O nce upon a time Jewish intermarriage was what my father a”h used to joke his parents had — a union between a Litvak and a Galitzianer. That sadly isn’t what that term has meant for a long time now with the rate of American Jews marrying non-Jews rising past 70 percent.
There are few sacred cows still grazing on the American Jewish pasture and now one of the most sacred of them not marrying out of the Jewish People may soon be up for slaughter. Both openly Conservative clergy and more covert ones — known as Open Orthodox (OO) — have recently been pushing for that goal with two clergy people of the latter denomination named Avram Mlotek and Aaron Potek writing articles titled “Time to Rethink Our Resistance to Intermarriage” and “Intermarriage Isn’t Good or Bad ” respectively.
When Potek the author of the second piece was asked by a commentator whether he would tell an interfaith couple contemplating marriage what halachah says about that he responded:

There seems to be an underlying assumption in your question that halachah works for every Yid. I’m not sure that’s true…. I strive to answer from a place of halachic integrity while also being sensitive to the sho’el before me. Therein is the delicate balance of being open and Orthodox whatever that means.

“Whatever that means.” A better encapsulation of OO ideology I’ve yet to see. And although I appreciate Potek’s use of that nifty “Yid” word he’d be well-advised to be less sensitive to the sho’el before him and more wary of the she’ol before him (see Sanhedrin 7a last line).
Readers may recall that I once tried to advise the OO folks to slow the rapid pace of their “radical re-imaginings” of Jewish law. There seems to be an unspoken agreement among the denominations called the “fifteen-year rule”; the amount of time one movement waits before abandoning an aspect of Jewish practice or belief that has already been jettisoned by the movement to its immediate left. “When you accelerate the process” I helpfully explained “you risk running smack into the denomination just ahead of you or worse leapfrogging it.”
Well talk about prescience. At the very same time that Potek and Mlotek have written articles in favor of intermarriage which have been republished on the website of the OO clergy organization Torat Chayim the Conservative movement has refused to give its imprimatur to similar noises being made by some of its clergy. So it’s official: After racing off the left cliff of Orthodoxy OO is now to the left of the Conservative movement on a central Judaic issue.
But the official Conservative response on intermarriage was itself fascinating and I believe instructive about the future of OO too. The essay by the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in the Forward was titled “ ‘This Is Not the Moment’ to Lift Our Ban on Performing Interfaith Weddings. ” The two operative phrases in that title are “This Is Not the Moment ” and “Our Ban ” and they’re interrelated too.
The piece begins with the JTS affirming “that the study of Torah the sacred wisdom of our people and the performance of mitzvoth Judaism’s sanctified pattern of religious practice stand at the very core of Jewish identity.” Where’s G-d? He doesn’t show up until well into the second sentence and then once more in the balance of the piece. Torah you see isn’t “G-d’s sacred wisdom ” but that “of our people ” and mitzvoth aren’t “G-d’s commandments ” but a “sanctified pattern of religious practice” (which by the way sounds positively irresistible). This may all sound like a quibble but when you know these people and their rejection of the Divinity of Torah and mitzvos you understand why they phrase things this way.
And that’s why the prohibition on intermarriage is “our ban ” not G-d’s. It follows of course that if it’s our ban not His then we not He will decide when it’s passed its expiration date.
That in turn leads into the use of the astonishing phrase “This Is Not the Moment.” Is it any wonder that American Jews have been fleeing this movement in droves as from the plague? Sensible people even if Jewishly unlearned want meaning grounded in immutable truths.
Who in his right mind would want to associate with a religious group that has more asterisks and terms and conditions attached to its basic beliefs than that disclaimer the announcer zips through at the end of car ads beginning with “Does not include fees for tax title and registration ” and ending with “prices not valid in Arkansas Oregon and Hawaii.” “This Is Not the Moment” — when the Conservative stargazers decide it is the moment what are they going to do let everyone know with a robocall?
Such deep-seated equivocation and insecurity can only exist in a movement that virtually never speaks about absolute truth and G-d’s will and our subservience to Him. The authors of the JTS statement write:

We believe — and the data confirm — that by far the most effective path toward building a Jewish future is to strengthen Jewish identity beginning with the Jewish family. This is also the path which Torah and tradition command.

Get it? The “data confirm” — as if this is some kind of analytics-driven marketing campaign for dishwashing liquid rather than the step that severs a Jew’s connection to the people of Israel for all eternity. Oh yes and by the way it’s “also the path which Torah and tradition command.”
One can be certain that the moment the data — whether those of the sociologists or the movement’s accountants — no longer confirm the usefulness of the intermarriage ban JTS will ink a multiyear deal with its Morningside Heights neighbor Union Theological Seminary for the performance of joint interfaith ceremonies at the Water Club. That’s why Daniel Gordis a scion of one of Conservatism’s leading families has just written a piece titled “The Conservative Movement Will Inevitably Cave On Intermarriage.” Gordis knows of what he speaks but really anyone who can read a headline ought to reach the same conclusion.
This brings us back full circle to the future of OO. For the time being the OO seminary that spawned the careers of Mlotek and Potek has come out with a statement condemning intermarriage unlike their OO clerical colleagues who appear to endorse it. But in a denomination where the Thirteen Principles of Faith are themselves up for negotiation might that only be because to borrow a phrase “This Is Not the Moment”?
Witness what Ysoscher Katz the chair of that seminary’s Talmud department (he of the eight-year stint as a daf yomi teacher in Boro Park) recently wrote in the midst of a post about women’s prayer: “Orthodox halakha (at least for now) excludes women from counting in a minyan or serving as shlichot tzibur.”
“At least for now.” Sounds like OO-speak for “This Is Not the Moment.” Fasten your seatbelts.

Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 666. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com