To The Frummies, Liberal Jews Aren’t Really Married
If you were already married when you made teshuva, did you decide to have another wedding that complied with halacha (i.e. an Orthodox wedding)?
Also, did you or your wife wait until having an Orthodox wedding to observe taharas hamishpacha and cover your hair?
The underlying premise is that if you didn’t have an Orthodox wedding, then you aren’t really married, so if you become frum, you need a new wedding.
Except that this wasn’t always the case even in Jewish custom. In Torah law, a couple could publicly declare they were shacking up together as man and wife, and they were accepted as married.
Ahhhh….but that’s before the sages decided that this was acceptable when people were (wait for it) on a higher medrega, but henceforth, one would need a proper wedding with two (kosher! they have to be kosher!) witnesses, otherwise the marriage itself is nullified.
Another advantage to this of course is that most baal teshuvahs in the U.S. have parents who were married in a non-Orthodox manner, hence for most haredim, they are not married, and consequently, this is another example of the depravity of a baal teshuvah’s background.
Frum apologists will insist this is often done in order to prevent children from being declared mumzers (bastards, who may never marry into the main body of the Jewish people), but that also further demonstrates the emphasis placed on lineage, and how easy it is to become utterly unacceptable forever in traditional Jewish law, especially to the stringent. And in these situations, the frum prefer to be stringent for their own.
So anyway, if any secular or liberal Jews are reading this, please understand, that to most Orthodox Jews, your parents aren’t even considered married. When they address a mother of one of the kids they are recruiting to ultra-Orthodoxy as “Mrs.,” they are lying in their own minds. They do not consider her married. Additionally, they consider the product of this illegitimate union defiled by menstrual blood, because the concubine of a mother did not do a ritual dunk in the mikvah.
How deep and how thorough is the frummie contempt for the baal teshuvah and his/her family.
17 comments
doesn’t america work the same way? if you get married in another country you must show proof authorized by law otherwise you must be remarried under american law. how is this terrible. its a reliablity factor.
sorry didn’t mean to post twice you can delete the first one now that I have a new name and blog
” doesn’t america work the same way?”
No. America recognizes the marriages of other cultures and states, and this is true of pretty much every culture and civilization. The frum only recognizes Orthodox marriages for Jews as binding, and those who do recognize such marriages as binding (or more often, as PERHAPS binding) do not recognize non-Orthodox divorces.
What kind of demented reading of halacha led you to this silly conclusion?
If it were true, there wouldn’t be any of the many problems that BT’s have with divorced parents causing trouble with mamzerut issues.
Read correctly, the halacha states that IF and only if, under certain very narrow and carefully defined circumstances, it would HELP the BT avoid problems, we can retroactively ON RARE OCCASIONS void the parents marriage.
Orthodoxy by definition is stringent on halacha, so even living together without a ceremony is usually considered an issue. There is enough real trouble and real heartache in the world, why add to it for no real reason? BT’s are often dissed, and that’s wrong, but let’s not make it worse and generate ill will gratuitously.
“If it were true, there wouldn’t be any of the many problems that BT’s have with divorced parents causing trouble with mamzerut issues.”
The frum rules for divorce are much worse than the rules for marriage.
DK I have a record 30 posts on the second to last comment in my blog. XD
that’s not true…sj double posted his own comments to get his numbers up. talk about stuffing the ballot
factual basis, learn to count.
i only double posted when too much information in one post would turn everything into a mish mosh, kinda like the talmud XD
I don’t have 30 posts yet. my bad.
“kinda like the talmud”
Nice! SJ, it isn’t the volume, it’s the quality. You had a good discussion with that mean but smart girl on your site (no relation to Halfsours), but then you kinda accused her of hitting on you.
>> but then you kinda accused her of hitting on you.
i didn’t intend for it to come off that way. seriously.
and thanks for the compliment DK XD
Mentor and protege delight in one another…
I am not mean! You asshole.
David,
Whatever would you do if you didn’t have BBT as your foil?
Oh, you guys are a well…no doubt.
you never miss your water ’til your well runs dry
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