Last week's Sedra made clear that Abraham was very concerned that his son Isaac should marry someone from his own people, who were the descendants of Shem (Semites). Shem was the foremost son of Noah, and was specially blessed. The Rabbis describe him as a major spiritual leader. Abraham warned his servant Eliezer, who had to go looking for a wife for Isaac, that he should not choose his wife from the Canaanites.
Even at this early stage of development of the Jewish people, there was a definite concern about who one should or should not marry. Why? Because the goal of the Jewish people is to create a dwelling for the Divine in this physical world. The Temple expresses that ideal on a global scale; each Jewish marriage manifests it in personal terms. When man and woman join in marriage in accordance with Jewish teaching, the Divine Presence dwells with them, in every aspect of their lives2. They are thus helping to fulfil the purpose of Creation.
In this week's Sedra we read abut the two sons of Isaac, Jacob and Esau. Jacob was a person who spent his time acquiring wisdom from
his illustrious ancestor Shem, who was still alive. Esau, by contrast, was a hunter, and a man of violence.
It was Esau who married "out". The Torah tells us that when he was forty years old he married two women, both from the Hittite tribe. The Hittites were one of the Canaanite nations.
Esau's non-Semitic wives caused "bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebecca"3. Later, Esau realised that his parents did not want him to have wives from the Canaanites. So he married his cousin, the daughter of Ishmael. However, he still retained his two Hittite consorts as well4. A grandson of one of them was Amalek, the infamous enemy of the Jewish people through the ages.
Later in the Torah the theme of intermarriage is seen several times. The fact that many Jews were consorting with Midianite women, who were leading them to idolatry, caused Moses to break down in tears (Num.25:6). Before the Jews entered the Land of Israel they were given an explicit warning against intermarriage (Deut.7:3). There the Torah predicts that the non-Jewish partner would draw the Jew away from Judaism.
A contrasting story is that of Moses himself. While living far away from his people, long before the Exodus, he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, a Midianite. Unlike the wives of Esau, Zipporah dedicated herself to the values and ideals of the Jewish people. This is seen particularly clearly in an incident when she circumcised her son5.
Later, a famous proselyte to Judaism was Ruth the Moabite. The Book of Ruth describes how she came to the Land of Israel. She had been married to a Jewish man, who had died. Ruth was filled with longing to join the Jewish people. She said to Naomi, the Jewish mother of her dead husband: "Where you go I will go, where you lie down, I will lie down, your people is my people, your G-d is my G-d..."6. She became a Jewess and married Boaz, a relative of Naomi.
Their descendant was King David, and his descendant will be the Messiah, who will rebuild the Temple and thus complete the task of Jewish marriage, making the world a dwelling for the Divine.
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