Judaism Marriage Quotes

Why does everyone think a guy who prefers love to people is missing something in his life?

Fidelity is a living, breathing entity. On wobbly footing, it can wander, becoming something different entirely.

So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are correct, but in only one respect - only if they happen to be talking about Judaism. Christianity simply does not share that deep and consistent historical reverence toward matrimony. Lately it has, yes- but not originally. For the first thousand or so years of Christian history, the church regarded monogamous marriage as marginally less wicked that flat-out whoring but only very marginally.

The benefits of a philosophy of neo-religious pessimism are nowhere more apparent than in relation to marriage, one of modern society’s most grief-stricken arrangements, which has been rendered unnecessarily hellish by the astonishing secular supposition that it should be entered into principally for the sake of happiness. Christianity and Judaism present marriage not as a union inspired and governed by subjective enthusiasm but rather, and more modestly, as a mechanism by which individuals can assume an adult position in society and thence, with the help of a close friend, undertake to nurture and educate the next generation under divine guidance. These limited expectations tend to forestall the suspicion, so familiar to secular partners, that there might have been more intense, angelic or less fraught alternatives available elsewhere. Within the religious ideal, friction, disputes and boredom are signs not of error, but of life proceeding according to plan.

So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are absolutely correct, but in only one respect—only if they happen to be talking about Judaism.

In early Judaism, the priesthood was maintained within various families and passed down from father to son, thus necessitating marriage. But this is the old covenant, and even within this model priests were required to abstain from having sex with their wives during the time they served in the Temple. Catholics believe that priests fulfill this Temple relationship ever day - the Mass and the Eucharist mean they are serving in the Temple every day of their ordained lives.

Greek and the Hebrew—and whichever side you embrace more strongly determines to a large extent how you see life. From the Greeks—specifically from the glory days of ancient Athens—we have inherited our ideas about secular humanism and the sanctity of the individual. The Greeks gave us all our notions about democracy and equality and personal liberty and scientific reason and intellectual freedom and open-mindedness and what we might call today “multiculturalism.” The Greek take on life, therefore, is urban, sophisticated, and exploratory, always leaving plenty of room for doubt and debate. On the other hand, there is the Hebrew way of seeing the world. When I say “Hebrew” here, I’m not specifically referring to the tenets of Judaism. (In fact, most of the contemporary American Jews I know are very Greek in their thinking, while it’s the American fundamentalist Christians these days who are profoundly Hebrew.) “Hebrew,” in the sense that philosophers use it here, is shorthand for an ancient world-view that is all about tribalism, faith, obedience, and respect. The Hebrew credo is clannish, patriarchal, authoritarian, moralistic, ritualistic, and instinctively suspicious of outsiders. Hebrew thinkers see the world as a clear play between good and evil, with God always firmly on “our” side. Human actions are either right or wrong. There is no gray area. The collective is more important than the individual, morality is more important than happiness, and vows are inviolable.

The marriage of a Jewish son is a bittersweet prospect. There is relief, always, that he has navigated the tantalizing and plentiful assemblies of non-Jewish women to whom the children of the Diaspora are inevitably exposed: from the moment he enters secondary school there is the constant anxiety that a blue-eyed Christina or Mary will lure him away from the tribe. Jewish men are widely known to be uxorious in all the most advantageous ways. And so each mother fears that, whether he be short and myopic, boorish or stupid or prone to discuss his lactose intolerance with strangers, whether he be blessed with a beard rising almost to meet his hairline, he is still within the danger zone. Somewhere out there is a shiksa with designs on her son. Jewish men make good husbands. It is the Jewish woman's blessing as a wife, and her curse as a mother.

The 'ministry of reconciliation' is a stunningly brief encapsulation of the biblical story of the purpose to which God calls people. I do not know a better three-word definition of Christianity, and it does very well as an entry point for Old Testament temple-based Judaism as well. It acknowledges that there is work to do: relationships on all scales are damaged. Nation against nation, communities against communities, families, marriages, even the vital self-worth that describes people's relationship with themselves is often damaged.

Of course, the Shtrakenzer bride, though perfect, was not suitable; Mrs. Shpilman knew that. Long before the maid came to say that nobody could find Mendel, that he had disappeared sometime in the course of the night, Mrs. Shilman has known that no degree of accomplishment, beauty, or fire in a girl would ever suit her son. But there was always a shortfall, wasn’t there? Between the match that the Holy One, blessed be He, envisioned and the reality of the situation under the chuppah. Between commandment and observance, heaven and earth, husband and wife, Zion and Jew.

Few things once seemed to me more frigid and far-fetched than those interpretations […] of the Song of Songs, which identify the Bridegroom with Christ and the bride with the Church. Indeed, as we read the frank erotic poetry of the latter and contrast it with the edifying headlines in our Bibles, it is easy to be moved to a smile, even a cynically knowing smile, as if the pious interpreters were feigning an absurd innocence. […] First, the language of nearly all great mystics, not even in a common tradition, some of them Pagan, some Islamic, most Christian, confronts us with evidence that the image of marriage, of sexual union, is not only profoundly natural but almost inevitable as a means of expressing the desired union between God and man. The very word ‘union’ has already entailed some such idea. Secondly, the god as bridegroom, his ‘holy marriage’ with the goddess, is a recurrent theme and a recurrent ritual in many forms of Paganism […] And if, as I believe, Christ, in transcending and thus abrogating, also fulfils, both Paganism and Judaism, then we may expect that He fulfils this side of it too. This, as well as all else, is to be ‘summed up’ in Him. Thirdly, the idea appears, in a slightly different form, within Judaism. For the mystics God is the Bridegroom of the individual soul. For the Pagans, the god is the bridegroom of the mother-goddess, the earth, but his union with her also makes fertile the whole tribe and its livestock, so that in a sense he is their bridegroom too. The Judaic conception is in some ways closer to the Pagan than to that of the mystics, for in it the Bride of God is the whole nation, Israel. This is worked out in one of the most moving and graphic chapters of the whole Old Testament (Ezek. 16). Finally, this is transferred in the Apocalypse from the old Israel to the new, and the Bride becomes the Church, ‘the whole blessed company of faithful people’. It is this which has, like the unworthy bride in Ezekiel, been rescued, washed, clothed, and married by God—a marriage like King Cophetua’s.

hegemony of the modern synagogue. These are the events that surround birth, coming of age, marriage (including divorce), and death. Many synagogues will name babies for parents who are not members, presuming that one day they might become members. And more often than not, those who marry are not synagogue members, since they no longer live in their hometowns and, as young singles, have not been motivated to join a synagogue in their new city of residence. Following the common trajectory of synagogue membership, by the time people die (in old age), they have already discontinued their synagogue membership, although perhaps their children are still members. Thus, some synagogues do funerals for people who are technically not members. In practice, the synagogue generally limits its services only to members in the area of bat or bar mitzvah. Most life-cycle events (outside of these four core events) that individuals mark,

so he simply claimed to have received a revelation from Allah that it was now lawful for him to take her as his wife. His step-son, who was a good Muslim, wanted to please the prophet, so he immediately divorced his wife so Muhammad could bed her. On another time, Muhammad, the great prophet of Allah, married a 6-year old girl, then consummated that marriage when she was only 9 years old. America must come to understand Islam for what it really is. Allah is not the god of Judaism and Christianity. He is not the god of love and tolerance.

When we speak today, then, about 'holy wedded matrimony,' or 'the sanctity of marriage,' we would do well to remember that for approximately 10 centuries, Christianity itself did not see marriage as being either holy or sanctified. Marriage was certainly not modeled as the ideal state of moral being. On the contrary, the early Christian fathers regarded the habit of marriage as a somewhat repugnant worldly affair that had everything to do with sex and females and taxes and property, and nothing whatsoever to do with higher concerns of divinity. So when modern day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are absolutely correct, but in only one respect: only if they happen to be talking about Judaism. Christianity simply does not share that deep and consistent historical reverence toward matrimony. Lately it has, yes, but not originally. For the first thousand or so years of Christian history, the church regarded monogamous marriage as marginally less wicked than flat-out whoring, but only very marginally.

Rituals remind us we're connected to each other — to history. We need to honour them. And weddings can be beautiful without being expensive.

18.22. you shall not lie with a male like lying with a woman. Why is male homosexuality explicitly forbidden in the Torah but not female? Some would surmise that it is because women are controlled in a patriarchal Israelite society; and so a woman would simply have no choice but to marry a man. But this is not an adequate explanation, because there would still be opportunities for female homosexual liaisons. Some would say that the concern is the seed, which is understood to come from the male, and therefore is "wasted" in another male. But the text calls homosexuality "an offensive thing" (in older translations: "an abomination"), which certainly sounds like an abhorrence of the act, and not just a concern with the practical matter of reproduction. The reason may rather be because the Torah comes from a world in which there is polygamy. A man can have sex with his two wives simultaneously. That this is understood to be permissible is implied by the fact that the law in v. 18 above forbids it only with sisters (see the comment). Or, even if the above case means marriage and not simultaneous sex, then simultaneous sex still is not forbidden anywhere in the Torah. If simultaneous sex with one's two (or more) wives is practiced, it would be difficult to allow this while forbidding female homosexuality. (At minimum, it could require a number of laws specifying what sort of contact is permissible and under what circumstances.) In the present state of knowledge concerning homosexuality, it is difficult to justify its prohibition in the Torah. All of the movements in Judaism (and other religions) are currently contending with this issue. Its resolution ultimately must lie in the law of Deuteronomy that states that, for difficult matters of the law, people must turn to the authorities of their age, to those who are competent to judge, and those judges must decide (Deut 17:8-9). In my own view, the present understanding of the nature of homosexuality indicates that it is not an "offensive thing" (also translated "abomination") as described in this verse. The Hebrew term for "offensive thing" (tô'ēbāh) is understood to be a relative term, which varies according to human perceptions. For example, in Genesis, Joseph tells his brothers that "any shepherd is an offensive thing to Egypt" (46:34); but, obviously, it is not an offensive thing to the Israelites. In light of the evidence at present, homosexuality cannot be said to be unnatural, nor is it an illness. Its prohibition in this verse explicitly applies only so long as it is perceived to be offensive, and therefore the current state of the evidence suggests that the period in which this commandment was binding has come to an end.

This stratification of Judaism is confusing, so I'll explain it as it relates to bacon. In Judaism the major players are: Reformed eat bacon and love it; Conservative- eat bacon only in diners; Orthodox-never touch bacon but secretly wonder what it tastes like; Ultra Orthodox--no way, feh, it's treif, and Chassidic-what is this bacon of which you speak?

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Here, the focus is not on the irrevocable covenantal promises so prominent in Genesis but rather on the proven record of fidelity and integrity that rabbinic thought attributes to those national ancestors. Presented with God’s offer, Israel protests her unworthiness—people do not, after all, deserve to have a specific person love them to the point of proposing marriage—