33 years of officiating at Interfaith Marriages

I’ve been officiating at interfaith marriages for the past 33 years. It didn’t start out that way – at least for the first month of my rabbinate. Like many rabbinic students I spent lots of time during my five years of rabbinic seminary talking with fellow students about the problems and challenges of interfaith marriage and coming up with a long list of rules and expectations and criteria for when I would and when I would not be willing to officiate. By the time I graduated and was ordained from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion I had my list down to an exact science and thought I was totally prepared to go out into the Jewish world and apply my detailed criteria to whatever requests and circumstances might arise. And then my friends called.

There I was, barely a month after my ordination with criteria in hand and two of my dearest friends who happened to be an interfaith couple called filled with excitement, bubbling over with joy as they told me that they had gotten engaged and asking (naturally) “Will you do our wedding?” A minute later I realized that I had answered “yes” without even giving it a second thought. And that was it.

Ultimately my personal values and personal priorities became very clear. I discovered that individual Jewish people are more important to me than the Jewish people as a whole. Simply put, and I know it really is simply put - I put people first. Period. The rest of my rabbinate for the past 33 years has been just that – putting people first, caring for their personal lives, personal dreams, personal struggles, personal wrestling with who they are and how they can make lives of meaning and purpose and holiness regardless of who they love and who they marry.

This has been my guiding principle and continues to guide my choices and decisions to this day. It is why I have always been willing to do same-gender commitment ceremonies or weddings, interfaith marriages, and as a congregational rabbi with a relatively large congregation of about 1,100 families, include non-Jewish partners and parents fully in every aspect of congregational life with absolutely no regrets.   Read More