Shabbat Parashat Ki Tetze Elul 10th 5770 August 20, 2010
Shalom,
It was good to see so many of you during my visit and I'm glad I had the honor to attend great S'machot. This has been a difficult summer for our community who suffered great losses and I hope that from now on we will only share times of joy.
Two weeks ago I wrote about Chelsea Clinton's wedding and the issue of intermarriage and many of you commented.
Yesterday I came across the story of Joseph and Rebecca Reyes -another example of intermarriage.
The story was greatly covered by the news and I will just summarize it. Rebecca Shapiro, a young Jewish attorney from Chicago and Joseph Reyes a Catholic veteran of the US army fell in love and decided to get married in a Jewish wedding. Later on Joseph converted to Judaism (after the divorce he claimed he never stopped being Catholic) and their daughter Ella was born. After four years the marriage ended and now there's a battle between the parties on Ella's religious identity. Without getting into all the details the Jewish community stands behind Rebecca and the Catholic one stands behind Joseph trying to make sure Ella is brought up in the "right" religious milieu. You can read more about the case at: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/TheLaw/rebecca-reyes-speaks-estranged-husband-joseph-jail-taking/story?id=9952082
My question is where were Ella's parents before the divorce? How come nobody cared about the religious identity of the family?
I think that the lesson is that people must stick to their principles. The problem was that the Rabbi who performed the marriage didn't care whether Joseph was Jewish, and the Rabbi who converted Joseph didn't ask why he was doing that. Rebecca did not stay true to her words to marry a Jewish guy and Joseph was not loyal to his principles when he agreed to convert. The lesson is to stick to your principles if you any.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,
Cantor Arik Wollheim
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