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| Marc Chagall, The Fiddler, 1913 Inspiration for the title of the musical Fiddler on the Roof |
In 1964, the musical Fiddler
on the Roof came out on Broadway. It was based on several books and plays
by Sholem Aleichem about a Dairyman named Tevye with most of the material
coming primarily from the book Tevye and
His Daughters. The story details many of the struggles that Jewish people
have had since the time of Abraham and it also shows the difficulties sincerely
religious people have with change. It demonstrates very well, just how
important tradition can be for many people. It also shows how crippling
tradition can be as well.
The main plot of Fiddler
on the Roof is about Tevye’s relationship with his daughters. After his two
oldest daughters marry after breaking with the tradition of having an arranged
marriage, Tevye’s third daughter, Chava elopes with a Russian Christian, named
Fyedka (Khvedka in the books). When Tevye finds out, he disowns his daughter
telling his wife Golde, “Chava is dead to us now.” In the book, Tevye has his
family sit Shiva which is the Jewish
period of mourning following the burial of a dead loved one.
Interfaith
Marriages
In extremely legalistic religions, not just Christianity and
Judaism, interfaith marriage is forbidden. In conservative and fundamental
sects of Christianity, interfaith marriage is still greatly frowned upon.
1 When the Lord thy God
shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast
out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the
Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; 2 and when
the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and
utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy
unto them: 3 neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy
daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take
unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away thy son from following me,
that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled
against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
– Deuteronomy 7:1-4
14 Do not be unequally
yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with
lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What
accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an
unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For
we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling
among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from
them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18
and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says
the Lord Almighty.”
– 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 (ESV)
Notice that the biblical instructions concerning
interfaith marriages were more like strong recommendations. You could even say
they were condemnations, but they weren’t strictly prohibited. In early
Judaism, family members weren’t disowned for interfaith marriages. In spite of
God’s warnings about interfaith marriages, the Jewish people still entered into
them.
Throughout the Old Testament, the fruit of interfaith
marriages was people rejecting God’s Word, His Moral Law, syncretizing Jewish
religion with other religions, or abandoning Judaism altogether. God warned
Israel that if they entered into interfaith marriages, their hearts would be
turned away from the Lord and God would bring punishment. The book of Judges
records this very thing, over and over again.
In the beginning of the book of Judges, the Israelites
are obeying God and taking possession of the land of Canaan according to God’s
direction. By the middle of the first chapter, the Israelites are no longer in
complete obedience. They were to utterly conquer the land and drive out the
inhabitants, but the tribes of Joseph, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and
Naphtali did not do as God commanded.
The tribe of Dan, it seems, didn’t even try to obey God. The
Amorites forced the Danites into the mountains and wouldn’t let them come back
down into the valley.
Not only did the Israelites not fully obey God, they
didn’t pass on their faith to their children. Within one generation, “…there
arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works
which he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10b). One generation!
11 And the children of
Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim: 12 and
they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land
of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round
about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. 13
And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
– Judges 2:11-13
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| Bruno Goldschmitt, Buch der Richter Kap. 19, 1910-1920 |
It wasn’t long before God delivered the Israelites into
the hands of enemy countries. They would be enslaved, forced into tribute, or
otherwise persecuted by the other country. Life would get hard and the
Israelites would turn back to God and cry out to Him for deliverance. God would
answer their prayer and lift up a new Judge to deliver them from oppression.
After Israel was delivered, they would faithfully serve
God again, but they would fail at passing their values to their children and
another generation would rise up and forsake God. And the cycle would start all
over again. The cycle repeats twelve times in the book of Judges.
This cycle didn’t start simply because the Israelites
wanted to try something new. The cycle began with the intermarriage of the
Jewish people and the surrounding nations.
5 And the children of
Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and
Hivites, and Jebusites: 6 and they took their daughters to be their
wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. 7
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the
Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves.
– Judges 3:5-7
Notice that the Israelites didn’t do “evil in the sight
of the Lord,” until after they intermarried with the surrounding countries.
Throughout the rest of the history of Israel, we see this
pattern repeated. Solomon married hundreds of women and had hundreds of
concubines. He ended up turning away from God for years. The kings who
succeeded him also turned away from God when they married foreign wives. The
kings who turned away from God consistently experienced immense turmoil
personally and politically.
This is why God puts such emphasis on not marrying
outside the faith. God wants His people to take their faith in Him seriously.
He wants to have first place in the lives of His people. The Jewish confession
of faith, or The Shema says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
If faith in God takes priority in a person’s life, then
finding a mate of the same faith will also be a priority. If a person is
willing to marry someone outside the faith, we can expect that there is
something more important to them than their faith. Usually, that “something” is
superficial like lust.
If there is something more important to a Christian than
their faith in God, can they honestly say they are loving the Lord God with all
their hearts, soul, and might? People who marry outside the faith do so because
something else is of primary importance. Faith is just a part, maybe a small
part of who they are.
In the story of Fiddler
on the Roof, the same thing is true. Chava was Jewish and her faith was
probably very important to her in spite of marrying a Russian Orthodox
Christian. But there was something more important to her – Literature. Because
literature and learning were the most important things in the lives of Chava
and Fyedka, they found something in common that transcended their differing
faiths.
The old saying that “opposites attract” isn’t true.
Educated people usually marry other educated people. Musicians attract
musicians. Politicians attract politicians. Successful marriages can be found
in people who have similar priorities and are willing to compromise on the
rest.[1]
When a person is a faithful Christian and marries outside
the faith, they’re setting themselves up for hardship and, very likely,
failure.
Utilizing the example in Fiddler on the Roof, Chava was raised with a very strict Jewish
upbringing. Did she cast off her Judaism and convert to Eastern Christianity or
did she simply bury her Judaism so that she could fit in with Russian society. Sholem
Aleichem doesn’t tell us what became of her. Aleichem was very traditional and
conservative in many ways, but for him, marrying outside the faith was the
ultimate insult, especially to a person who came from a culture notorious for
Jewish persecution.
In Aleichem’s books and in the musical, Chava’s sisters get
a very nice monologue to tell everyone just how great love is. Tzeitl is poor
and Hodl’s husband gets sent to Siberia after being arrested in the Revolution.
We get none of that from Chava. It is safe to say that Aleichem didn’t have
high hopes for Chava and Khvedka (Fyedka).
In real life, the statistics bear out Aleichem’s belief
that Chava’s relationship would likely fail.
In 2010, a woman named Naomi Schaefer Riley commissioned a survey on marriage with an oversample of people in interfaith marriages. The results of the survey appear in her book, 'Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America.
What researchers found was that people in interfaith marriages are statistically less happy than those in same faith marriages. When it comes to evangelical Christianity, the divorce rate for interfaith
marriages between evangelicals and non-evangelical Christians is more than 50%
higher than the average divorce rate with about 48% ending in divorce. When an evangelical
Christian marries a non-Christian, the divorce rate jumps to 61%![2]
Some Christians enter into marriage in what some have
called an "evangelistic marriage." They marry their spouse with the knowledge
that their spouse is not of their faith, but they think if they are married to
that person, they’ll be able to convince them to convert.
The reality is that when a person marries someone of
another faith, there is only a 25% chance that one of the spouses will convert.
What that means is that if you’re a Christian and you marry someone of a
different faith, there is only a one in eight chance that your spouse will
become a Christian. There is also a one in eight chance that you will convert
to their faith. If you think that you are strong enough to reject conversion to
another faith, there is only a 12.5% chance that you will end up married
“until death do you part” to a spouse with whom you can enjoy your faith as
part of your marriage.
If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t bet on those odds.
The Bible doesn't strictly forbid interfaith marriages, but it does warn against them. As statistics reveal, interfaith marriages are just a bad idea.
[1] Feature,
Jean LawrenceWebMD. "Do Opposites Attract?" WebMD. WebMD, 2004.
[2] Riley,
Naomi Schaefer. 'Til Faith Do Us Part:
How Interfaith Marriage Is Transforming America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013.
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