From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: PLEASE!  I need your help!  Help me keep this love alive!
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 22:29:51 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.152821.10362@uoft02.utoledo.edu> jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner) writes:
>weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>> rlk@underprize (Robert Krawitz) writes:
>> 
>> >			  People have to decide for themselves whether
>> >they care more about their background than about a relationship, 
>> >and that choice should be free rather than forced or coerced 
>> >(counting guilt tripping as coercion).

The issue is not "their background".  The issue is "the nature of
their obligation to God", a much more serious matter.  You are
assuming a profoundly different view of moral issues from theirs by
your very use of words like "a relationship", "free choice", "guilt
tripping" in this context, one in which the very seriousness of this
question is hard to comprehend.

>> 
>> That's their problem.  If they reject their parents totally and 
>> completely, I have absolutely no sympathy for them.
>
>the problem is that often it's not the children doing the rejecting,
>it's the parents. i know many people who didn't want to reject
>their families & were forced into a "them or us" situation & had
>to choose.
>
>the question becomes: should the desire to marry outside of a family
>faith be grounds for disowning one's offspring?
>
>that's the -parent's- choice to make, and the results are the parent's
>responsibility.

But the faith may dictate the parent's choice.  And what is "a family
faith"?  The real issue about a faith is "Is it the truth?".  If it
is, it imposes obligations, even terrible ones; if it is not, why have
faith in it?
 
>
>> rlk@underprize (Robert Krawitz) writes:
>> >As for the mourning ritual:  any parent who'd go that far to lay a 
>> >guilt trip on someone's acting rather wickedly him/herself.
>> 
>> Excuse me.  There is essentially no greater grief for a Jewish 
>> parent who has even the least amount of commitment to Judaism.  
>> Your reading it as a guilt trip is sick in the head.
>
>ahh, i get it. "we're feeling pain, so we've got to make you feel
>some too." -that's- sick.

Again, no, it isn't.  The parents' beliefs may leave them no choice.
They are certainly not "laying a guilt trip" on their child; they are
reading their child out of the Jewish people and their family, a much
more serious action.

>
>jason
>
>--
>`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`
>`,`  "I'd explain it to you, but your head would blow up." - S. Wright  `,`
>`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,` jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu ,`,`,`

My position on this is necessarily liberal, since I converted to
Judaism (Reform) _after_ marrying a Jew.  But you cannot conclude that
the parents' actions are "sick"; their actions may be dictated
logically by what they believe sincerely to be the will of God.  The
parents' problem with the child's intermarriage is that they believe
it to be an immoral act on the same level as murder.

Now, I think that the parents _are_ responsible for the consequences
of their actions, and that the actions described (mourning an
intermarried child as dead) are wrong; their faith does not absolve
them.  But it is not possible to condemn the parents in a facile way;
a decision is required on a serious question.  They are not wrong
because they are hurting their child; they are wrong because their
deepest beliefs about what God requires of us are wrong, and so they
are hurting their child gratuitously.  If these beliefs were correct,
the correctness of their actions would follow inevitably.


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish