
2. The human desire to love and be loved.
3. The unfortunate reality of loveless marriages.

These realities cause adultery to abound, making fidelity to one’s spouse an almost rare occurrence.

Why is the prohibition on adultery listed with the famous fundamentals, the 10 Commandments?

“Things that undermine the family are consistently and strongly prohibited in the Torah.”

Because, like the other 9, it is indispensable to forming and maintaining higher civilization. Adultery threatens the very building block of civilization that the Torah seeks to create. That building block is the family: a married mother and father and their children.

Things that undermine the family – dishonoring mother or father, adultery, incest, homosexuality – are consistently and strongly prohibited in the Torah.

Maimonides’ adultery omission

I was surprised to find that in Maimonides’ famous listing of 613 commandments, Exodus 20:14’s “You shall not commit adultery” is missing. Yes, Maimonides omits the 7th of the 10 commandments from his list.

Instead, he goes to Leviticus 18, the big chapter on sexual prohibitions, which commands the slightly more specific,

“Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.”

-Leviticus 18:20

It’s more specific, as it pertains specifically to male adulterers, but the distinction is moot. (As is the case with the prohibition on homosexuality, male homosexuality is specifically listed but both sexes are implied.)

In our big EtzMitzvot visual, I’ve honored Maimonides’ choice of the specific Leviticus 18 over the general Exodus 20, but I’ve interpreted the commandment in the most general way: Don’t commit adultery.

Torah enlightened by Messiah: Yeshua’s view of adultery

When the Messiah was giving his fundamentals of the faith teaching, what’s become known as the Sermon on the Mount, after asserting the eternal and binding nature of the Torah, he says,

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

-Matthew 5:27

This aligns with Messiah’s behavior throughout the gospels: rather than cancelling a Torah commandment, as some suppose, he amplifies the commandment, distills the underlying principle, and strengthens the  commandment in practice.

And boy, what a strengthening. Let me say for the record, I am an adulterer. I’ve never actually had sex with anyone besides my wife – thank God for his grace in this – but I have lusted after an uncountable number of women. I’m not going to BS you and tell you otherwise; that’s reality, folks. (And I bet it’s reality for a vast majority of people reading this!)

I think an honest reading of Yeshua’s view of adultery means that things like pornography are a form of adultery. And I think he’s right – because in your heart, when you’re looking at porn, you’re imagining sex with that person; breaking the commandment in your mind and heart.

And, if we’re honest, if you’re breaking a commandment in mind and heart, it’s only a matter of time before your actions follow.

A whole volume could be written about men and our powerful sex drives, and how Torah-honoring disciples of Yeshua should direct those drives. For another time, perhaps.

Torah enlightened by Messiah: Yeshua’s view of divorce

Moments after strengthening the commandment on adultery, Yeshua comments that adultery is a valid reason for divorce:

It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

-Matthew 5:31-32

I think Yeshua strengthens the Torah again here. He does so by increasing the protection around the family unit, the very thing the Torah works so hard to do in numerous commandments.

He protects the family unit by declaring as invalid divorces for reasons other than serious ones, such as adultery and sexual immorality. He is invalidating “any cause” divorce, thus protecting the family unit.

Disciples of Yeshua need to hear this at least as much as the secular world! It’s reported some 50% of Evangelical marriages end in divorce. It’s a safe bet that many of those are invalid divorces. Yeshua calls us to something higher, folks.

Some have argued Yeshua’s view of divorce is too stringent, for example, not allowing for divorce in cases of abuse. I’ve found a helpful response in Derek Leman’s paper, Messianic Jewish Divorce.

Summary

God is all about the family. Families are the building block of society. This is why adultery is strongly prohibited, even listed among the fundamental 10 Commandments.

Messiah amplified the prohibition on adultery by showing the heart of the matter: any person that lusts after another in heart and mind is committing adultery.

Messiah strengthened the family unit further by condemning “any cause” divorce, allowing for divorce only in exceptional circumstances, such as adultery and sexual immorality.

By protecting and strengthening the family unit – a married father and mother and their children – the Torah builds and maintains higher civilization.

Without Torah and without the absolute morality given by God, human beings are a wreck. We don’t seek to build goodness or higher society. Instead, we seek whatever feels good. What you end up with is, well, what we have today:

What we end up with is fraudulent liars running websites encouraging 37 million people to have an affair because YOLO.

Folks, would you agree with me that this isn’t a good path to happiness? I think it’s a path to dissatisfaction in life. I think adultery – heck, all the world’s false joys – don’t actually do good. I think they lead to a life of lying, cheating, infidelity, personal unhappiness, broken marriages, broken families, broken societies.

So, folks, I’m aiming for the good and holy and righteous things found in the Torah and amplified by Messiah. God help me in this regard! I hope the same for you, fine Kineti reader.

Torah Tuesdays: Get hitched!

Shalom, folks. Each Tuesday we examine a Biblical commandment and add it to the interactive visual over at EtzMitzvot.com. Following last weeks’ hotly debated post (some 16,000 views in a single day!) on homosexuality and gay marriage, I’m following up on the positive commandment for men and women to get hitched! Wouldn’t you know it, there’s more to this commandment than you might think…

In last week’s post on the “Do not engage in homosexuality” commandment, I mapped the parent commandment as mitzvah #122, “Marry a wife through betrothal and wedding contract.”

In our race to weigh in on gay marriage, we didn’t comment on this parent commandment to marry a wife. In fact, not a single soul noticed a little oddity: the commandment might not really say to marry a wife! (We were too busy arguing about gay marriage.)

Let’s dig in and learn more.

Maimonides summarizes this commandment as,

“To marry a wife by means of ketubah and kiddushin.”

Ketubah and kiddushin? Yes, the same Torah that forbids homosexuality also commands things that, I think, many believers are unfamiliar with. (It’s bothersome to see how believers can be so laser-focused on one commandment, like the one forbidding homosexuality, but be completely ignorant of other commandments, like commandments for marriage with ketubah and kiddushin.)

What does it mean, “ketubah and kiddushin”, exactly? Well, they’re both terms born out of the Talmud and Jewish traditions on marriage, in particular, the Mishna’s Kiddushin which looks at this Biblical commandment on marriage and rules on how to carry it out.

Let’s examine that traditional Jewish interpretation, then we’ll examine the text itself.

Ketubah

A ketubah is basically a marriage contract, where the groom puts into writing rights and responsibilities in relation to his bride.

A ketubah with the heading, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”
Quite beautiful, don’t you think?

Ok, so ketubah is a marriage contract, often stipulating the groom’s obligations to the bride.

Kiddushin

According to Jewish tradition in the Mishna, Kiddushin is the first stage of marriage. When a couple has entered kiddushin, they are considered husband and wife; divorce is required if they choose to split before the wedding.

A couple who are betrothed in this way are husband and wife, but they are not permitted to live together until the final stage, in which both are united publicly under a bridal canopy – the chuppah – and are considered fully wed.

There were 3 means for a man to betroth a woman and enter the kiddushin stage:

1. Giving money or a valuable item to the potential bride.
2. A marriage document stating the groom’s intention to marry the bride.
3. Sex, with the intention of consummating the marriage.

This transaction was to be seen by 2 credible witnesses, after which the couple is considered betrothed; entered into the kiddushin stage of marriage.

Similar to modern engagements, the most common way to enter kiddushin was through giving a ring as a public sign of the covenant between the bride and groom.

Sex to enter into this stage is interesting. I find it amusing to think that this may have been, at one time, an accepted form of marriage betrothal: two unmarried people have sex with the intention to marry. The marriage is consummated; they’re now betrothed.

According to Chabad’s article on Kiddushin, this was later forbidden by the rabbis, making it a punishable offense. While I haven’t verified this claim, I assume Chabad knows their stuff!

That’s the tradition, now what about Scripture?

Ok, so we understand that Judaism has an oral tradition that this Scripture means that two people are to get married via written contract (ketubah) and by betrothal (kiddushin).

What does the actual text say? Well, you might be surprised:

If a man takes a wife…

Deuteronomy 22:13a

Yes, that’s the only part of this text that deals with marriage. Nothing about contracts, betrothal, wedding rings. Ha! The full text is actually dealing with what to do if a man marries a woman who claimed to be a virgin but was not:

If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, despises her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he despises her. Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

Deuteronomy 22:13-19

What we see here is less about a commandment to marry, and more about what to do when a man marries a woman and slanders her saying she was not a virgin, when in fact she was.

This happened occasionally in the ancient world; today it’s practically unthinkable, in part because there is no shame in marrying non-virgins, and likewise, virgins are rare because our culture is so infatuated with sex. As this did happen in the ancient world, God gives a commandment regarding how to handle this situation.

The following verses also give commandments on the situation in which a bride deceives her groom, saying she’s a virgin when she is not:

If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

-Deuteronomy 22:20-21

Modern sensibilities aside, I find the last two sentences rather powerful: God considers it an outrageous thing for a person to be promiscuous before marriage; so much so that it warranted capital punishment. We are so far removed from this in our culture today; promiscuity – like homosexuality – is no longer considered wrong; it’s normalized.

As a side note, how few sexual lifestyles in the West remain taboo! I imagine polygamy, bestiality, and pederasty will eventually break the barrier and become normalized, given enough time and social liberalization.

But here, in the Scriptures, from the moral absolutes shown to us by God at Mt. Sinai, even promiscuity is considered an egregious breaking of God’s law, at or above the same level as homosexuality.

Gender specifics, real or imagined

One other thing strikes me about this commandment. “If a man takes a wife…” Nothing about a woman taking a husband. Is the commandment exclusive to men? It seems so, since the commandment isn’t actually a command to take a spouse, but rather, a command about what to do when a dispute about a bride’s virginity arises.

In the comments to last week’s post, commenter Claire noted that the commandment against homosexuality is specifically a commandment against men lying with men; the Torah is silent about female homosexuality. Is that also deliberate? – is it only male homosexuality that’s forbidden? – or is this the language of the Torah, in which the heads of the households are addressed primarily and principles of the commandments apply to both sexes?

I feel the latter (feelings-based morality, yikes!) is true; the commandment forbidding male homosexuality is, I intuit, applied to women lying with women. But if I’m staying purely true to the text, I cannot insert my extrapolations as divine judgment.

It’s one of those cases where halacha – a means of interpreting and applying the Torah – dictates how we live the Scriptures.

(Sidenote: the Mishna has a lot to say about this! Several rabbis suggest this commandment is indeed gender-specific: men search for women, because for a man it is as if half of his being is lost; only when he finds a wife is he whole. A man who lost a precious possession goes searching for it, and thus does a man search for his wife.)

Tradition or the text?

Maimonides and indeed Jewish oral tradition interprets this as a commandment to get married via wedding contract and betrothal.

And yet, the text is clearly about how to handle a dispute about a bride’s virginity after marriage.

I struggled with how to map this into our big EtzMitzvot visual.

On the one hand, I always attempt to remain true to the text, interpreting it in the most broad fashion. On the other hand, I don’t like to outright dismiss the opinions of the studied men through whom God preserved the Torah for thousands of years.

I’ve decided to change my initial interpretation from “Marry a wife through betrothal and wedding contract” to the more broad, “Marry a spouse.”

I believe this broad interpretation is supported by the Torah text and jives fairly well with Maimonides’ interpretation to marry via wedding contract and betrothal.

Final notes

I’ve written, then deleted, this paragraph about 3 times. I don’t know whether I should be asking this, but I can’t help but shake the feeling that the Torah is rather silent about marriage. Sure, the text implies “marry a spouse” from Deuteronomy 22:13, but I was really expecting/hoping to see a clear, divine mandate about marriage. I don’t really get that from Deuteronomy 22:13, and I don’t know anywhere else in the Torah that does. I expect it there, because religious people have made marriage such a central, core issue today. Are we blowing it out of proportion?

Help me out, fine Kineti readers, where does the Torah command marriage and define ceremonies to marriage?

Sweet Forbidden Jew-Gentile Love Makin’

Tomorrow, December 7th, 2010, every unmarried Jew in the world will marry a gentile. Instantly, the Jewish people are doomed: their kids will lose their identity as Jews. A generation or two later, they’ll become gentiles.

Voila! No more Jews.

That’s the fear among religious Jews, at least.

Intermarriage, as it’s called, will destroy the Jewish people by assimilation.

And while it’s not going to happen tomorrow, it’s happening at a staggering rate, with some commentators suggesting a 50% intermarriage and assimilation rate in Western nations, with some places as high as 90%.

In other words, 1 of every 2 Jewish people will marry a gentile and their kids will be assimilated into the nations as gentiles, thus losing Jewish identity in a generation or two.

James Pyles, a gentile Messianic married to a non-believing Jewish wife, asks tongue-and-cheek:

I'm a Gentile and my wife is Jewish! Should I divorce her for the sake of her Judaism?

I am a Gentile Christian (I consider myself "Messianic" but my wife thinks of me as a "Christian") and my wife is genetically, ethnically, and religiously (non-Messianic) Jewish.

James details a his marriage to his wife 30 years ago – when both were secular – and how they’ve changed their paths since then: him becoming Messianic, her going Chabad.

Go read James’ post. Go read it, now.

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Back already?

Ok.

Still not convinced intermarriage is a real problem? Stats back this up:

During the Soviet era, there was a steady decline in the official Jewish population from 2,267,800 in 1959 to 1,450,500 Jews in 1989. Then, from 1990-2000 period, a further 980,000 Jews (1.4 million by the Law of Return definition of a Jew) emigrated from the FSU (Former Soviet Union).  Meanwhile, in Russia, there were then about 2.8 Jewish births and 30.0 deaths per 1,000 Jewish population. Intermarriage was about 70 percent. and close to 80 percent in Ukraine and Latvia in 1996; furthermore a non-Jewish nationality was generally preferred for the children of outmarried.

-World Jewish Population

Other world statistics are a bit more optimistic, but still not that good, suggesting about 1/3rd of all Jews intermarry:

Religious Jews freak out about this stuff. No, really, some religious Jews say this is the worst thing to happen since the Holocaust:

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million were left afterwards. Today there are only 13 million Jews in the world. Where are the rest that by natural increase should number close to 20 million? The answer is that the silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to disappear as Jews.

-Ask the Rabbi

While that’s from a biased source, note the staggering statistic: he’s saying there are 13 million Jews today when there should be 20 million.

In other words, 7 million Jews have been lost to assimilation since 1945.

That’s more Jews than died in the Holocaust.

Ouch.

I do wonder whether these statistics account for the inverse scenario of gentiles who rediscover Jewish ancestry, thus creating Jews out of thin air, and also those gentile proselytes. But let’s set that a side for a moment and ask, who cares? Does God care?

Is it important for Messianic Jews to avoid marrying gentiles?

Obviously for traditional Judaism, intermarriage is a problem. If Jews disappear, Judaism does, too, so it’s a matter of survival. Duh.

And for Christianity, no one gives a turd. We’re all One In Jesus, blahbity blah blah.

But for Messianics, there’s something interesting here.

We Messianics are certain God intended for the survival of his special people, Israel. It’s all over the Bible, including the New Testament. So we should side with the Orthodox Jews, right? No intermarriage. Frown on that shih-tzu with a righteous frown!

After all, God told Israel not to marry gentiles.

In the famous 613 commandments list compiled by a medieval Jewish scribe, commandment #162 is “not to marry non-Jews”. It’s taken from Deuteronomy 7:3:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

-Deuteronomy 7:1-4

Although the commandment is not to intermarry with the nations occupying the Canaan area, modern religious Jews extend this to mean “don’t intermarry with gentiles, period.”

So, do we follow the Orthodox Jewish route and frown on Jews marrying gentiles?

Look at the commandment. Unlike most commandments, God actually gives a reason for this commandment. The reason is:

They [the gentile spouse] will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods.

Christians may be misguided about many things, but they are not serving other gods.

Christians are worshiping the God of Israel. Jesus is not a 2nd god. (Can I get an ‘amen’?! )

If we can agree that gentile disciples of Messiah are not worshiping other gods, then we must concede that the “no intermarriage” commandment does not apply to Christians.

Yep. It follows: there is a commandment against marrying pagans, but Christians are not the old pagans of yesteryear. (Sorry to all you paganoid demon-under-every-stone types!) Even the strictest Messianic Jew will concede gentiles in Messiah are part of the commonwealth of Israel; this commandment, then, could not work against them, seeing they are co-heirs and fellow citizens.

Jewish Messianics may object, “But what about the preservation of the Jewish people?”, and they have a point, but we must concede that that goal is a given, not a commandment. There is no commandment that says a Jew cannot marry a gentile follower of Yeshua.

To claim Deuteronomy 7 applies to gentiles in Messiah is to claim such people are following other gods, in essence, claiming Christians are idolaters and deserve death through stoning.

It ain’t me!

My Personal Intermarriage Story

You might say I’m biased. I’m part Jewish, and I married a beautiful and lovely and sweet and kind gentile Christian woman, Kristin. (Hold back your righteous frowns, you ivory-tower-dwelling religious butt-heads!)

I’m part Jewish, you see, and my wife is a gentile Christian.

My dad is Jewish, now certified as such by an Chabad Orthodox rabbi, and I have been raised as a son of the commandments and a servant of the God of Israel since I was a child. I have been keeping God’s commandments for 2 decades. I attended a church with my wife the other week, and someone asked if we had put our Christmas tree up yet; I responded, “As a Jew, I celebrate Hanukkah”. I love the people and land of Israel. I defend our people against anti-Semitism wherever I see it, public or private. I identify as a Jew.

Granted, I’m no thoroughbred. Modern religious Jews trace descent through the mother, and not the father; strict religious Jews may consider me a gentile. And the state of Israel has yet a different, broader standard for determining who is a Jew. Ultimately, I don’t care about what those groups think; I’m not looking for Orthodox Jewish approval, praise God.

More importantly, I identify myself as a follower of the Messiah, the only real Jewish Messiah, the future King of Israel, the person who showed us how to live the Torah: Yeshua. My identity lies first in Yeshua, before all other affiliations.

Does being Messianic get in the way?

When I married my wife, Kristin, the thought never occurred to me, “should you be marrying a gentile?”

Seriously,  it never once crossed my mind.

Even if it had, it wouldn’t have made a difference. I knew there would be religious differences, but, as they say, love conquers all. And romantic love ain’t no exception, boy!

It wasn’t until being surrounded with and subjected to voices in the Messianic Jewish/Proselyte blogosphere telling me how evil it is to intermarry; only then did this question cross my mind. Should I prepare my face for a big honkin’ righteous frown when it comes to sweet forbidden Jew-gentile lovin’?

So here I am, 7 years into a kind of intermarriage, and folks on my side of the religious aisle more than ever are frowning on this kind of thing.

There have been problems in my marriage. Hey, I’m being honest. There have been problems as a result of our religious differences. Yep. But love really has conquered here. I mean, despite our religious differences, I really love my wife. I have no desire to marry anyone else. Religious pedants be damned. I love her.

Will my kids grow up following other gods? Ha. If any person can answer that with certainty, he has a career in fortune telling.

I will do everything in my power to ensure they won’t follow other gods, or No-God.

And I think I’m doing alright in that regard in raising my kids.

Will my kids grow up to be Christian, totally abandoning all their Jewish heritage, rejecting the commandments, identifying not as Israel but as Church?

Ha. That’s a hard question to answer.

I will do everything in my power to ensure my kids live a Godly life, with an understanding that they are part of Israel, and that the commandments are good and will lead towards a life of real joy in the Lord.

I concede that intermarriage weakens Jewish identity. It certainly will in my kids, no matter how much I protest.

The question is, how much does intermarriage matter?

• Utmost Importance - A silent Holocaust that erases Jewish people, as some stringent religious Jews claim it to be.
• Irrelevant – It doesn’t matter because we are all one body in Christ, as some Christians claim.

Or somewhere in between?

I am convinced: when my life is over, God will have plenty of sins to wash, but none of them will be my marriage to Kristin. It is not a sin for a Jew to marry a gentile follower of Yeshua.

I can’t imagine any of the disciples of Yeshua commanding us, “…if a believer among you is a Jew, let him not marry any gentile believer…”

That sounds more like a nightmare out of an MJTI conference than anything the disciples wrote.

But we don’t really have any great examples of intermarriage, for or against, in the New Testament, perhaps because the Jewish culture of the time itself forbade it. So it’s hard to say with any certainty whether intermarriage is at all important for us as disciples of Yeshua.

But what about Jews disappearing?

It’s a given that God will preserve Israel, one way or another. So relax. God can raise up sons of Abraham from little pebbles on the ground; is it too much for him to do the same for Jacob? Maybe that’s why the disciples found no need to issue such a clarification on Jew-gentile intermarriage, it just wasn’t a major issue. If that’s the case, we too should avoid making it a major issue.

Orthodox Judaism has been trying to preserve Israel by shunning intermarriages, and they’ve failed. Miserably. Intermarriage will happen when Jews are around gentiles. For Messianic Judaism, where Jews and gentiles are going to worship together, of course there’s gonna be a little Jew-gentile lovin’ going on.

Perhaps a deeper problem is the exile. Israel is in exile. When in exile, you tend to pick up the surrounding culture’s…uh, culture.

Intermarriage, then, isn’t the problem, but rather a vehicle and side-effect of the real problem of being exiled.

Perhaps that’s why God re-established the State of Israel. Exile now has a solution, intermarriage largely goes away, Israel is preserved, and God’s plans move forward.

Shunning intermarriage is a proven failure. Messianic Judaism would do well to avoid that failure.

How do you think Messianics should treat intermarriage? Should we consider it a grave sin like the Orthodox Jewish world does? Treat it as irrelevant like the Christian world does? Something in between?