Rabbi's Chayva's Chat

The following text is excerpted from Rabbi Chayva’s op ed in the J. this week. For the full text, click this link.

“You’re a strong candidate for rabbinical school,” the Hebrew Union College admissions team member said to me, smiling. “Just let us know when your boyfriend converts.” 

I was shocked. I had grown up in an interfaith family, attending Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills because we felt welcome there. How could the Reform rabbinical seminary, which trained Beth Am’s rabbis, turn me away because I was in an interfaith relationship just like my parents?

That was 2015. Later that year, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College started admitting students with non-Jewish partners — most of whom were Reform Jews who couldn’t apply to HUC because of their spouses. I began my rabbinic studies at RRC in 2017, but later transferred to HUC.

For many years, HUC resisted the tide of interfaith relationships. But earlier this month, the school wisely reversed course and decided to begin admitting rabbinical and cantorial students in interfaith relationships.

Some have argued that prohibiting interfaith partnership was the last frontier of respectability that kept HUC tied to the Jewish mainstream. They say that without this boundary, HUC has dropped all its standards. Yet we know that there are many valid ways to be Jewish.

Forcing rabbinic school admissions to use interfaith partnerships as the litmus test for legitimacy in the Reform movement robbed the community of leaders who could directly address one of the biggest issues in American Judaism from a place of personal experience. 

At the same time, the main institutions of the Reform movement have been misaligned. The Union for Reform Judaism, the umbrella organization with Reform synagogues, prioritizes interfaith family inclusiveness. The Central Conference of American Rabbis, the professional organization of working Reform rabbis, does not have a policy on rabbinic interfaith partnership. HUC stood alone, rejecting intermarried candidates for admission and ordination. HUC’s updated policy aligns it with the rest of the movement, national trends and its own stated value of maintaining an inclusive spirit.

Finally, the role of the clergy’s partner has changed. Instead of needing someone to lead the religious school or sisterhood, rabbis need a partner whose support, love and understanding can sustain them through their busy and deeply personal career. Leaders of RRC and HUC have pointed out that there are plenty of Jews who don’t want to be married to a rabbi, and plenty of people who aren’t Jewish who think that their beloved’s rabbinic calling is wonderful.

Last week, we studied Beha’alotcha, the Torah portion in which Miriam and Aaron challenge Moses about his marriage to a Cushite (non-Jewish) woman. “Has God not spoken through us as well?” they ask. Miriam and Aaron also speak words of Torah; we must remember that our tradition honors machloket l’shem shamayim, argument for the sake of heaven, over groupthink. Nevertheless, God chastises them for suggesting that Moses’ interfaith marriage makes him a less legitimate leader for “he is trusted in My household, and he beholds the likeness of God.” 

May we, too, trust rabbis in interfaith relationships in our households and see the likeness of God in their faces.