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 CHAPTER
FIVE:Those Who don’t Fit the Model: Family Situations and Status
in Judaism and the Jewish World
2. Re-establishing the Basis: Why the Family?
Before proceeding to examine the departures from the accepted family
norm, it is important to recap briefly the basis for the significance
and the centrality of the family in Judaism, and recall the type of family
that the Jewish model has held up as the ideal.
As said earlier, in distinction to Christianity, Judaism embraces the
idea of marriage and the family as the natural basis for human relations.
- As distinct from the Christian ideal, which considers service of
G-d as a higher value than family life, Judaism views the two as part
of one intrinsic whole.
- According to traditional Jewish thought, marriage is a union that
is blessed by G-d.
- It is a Divine and sanctified union in which G-d’s presence
plays a part. G-d is indeed seen as a partner in the marriage ceremony
and as a force that accompanies the family through its course of life.
- A family life that is lived without a concern for and an awareness
of G-d’s presence is seen as an aberration within Judaism.
- This is also why civil marriage (and civil divorce) is not recognised
by Judaism.
The original foundation stories of the Jewish faith, upon which the whole
of Jewish history is traditionally based, are family stories.
- The Jewish People is seen as having evolved from a family.
- Moreover, much of the traditional terminology in which Judaism is
soaked is based on imagery drawn from the family. G-d is first and foremost
seen as a father figure: the Jewish People is seen as a family –
“the House of Israel” - .
The Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Bereishit are known as the fathers
and mothers of the Jewish People. We have talked of the Biblical imagery
of G-d’s relationship with the Jewish People as being couched
in the metaphor of marriage.
All of these are examples of the centrality of the idea of marriage
and family within Judaism.
The model for Jewish marriage is, moreover, a monogamous one.
- Despite the fact that it was permissible to have more than one wife
until the Middle Ages throughout the Jewish world, the norm was clearly
monogamy and the multi-wife model is considered a throwback to a more
primitive and formative stage of development.
- Monogamy was understood as a natural consequence of monotheism. The
idea of exclusivity of relationships, both with respect to G-d and with
respect to the marriage partner, is deeply embedded in the Jewish consciousness.
As far as the relationship between man and wife are concerned, the model
is one of friendship.
- Although sexuality has an important place in marriage and, as explained
in the last chapter, is one of the reasons for the importance of marriage,
the Jewish marriage has never been perceived as a purely sexual relationship.
Indeed, this is underlined by the defined times within the married relationship
for the expression of sexuality. Marriage is viewed, rather, as a broad
partnership where the defined spheres of male and female behaviour complement
each other to create a whole.
- Romance is perceived as having a place, but as something that primarily
develops within marriage, rather than being the basis which leads to
the decision to marry.
Marriage and family are, ideally, a firm basis for personal and community
life.
- The family is considered too important an institution to be founded
on the passing whim of romantic love.
- Its security and stability are believed to be strengthened by the
involvement of parents in the choice of marriage partner.
- All in all, in Judaism, the family framework constitutes the firm
basis on which all of society rests: the family is conceived as a stable
framework, both for the individuals inside it and for the society around
it.
Since this is the case, it is clear that deviations from the norm of
healthy family life are in some ways lacking.
As mentioned earlier, however, more and more Jews find themselves outside
of the traditional model of Jewish family life, raising serious questions
and challenges to the traditional self-image of Judaism, as well as to
the health of the traditional Jewish communal and social fabric.
We shall therefore address five challenges to the traditional picture:
- Initially, the three traditional challenges – that of singles,
widows and widowers and the divorced - bringing out the extent to which
the challenge posed by each category is changing and growing, despite
the fact that these are, indeed, traditional categories that have always
existed in the Jewish world. Each challenge will be explored separately,
but the discussion will also present commonalities in both the needs
and options, presenting in the community.
- The discussion will then address separately the two “new”
categories mentioned in the introduction: the intermarried family and
gays. The goal is to subsequently offer some common concerns from the
prevalence of the different non-normative frameworks and consider whether
there any conclusions to be drawn for the Jewish community, today and
tomorrow.
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