THE CHALLENGE OF FINDING A MATE
Genesis Rabbah 68:4
A Roman Matron asked Rabbi Yosi ben Halafta, "In how many days did God create the world?" He said, "In six, as it is said, 'Since six days God made...' (Exodus 20:11) "And since then," she asked, "what has God been doing?" "God sits [on the Heavenly Throne] and makes matches: the daughter of this one to that one, the wife [i.e. widow] of this one to that one, the money of this one to that one," responded R. Yosi. "And for merely this you believe in Him!" she said. "Even I can do that. I have many slaves, both male and female. In no time at all, I can match them for marriage." R. Yosi, "Though this may be an easy thing for you to do, for God it is as difficult as splitting the Sea of Reeds." Whereupon, Rabbi Yosi took his leave. What did she do? The Matron lined up a thousand male and a thousand female slaves and paired them off before nightfall. The morning after, her estate resembled a battlefield. One slave had his head bashed in, another had lost an eye, while a third hobbled because of a broken leg. She said to them: "What do we have here?" and they each said to her: "I don't want this one" [with whom you matched me." Immediately, she summoned R. Yosi and she brought him to her and said: "Your God is not like our god, and your Torah is true, pleasing and praiseworthy. You spoke wisely."
WHY MARRY?
Genesis 2:18
It is not good for Adam to be alone.
Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 62b
Rabbi Tanhum stated in the name of Rabbi Hanilai: Any man who has no wife lives without joy, without blessing, and without goodness... “Without goodness”, for it is written, “it is not good for man to be alone.”
Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 63b
Rabbi Eleazar said: Any man who has no wife is not a proper man.
Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 29b
A man who reaches 20 years of age and is not married spends his days in sin. In sin! Is it really so? Rather, say that he spends all his days in sinful thoughts.
FORBIDDEN MARRIAGES
Leviticus 18 lists certain sexual relationships (with immediate family members) which are considered incestuous and so marriage is forbidden. It also forbids homosexuality (more about that later.)
Leviticus 18:6
None of you shall come near anyone of his own flesh to uncover nakedness: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 18:22
You shalt not lie with a man as with woman, it is an abomination.
Exodus 20:13
You shall not commit adultery.
Deuteronomy 7:3
You shall not intermarry with them [all the seven nations inhabiting the Land that would become Israel mentioned in the previous verse]: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons.
Leviticus 21:7
They shall not marry a woman defiled by harlotry, nor shall they marry one divorced from her husband. For they are holy to their God
- According to rabbinic law, a Cohen is not permitted to marry a divorcee or a convert. (The Masorti community accepts and performs such marriages.)
Rabbenu Gershom, a rabbi living in Germany at the end of the first millenium (c. 960-1028) is considered the father of Ashkenazic Halacha. He forbade polygamy which had previously been permitted.
- (He made several other groundbreaking pieces of legislation too including insisting on the necessity of a woman’s consenting to divorce before the issue of a get, modifying the rules about apostasy in cases were people were forced to convert to Christianity, and prohibiting the opening of someone else’s mail.)
THE JEWISH WEDDING CEREMONY
Before the Ceremony
The bride visits the mikvah a few days before the wedding ceremony. She immerses herself completely and says the brachot. This is the first of many visits for couples who keep the laws of Niddah (also known euphemistically as taharat hamishpachah or family purity.)
The Shabbat before the ceremony the groom (and sometimes the bride) receives an aliyah l'Torah at the synagogue.
It is customary for the bride and groom to fast on the day of the wedding until after the chuppah. (There are ways to avoid this requirement.)
The Wedding Ceremony
A Jewish wedding is not held on Shabbat, most festivals (except for Purim, Chanukah, and the intermediate days of Sukkot), the “Three Weeks” prior to Tisha B’Av (9 Av), during the Omer (except for Rosh Chodesh and Lag B’Omer).
Just before the ceremony formally begins the groom visits the bride and veils her in a ceremony called the bedeken.
The ceremony takes place under the chuppah, a canopy symbolizing the couple’s home together.
The groom enters first, accompanied by his parents, and then the bride does the same. Customarily, the bride circles the groom seven times (in some ceremonies the groom circles the bride too).
The first part of the ceremony is called the Eirusin or Kiddushin. It’s actually a betrothal ceremony which includes the brachah over wine and the giving and receiving of the ring.
This point marks a break between the two ceremonies the ketubah is often read at this point. It is written in Aramaic and details the date and place of the wedding. In it, the groom promises to fulfil certain personal and financial promises to the bride.
The second part of the ceremony is called Nissuin. It begins with the sheva brachot, the first of which is the bracha over wine (again.) It ends with the bride and groom taking a sip, and then the breaking of the glass which symbolizes the destruction of the Temple as a limit to our joy. The couple are then escorted to a private room for yichud, to spend some time alone together.
The two ceremonies differ in function and feeling. Kiddushin is a legal contract involving the precise formulas and transactions of ketubah and kinyan [ritual formalizing the acceptance of the terms of the marriage]; Nissuin is a far less tangible process, sealed not with documents but with actions. Betrothal designates the bride and groom for each other only, but nuptials give them to each other. Kiddushin forges the connection between bride and groom; Nissuin, which can also mean “elevation” connects a husband and wife with God.
After the Wedding Ceremony
Usually a seudat mitzvah is held. There is a special birkat hamazon after which the sheva brachot are recited again. Some have the tradition for a different friend or set of friends to throw a dinner party and including a guest who was not at the wedding for the newlyweds for 6 more nights at which the sheva brachot are said.
The Sheva Brachot
See p. 790 of green Singer’s Prayer Book or p. 771 in the maroon edition.
1 – Blessing over wine
2 – Blessing God as creator of everything
3 – Blessing God as creator of human beings
4 – Blessing God as creator of partnership
5 – Blessing God as creator of the Jewish people
6 – Blessing God for this particular union
7 – ideas of (re)unification for the couple and the Jewish people
The sheva brachot comprise the bulk of the wedding liturgy yet only the last two have anything to say about weddings or brides and grooms. Read as a whole, however, they place a particular bride and groom within the context of Jewish time, giving a view of history in which time is not conceived as being endlessly linear but as having a definite beginning and a definite end.
The sheva brachot mention the beginning of time in Eden, when life was wholeness, and the end of days, when that wholeness will be restored. Since Eden the world has been in exile from the experience of unfragmented existence, an exile that extends from heaven to earth. The Garden was lost, the Temple destroyed, even God is not whole. Shechinah, God’s feminine self, wanders the earth, cut off, bereaved. God and Shechinah are reunited on Shabbat, the day that offers a taste of paradise, as bridegroom and bride.
Both heaven and earth long for a redemption from this exile, a restoration of Edenic harmony to the whole of creation. A wedding is a focal point in history, a fulcrum between the first and the last, and the embodiment of union and unity. Since Judaism has no concept of individual redemption, the chuppah provides the whole community with a glimpse into the blessing of the uncracked, whole reality that was and will be.
from The New Jewish Wedding by Anita Diamant
CHALLENGES TO THE PRINCIPLE OF KINYAN IN THE JEWISH WEDDING CEREMONY
Mishnah Kiddushin 1:1
A woman is acquired in three ways... by money, legal document, or by intercourse.
"Acquiring Equality"
By Heather Altman and Susan Sapiro
Kinyan (Hebrew for "acquisition") is what establishes a Jewish marriage. Kinyan is effected when a man says to a woman the "Behold..." phrase, and gives her something worth more than a penny, which she accepts with the intention of being married. She has then, in a sense, been acquired by the man. It is important to note that in order for the marriage to be valid, the man must initiate the action and there can not be a perception of mutual exchange in the transaction. According to tradition, the role of the woman is only to be acquired; she is a recipient and not an active participant. Thus, despite the panorama surrounding the marriage ritual, marriage is a form of acquisition. Kinyan is used in the Talmud and later texts to signify commercial transactions. Although acquiring a woman differs somewhat from buying a field (a common Talmudic analogy for marriage) it is clear that in classical Jewish texts, women are classified as objects and ownable property. In biblical and modern Hebrew, a husband is a ba'al, which literally means master or owner of property. A wife is simply an isha, a woman. By implication, all Jewish women are wives-in-waiting...
The marriage ceremony wasn't the only problem. The inequality reflected in the marriage documents also disturbed us. The ketubah, generally thought of as a wedding contract, is not a contract between partners. Underneath the flowers and pastel images of Jerusalem is a statement from the groom that details his financial obligations toward the bride (calculated according to her sexual status—virgin or non-virgin). Many rabbis and modern Jews value the ketubah for its authenticity and even claim that it was meant to protect women. In Rereading the Rabbis, Judith Hauptman makes the case that the rabbis of the Talmud made far-reaching legislative change to the biblical marriage laws. The laws were amended when society changed, and women became regarded as individuals with a right to consent to (or withhold consent from) a marriage...
[Rabbi Rachel] Adler's ceremony, the B'rit Ahuvim (lovers' covenant), is based on an ancient Jewish legal business partnership in which each partner contributes to a joint entity by pooling their resources in a pouch and lifting it together.1 The partnership model also solves another problem that stems from kiddushin—the agunah (chained woman). Since a marriage based on kiddushin is created with the sole action of the groom, the termination of the marriage is also solely in his hands. If a husband refuses to give his wife a get (Jewish divorce document), the marriage continues until he relents. With Adler's model which eliminates kiddushin, the marriage is a joint partnership from the beginning. The Brit Ahuvim is also appropriate for same-sex Jewish marriages, unlike kiddushin, which is solely heterosexual.
Rabbi Joel Levy: Is Possession (Kinyan) Nine-Tenths of the Law?
The Halachic implication of this inequality is that it is only the woman's status that changes substantially when she marries, only she is liable for the harshest punishments under the law should she be sexually unfaithful to her husband. Given that the central act in a traditionalist Jewish wedding is still an act of acquisition (where money, generally in the form of a ring, passes from the man to the woman) anyone choosing to get married mindfully in this way will need to think through their relationship with tradition itself in a profound manner.
Some scholars have even suggested that a radical change to the wedding ceremony may be necessary in our day. In halachah, in order for kiddushin to be valid, both parties must consent to the contract undertaken. This means that the woman may need to consent to 'being acquired.' Professor Meir Feldblum has written on the current implications of the lack of informed consent of women at the time of the marriage... Even worse, if the woman does indeed know the meaning of the ceremony and states explicitly beforehand that she does not believe in or accept the nature of kiddushin what does that do to the validity of their wedding ceremony?
Jewish Attitudes Towards Sex Inside of Marriage and Outside of Marriage
One of the leading principles of the Men of the Great Synagogue...was "Make a fence about the law." (Avot 1:1) so that by respecting the "fence" one would would avoid transgressing the law itself...As the Men of the Great Synagogue handed the law down to the Hasmonean court and they in turn to their pharasaic successors, a considerable number of restrictions beyond the requirement of the original law...were enacted and added to the law as "fences" or safeguards.
This process had a significant effect upon the code of sexual morality. Nowhere is a fence needed so much as in the control of sex passions. This period, therefore, distinguished itself by unnumbered restrictions against social contact between men and women, against sitting alongside a woman at a festive table, against drinking a cup of wine with her at a social gathering, even against speaking to a woman or gazing at her. The separation of the sexes was thoroughgoing enough, but should an occasion arise when a man and a woman were thrown into each other's company, it was required that a chaperone be present. --Louis Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism
Through such rulings and teachings, the rabbis attempted to prevent Jews from participating in non-marital sexual relations. However they could not unequivocally claim that non-marital sex was forbidden in Torah. Only one rabbi tried to find a Torah basis for the prohibition:
“Do not degrade your daughter and make her a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry and land be filled with depravity.” (Lev. 19:29) R’ Eliezer taught: this refers to an unmarried man who comes upon an unmarried woman not for the purposes of marriage. (San. 21a)
Rabbi Eliezer’s ruling was not accepted as the halachah. After all, the Torah does permit a man to take a concubine, that is, a woman in a monogamous sexual relationship without a ketubah or the traditional kiddushin...Eventually concubinage fell out of usage in the Jewish community.--Rabbi Michael Gold, Does God Belong in the Bedroom
A Ladder-type Framework for Sexual Ethics Has Been Suggested by Rabbi Arthur Green:
“Living in a world where we cannot advocate either ideal sex or no sex as the alternatives, what we must begin to evolve is a sliding scale of sexual values. (Rabbi Zalman Schachter is owed our thanks for first having articulated the notion of the 'sliding scale'.) At the top of this scale would stand the fully knowing and loving relationship...while rape--fully unconsenting and anonymous sexuality--would stand at the bottom. Somewhere near the middle of the scale, neither glorified nor condemned, would be the relationship of two consenting persons, treating another with decency, fulfilling the biological aspects of one another’s love-needs, while making no pretense at deeper intimacy. Given such a scale, a Jew might begin to judge his/her own sexual behavior in terms of a series of challenges which s/he might want to address.” From Does God Belong in the Bedroom?, by Rabbi Michael Gold
JEWISH ATTITUDES TOWARDS SEXUALITY
Leviticus 18:22
"Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence."
HOMOSEXUALITY, HUMAN DIGNITY & HALAKHAH: A COMBINED RESPONSUM FOR THE COMMITTEE ON JEWISH LAW AND STANDARDS by RABBIS ELLIOT N. DORFF, DANIEL S. NEVINS & AVRAM I. REISNER, December 6, 2006, p. 4
Leviticus 20:13 restates the law, adding a severe punishment for both partners: "If a man lies with a male the lyings of a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death–their bloodguilt is upon them."
What does it mean for a man to lie with a man with the “lyings of a woman”? The Talmud derives from this plural construct that there are two forms of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, vaginal and anal (Sanhedrin 54a). The Sages understand these verses to prohibit anal sex between men without any exception, even as the other sexual behaviors on this list are forbidden without exception. Ancient authors employed euphemism when describing sex, making it difficult to prove exactly what activities they understood to be included within these verses. Is it possible that the biblical prohibition called mishk’vei ishah and later, by the Rabbis, mishkav zakhur, includes actions other than anal intercourse? These verses have been variously translated, but almost all readers conclude that they prohibit anal sex between men, with the first verse addressing only the insertive partner, and the second verse including the receptive partner. Judaism is based on how the Rabbis interpreted the Bible, and so the crucial point for legal purposes is that the Rabbis read these verses to refer to anal sex. Their only debate regarded whether 18:22 penalizes the receptive as well as the insertive partner. In 20:13 the penalty for both partners is made explicit.
DORFF, NEVINS & REISNER, December 6, 2006, p. 17.
If the halakhah is able to address the sexual and social needs of gay and lesbian Jews, what is the status of their relationships? Surely the halakhah is not indifferent to decisions made by gay and lesbian Jews about their intimate relationships. Surely it is better for gay and lesbian Jews to establish monogamous relationships with other Jews and thereby to establish stable Jewish households. Surely promiscuity ought to be no more acceptable among homosexuals than it is among heterosexuals. Surely the establishment of family units is central to the preservation of human dignity. For all of these reasons, we favor the establishment of committed and loving relationships for gay and lesbian Jews. The celebration of such a union is appropriate with blessings over wine and sheheheyanu, with psalms and other readings to be developed by local authorities.
Statement by Masorti Judaism in the UK Regarding Same Sex Marriage Ceremonies, 2014
“After much learning and discussion, the Masorti rabbis have ruled that communities may carry out ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples based on a ‘shutafut,’ or partnership, ceremony. We recognise that our movement encompasses diverse views on this important subject. Each Masorti community, together with its rabbi, will be free to decide whether to carry out these ceremonies and, if so, whether the relationships sanctified by them should be registered under English law as same-sex marriages or civil partnerships. Masorti Judaism is proud to be taking this opportunity to make our communities ever more welcoming and to realise our values of inclusion, equality and diversity within the framework of halacha (Jewish law).”
DIVORCE IN THE JEWISH TRADITION
Gittin 90b
Rabbi Elazar says: "With regard to anyone who divorces his first wife, even the altar sheds tears over him"
Deuteronomy 24:1-2
A man takes a wife and possesses her. She fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her, and he writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house; she leaves his household and becomes the wife of another man.
Divorce in Halacha
On the moral and religious level a divorce should be resorted to only as a last option where the marriage has irretrievably broken down. The union of man and wife is used by the prophets in illustration of the unbreakable bond between God and Israel...
The most significant difference between the Jewish religious law of marriage and divorce, and the law in this area in Western societies, is that the State or the court in Jewish law have the power neither to create a marriage bond nor to sever it. Both of these actions can only be achieved by the two persons concerned. Even when the Jewish court, the Bet Din, does supervise the writing and delivery of the get, this is only for the purpose of seeing that the procedures are carried out correctly.
It has to be appreciated that, while a man obviously cannot marry a woman without her consent, it is she who is married to him not him to her, since, in the polygamous system which obtained until the ban on polygamy by Rabbenu Gershom of Mainz in the eleventh century, a man could have more than one wife. The husband is bound to his wife with regard to loving her, caring for her, and supporting her, but not int he sense that he cannot henceforth take another wife. The wife, on the other hand, from the time of her marriage, has bound herself entirely to this particular man and if, while still married to him, she has sexual relations with another man, it constitutes adultery. Thus, in traditional Jewish law, it is the husband who divorces his wife, not the wife her husband. --Rabbi Louis Jacobs, The Jewish Religion: A Companion, p. 132.
Agunah
A woman bound or chained either to a missing husband or to one who refuses to divorce her. The only way a married woman can become free to remarry is by obtaining a release from her husband by his death or by him delivering to her, of his own free will, the get, the bill of divorcement...
Reform Judaism, with some exceptions, relies on the civil divorce to terminate the marriage so that for Reform there is no agunah problem...
Conservative Judaism, unwilling to depart from the tradition in such a serious matter as marriage and divorce but wishing Jewish law to be more flexible than it needed to be before civil divorce was known, relies on indications in the Talmud that in certain cases the drastic measure of nullification of marriage is a valid option and, after a stern warning has been given to the husband, will obtain release for the agunah by declaring the marriage retrospectively null and void. The status of the children of the marriage would not be affected by the nullification since, in Jewish law, children born out of wedlock are not illegitimate and suffer no disabilities. The Orthodox rabbis hold, on the other hand, that despite Talmudic precedents, contemporary courts do not have the power to nullify a marriage. It should be noted that it is not only the agunah herself who suffers. If she did decide to ignore the law and remarry, the child she had from the second union would be a mamzer. --Rabbi Louis Jacobs, p. 17