For various historical, sociological, and spiritual reasons, Jewish law has, for more than two millenia, determined that Jewishness is determined by the birth mother. That means if a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man have a child together, the child would be considered Jewish by the standards of Jewish law. Consequently, it also means that, if the situation were reversed, and a Jewish man has a child with a non-Jewish woman, the child would not be Jewish. Therefore, in your situation, any children you have with your Jewish partner would be Jews by birth, even if you had not yet converted.

 

All demographic indicators point to the reality that, from the perspective of Jewish continuity and Jewish commitment, Jewish children fare better when both parents are Jewish. However, there are plenty of good examples of Jewish children who grow up with one Jewish parent and go on to live dedicated, engaged, meaningful Jewish lives in adulthood, passing on their deep Jewish connections to their children as well. By the way, the opposite is true, too: there are plenty of Jewish children who grow up with two Jewish parents and don't have strong Jewish ties in adulthood. The result in all cases is largely dependant on the approach of the parents. When parents, even in households with one Jewish parent where the non-Jewish parent is supportive, show their children that being Jewish and living Jewishly matters to them, when they demonstrate Jewish ways of living and practicing at home, when they prioritize Jewish education, when they embody Jewish values, the children are more likely to stay Jewishly engaged. When parents don't, even in a household with two Jewish parents, they are unlikely to be successful raising committed Jewish kids.

 

In a case like this questioner's, where he and his partner are striving to be the kinds of parents where Judaism is fully present in their home and in their family life, and since their children would be Jewish whether or not he converts first, I see no Jewish problem with him trying to start his family before he converts. Indeed, the first command in the Torah is "be fruitful and multiply." We are only granted a limited window in our lives to fulfill this mitzvah. Becoming Jewish in a manner that reflects seriousness and commitment takes time, and is not biologically-restricting in the same way.

 

On the other hand, it is important to bear in mind that converting to Judaism can be a major time commitment. So is raising children while juggling all of life's other necessities. If one has kids before he converts, he may find that he simply doesn't have the time to pursue conversion (cf. Mishnah Avot 2:4, "Say not, 'When I have free time I will study. Perhaps you will never have free time!"). Therefore, if it is possible to convert to Judaism before one has children (in a timeframe that would not inhibit one's ability to have children), I would strongly advise that approach.

In 1995, the Conservative Movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved Rabbi Aaron Mackler's opinion that Jewish law permits the use IVF. Rabbi Mackler stated, "The use of IVF in such situations accords with our responsibility to be both reverent and active in our partnership with God." At the same time, Rabbi Mackler emphasized that a couple struggling with infertility is under no obligation to undergo a procedure like IVF. Indeed, in a separate paper, Rabbi Elliot Dorff makes clear that "our ability to procreate is not the source of our ultimate, divine worth." A couple may utilize IVF if they desire, but also can and should be clear of conscience, at least from a Jewish and/or theological perspective, if they decide it is not right for them, or if even that procedure does not work.
 
There have been few significant legal objections to IVF even in the Orthodox world, but most objections stem from a concern that the husband might "emit seed in vain," that is to say, he would have to produce semen to be used for the procedure, most of which would ultimately be destroyed and discarded, not used for implantation. The halakhic tradition classically considers "the emission of seed in vain," to be tantamount to a capital offense, like idolatry and murder (Babylonian Talmud, Nidah 13a). This is because the character in the biblical story on which the rule is based, Onan in Genesis 38:6-10, incurs the death penalty. 
 
There are many legal, moral, and theological problems with the legal concept of "the emission of seed in vain." But in the case of IVF, since the husband specifically expels semen in order to conceive, the concept should not apply. Rabbi Mackler makes this clear in his responsum. Rabbi Elliot Dorff makes a similar argument in his 1994 responsum on Artificial Insemination.
 
This argument, I think, holds true even for semen that is emitted for the purposes of testing whether it is viable. The man, after all, produces the semen in this case for a purpose directly related to procreation.
 
That is one part of the answer to the question: whether IVF, and whether this kind of testing, is acceptable at all. Regarding the specific method of the testing, and the possibility that it might constitute bestiality: In his responsum on Artificial Insemination, Rabbi Elliot Dorff examined whether placing another man's sperm into a married woman would constitute adultery. In other words, does adultery require a sexual act? Ultimately, Rabbi Dorff argues that “[Donor Insemination] should not be construed as adultery either theologically, legally, or morally.” Adultery requires actual sexual contact.
 
The same is true for bestiality. In the scenario described, there is no sexual act between a human and an animal. There is simply the experimental mixture of genetic material. Moreover, the husband's intention obviously is not to implant hamster eggs, but rather to ultimately know if his sperm is viable for his wife. Since there is no sexual act occurring, or even a sexual or procreative intention, the procedure should not be considered forbidden in any way.

 

This answer, of course, would be quite different if the intention of the man or of the scientists was actually to create a human-hamster hybrid creature. Without a sexual act, it still may not fall under the category of bestiality, but would certainly be prohibited on other grounds.

Genesis 3:19 teaches “for dust you are and to dust you shall return.” Deuteronomy 21:23 warns that an unburied corpse is an affront to God. These texts, and others, underscore the Jewish tradition’s value of in-ground burial. Moreover, the notion that human beings are created in God’s likeness has led the Jewish tradition to stress a strong taboo on cremation specifically. Burning a body to ashes intentionally violates the integrity of an image of God, representing an affront to God’s honor as well as the deceased individual’s. Cremation has taken on a new level of repugnance among Jews after the Holocaust, when “millions of Jews were murdered and their bodies burnt to ash” (Carl N. Astor, “The Jewish Life Cycle,” in The Observant Life, p. 293). In our time, far from an expression of solidarity with the victims of the Shoah (and, by extension, with the victims of other atrocities like the 9/11 attacks), cremation has come to feel, in a sense, like engaging in a cruel partnership with the brutal perpetrators.

 

It must be acknowledged, though, that the taboo against cremation is far from an open-and-shut case from a Jewish legal point of view. Some medieval poskim (rabbinic jurists) took what could be considered permissive stances on the practice. For example, the Magen Avraham (Rabbi Abraham Gombiner, Poland, 17^th Century) writes “it is no disgrace when a corpse is burned” (Commentary to Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 311:1). While the most recent Conservative Movement guide to religious practice says that “cremation, considered the ultimate expression of disrespect to the dead, is absolutely forbidden in all instances” (Astor 293), the older guide simply says that the practice is “frowned upon” (Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, 275).

 

Despite this, I think there are basic and ubiquitous Jewish values, like those mentioned in the first paragraph, which strongly disapprove of (and perhaps even forbid) cremation. Indeed, I think the lack of a strong stance against cremation in the ancient and medieval literature is not a product of rabbinic ambivalence toward the practice. Instead, it should be attributed to the fact that Jews generally and without objection accepted and observed the taboo in earlier eras. While ancient and medieval authorities tackle many questions regarding burial laws, few deal specifically with cremation. It seems logical to infer from this that the question simply did not come up. Had the issue arisen, I am willing to bet that they would have emphatically stated that cremation violated Jewish values and law.

 

Today, more Jews, for various reasons, are requesting cremation for themselves or loved ones. Because of the rising prevalence of the practice, rabbis are responding with ever-stronger language that the practice flies in the face of Jewish values and law.

 

Regarding the specific circumstance of the questioner, I am sensitive to the problems this presents for you regarding the different burial places of your two departed husbands. In some circumstances – and it sounds like yours might qualify – Jewish tradition permits exhumation and reburial, which is an option, perhaps, that you might consider for one of your “two basherts” so that you all can be buried together. I also want to remind you that it is the soul, and not the body, that lives on in eternity in the World to Come. Regardless of where any of you are buried (and may you continue to live with joy and good health to 120!), I believe your soul will be bound in the bonds of everlasting life with the souls of both your beloved husbands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jewish tradition teaches that the earth does not belong to us; it is ours to use only as caretakers and as tenants.  Though it may not seem it, this is an ethical statement.  To argue that we are merely borrowing the land means that we need to share it. For this reason, the Torah requires farmers to ensure all produce they leave behind during the harvest becomes the property of the poor. 

Similarly, no produce grown in the land of Israel may be eaten until portions are set-aside for priests, Levites, and the poor.  The Torah further enjoins that every fifty years, residents of the land of Israel must relinquish their property and return to their ancestral portion, thus codifying the right everyone has to a share of the land.

And the Sabbath compels us each week to acknowledge that our rights to utilize the earth’s resources are – and ought to be – limited.

The shemittah, the Sabbath of the land, is another expression of this ethical imperative to recognize the limitations of our use for the land.  The shemittah year forces us to let go of the illusion of our ownership.

Moreover, the shemittah year reminds us that the earth is not a machine that exists exclusively for our own benefit.  The earth has value and needs aside from its utility for humans, like the need to regenerate and rest.  This is also an ethical assertion, for it forces us to remember that we are meant to be stewards and guardians of the earth, not just users of its resources.

And, finally, rest for the land is only one component of shemittah. Equally important is the remission of debts that must take place during the shemittah year.  If one lends money during years one through six and is not repaid by year seven, s/he must forgive the debt.  The Torah invites us to give without being concerned about whether our generosity will be repaid.

Without question, shemittah causes hardships to farmers and creditors, at least in the short term.  The expectation of the Torah is that the benefits will outweigh those hardships.  For example, in the long run, people will benefit from respecting the earth’s natural cycle of rest and rebirth, for doing so diminishes the possibility that the earth will be depleted beyond value due to overuse.  And forgiving debts discourages perpetual poverty.  Lastly, the moral education involved in the practice of shemittah, cultivating among a people the sense that they are mere tenants of the earth, has ongoing benefit.

Throughout history, there have been mechanisms put in place to mitigate the negative impacts of shemittah, including the pruzbol, which enables debts to be collected, and the allowance for sale of the land to non-Jews so that it can continue to be productive.  But retaining shemittah on the books, even with loopholes, compels readers of the Torah to learn the values shemittah teaches.

   The Talmud dictates in several places (Bava Batra 54b, Nedarim 28a, Gitin 10b, Bava Kama 113a, and Bava Batra 55a) dina de-malkhuta dina, that the law of the land is the authoritative law for Jews in areas where it does not force Jews to violate Jewish law.  In this sense, one may not jaywalk, speed, or cheat on their taxes and simultaneously claim that they are following Jewish law.

    This is likely not surprising to most Jews, and is rarely the subject of debate, even in the most fundamentalist of Jewish communities (although there are some people who claim to be religious or observant while simultaneously denigrating the law of the land). 

    It does, of course, mean that there are conceivably instances when it would be a religious obligation to break the law of the land.  For example, Jews in San Francisco would have been Jewishly obligated to violate the anti-circumcision legislation proposed there last year if it had passed.

    And there are other instances when the law of the land is more permissive than Jewish law would be. For example, Jewish law has meticulous guidelines for what one may and may not say, whereas American law guarantees free speech.  There are likely times when a person’s speech is not illegal under the law of the land, while it would be against Jewish law.  In those cases, Jewish law would take precedence.

    Additionally complicated is what to do when the law of the land holds up a higher moral standard than traditional Jewish law does.  For instance, the major Jewish law codes do not explicitly forbid employment discrimination; in fact, the Torah legislates different rules for the treatment of Jewish and non-Jewish servants, and it suggests Jews may treat Jewish and non-Jewish workers differently.  American anti-discrimination laws thus function as stringencies.  In these types of cases, Jews should be more punctilious about following the law of the land so as not to give the impression that Jewish law makes Jews less moral than the surrounding culture; such an impression would be a hilul Ha-shem, a desecration of God’s name.

            Leviticus 23:42-43 commands Jews to dwell in booths during the festival of Sukkot so “future generations may know that I (God) made the Israelite people dwell in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” Rabbi Eliezer’s interpretation of the word sukkot in that passage (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 11b) has become the normative Jewish understanding: “These were the Clouds of Glory.”  The Clouds of Glory, first referenced in Exodus 13:21, are understood to be a kind of “cloud box” that encased and protected the Israelites during their trek through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  According to a midrash (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Parashat Be-Shalah, Prologue), “there were seven clouds: four on each of their four sides, one above, one below, and one that went before them.” Sukkot, then, celebrates God protecting the Israelites in the wilderness.

            So why this one particular miracle over any of the others?  The answer, it seems, is that the Clouds of Glory embody the wilderness experience as a whole.  On the simplest level, this means that, in addition to commemorating the clouds, Sukkot commemorates all the miracles God performs for the Israelites in the wilderness, like the manna and miraculous wellsprings of water. 

On a deeper level, though, the forty-year sojourn in the wilderness was crucial for the moral development of the fledgling Israelite nation.  A midrash observes that “God did not bring them to the Land of Israel the easy way, but through the wilderness.  God said, ‘If I bring Israel now to the Land, everyone would immediately take hold of his field or his vineyard, and they would refrain from following the Torah.  Rather, I will cause them to circle around in the wilderness for forty years, so that they will eat manna and drink from the wells of water and the Torah will become part of their body.’”  In other words, the wilderness experience was intended to inculcate in the Israelites the value that they served a purpose higher than acquiring land, property, comfort, and wealth. Their charge was to follow the Torah and to illuminate the world through its light. 

The wilderness experience, in this sense, was like a pregnancy, incubating the Israelites before they entered the physical world, the world of embodied, landed nationhood.  Spending forty years in the wilderness (parallel to the forty weeks of healthy human pregnancy) helped ensure that the Israelites would be born mature, able not only to survive on their own as a nation, but also to flourish in achieving God’s highest hopes for them.  Seen in this light, the Clouds of Glory are akin to a Divine womb, protecting the Israelites as they grew into this national maturity.

On Sukkot we annually go back into the womb, precisely to reconnect with the kind of people we were always meant to be: a people not defined by or committed to our possessions, but a people committed – in the very fiber of our being – to serving God, to living a life of Torah, to making the world a fit dwelling place for the Divine.

While the Jewish tradition has for centuries forbidden shaving with a straight razor, the reason for the taboo is somewhat unclear.  The prohibition is at least as old as the Bible, where it is banned in Leviticus 19:27, 21:5, and Deuteronomy 14:1; yet the Torah frankly does not offer a transparent reason for the prohibition.  The 13^th Century sage Rabbi Jacob ben Asher argues, “we do not need to understand the reason for all the commandments.  They are the commands of the King upon us, even if we do not know their reason” (Arba’ah Turim, Yoreh De’ah 181).

That perspective has not kept generations of authorities from seeking a more satisfying answer.  Maimonides, for example, regards shaving with a straight razor as an idolatrous practice (Laws of Idolatry 12:1). Consequently, Jews must refrain from shaving as a way to differentiate themselves from their idolatrous neighbors. 

Other scholars argue that, in antiquity, shaving was a sign of mourning.  Some people tore out their hair upon learning of a death, either as an offering “to strengthen the ghost in the nether world,” as a way of assuaging “the ghost’s jealousy of the living,” or as an act of “self-punishment expressing feelings of guilt” (Jeffrey Tigay, comment on Deuteronomy 14:1).  From this perspective, the Torah is possibly seeking to guide people away from misguided notions about death and the afterlife, or to forbid extreme and self-destructive behavior.  One beautiful interpretation, by the medieval Spanish commentator Abravanel, is that Jews “should not perform extreme rites of mourning when bereaved because, as God’s children, they are never totally orphaned” (Jeffrey Tigay, comment on Deuteronomy 14:1).

Perhaps the most compelling approach is that of the 11^th Century French commentator Rashi.  Rashi contends that the Torah’s command is about our relationship with God: “You are God’s children, and you deserve to be beautiful.”  Not shaving is a way in which we make ourselves beautiful, which grants us the dignity we deserve as Children of the Sovereign.

At first blush, this might sound counterintuitive.  If beauty is the objective, one might think we ought to be allowed to tinker with our bodies as much as we want.  In our culture, where we are constantly bombarded with messages – some subtle, some overt – about how naturally ugly we are, and how much we need external remedies to make ourselves more attractive and presentable.  The Torah offers another way of thinking: we are actually perfect just the way we are.  We ought not mess with our natural beauty too much, or we will mess up a good thing.

In this line of reasoning, a man’s facial hair reflects his natural beauty; after all, a man’s beard will naturally grow out if left alone.  The Jewish legal tradition (Shulhan Arukh Yoreh De’ah 181:3, et. al.) thus comes to teach us that we may modify that natural beauty slightly (i.e., with scissors, which trim but cannot fully remove), but we must not radically alter it (i.e., with a straight razor, which comes as close to fully removing the hair as is possible). 

True, a straight razor is much more efficient than an electric razor.  But efficiency is not the value the Torah seeks to impart here.  Instead, it is reminding us of our natural beauty and dignity as God’s children, and our responsibility to see ourselves through the eyes of our loving heavenly Parent.

            Throughout Jewish history, Jewish practice has always been the result of an ongoing conversation between God, Torah, and the Jewish people.  The commandments were not dropped from the sky or given, fully formed, to one person or one community at a mountain in the wilderness.  Instead, the Torah is better seen as a compendium of the collaboration of people (who self-identified as Israelites) and God, a work many centuries in the making. It is a redacted record of the Jewish people attempting to understand what God asks of us. 

God worked continuously with, through, and in those people in an attempt to show them their basic human responsibilities; to contextualize, interpret, and apply those responsibilities in the lives of the individual members of their group as well as of the group as a whole; and to provide a technology for transmitting those values to future generations.

At its core, the Torah instructs us to live, to live well, and to be responsible for the lives and well-being of other humans (and, ultimately, all of creation).  Additionally, the Torah urges us to deepen our relationship with God so that we may sustain and comprehend more fully those instructions.  Finally, the Torah teaches that human flourishing is impossible without a commitment to ensuring personal happiness and growth; pursuing knowledge, meaning, and integrity; building relationships and communities based on love, joy, justice, and peace; and helping all life flourish and thrive.  This is what the author of Proverbs meant when he refers to the Torah as “a tree of life to those who take hold of her.”  

The Torah teaches and contextualizes these basic responsibilities through story, song, poetry, and proverb.  More importantly, the Torah uses commandments – laws – to embody and implement those responsibilities and to help maintain the continuity of those commitments over time.  The Torah’s laws are not the only norms that could have emerged from the values that underlie them.  And over time, some laws will no longer serve the values that undergird them and will simply die out or will need to be reinterpreted, reapplied, or possibly overturned.

That is why people are important.  Jewish individuals are – and have always been – free to formulate their own understanding of those responsibilities.  They can also, of course, reject some or all of them.  Similarly, different groups of Jews will reasonably disagree about how to interpret those basic responsibilities, how to contextualize their authority, and how to apply them.  And whole groups of Jews past, present, and future may choose (and have sometimes chosen) to reject those responsibilities as a compelling way to live.  Individuals and groups also have a right to persuade others to adopt their approach.  Ultimately, though, individuals are free to decide for themselves how to live.

And yet while no one can force any individual to live according to its understanding of God and Torah, there are many good reasons to adhere to a particular community’s norms.  In order for human responsibility to be productively actualized, “we must either live together, or we will die alone.”  Unless groups of people reach consensus and cooperate, every person will do only “what is right in his own eyes,” making conflict inevitable.  As a result, everyone’s ability to live in accordance with God’s will be impeded.  Working together with others, adhering to an agreed-upon set of behavioral norms, helps us be better able to make our lives and the world a godlier place.  And it helps us ensure that future generations will live the same commitments, so that our important work continues long after we leave this world.

• The Bible does not explicitly detail any funeral or burial practices and does not clearly mandate in-ground burial.
• The biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs are all interred in a cave. 
• Aaron and Moses, to name but a couple of other biblical figures, are interred on mountainsides.  Isaiah 22:16 similarly refers to this practice of the dead being placed in a niche hewn from the rock on a mountainside.

• According to Rabbi David Lincoln, in the late Second Temple period, Palestinian Jews placed corpses in caves without coffins; later in antiquity, Jews interred their dead above ground in stone coffins.
• Above-ground burial was widely practiced by the Jewish communities of Italy, Tunisia, Libya, Asia Minor, and Egypt.
• Two of the most famous ancient burial sites in the land of Israel, Sanhedria and Beit She’arim, are replete with stone coffins and above-ground interment.

The problem with this perspective is that it blinds us to the difficult but necessary realities of existence.  We live as if we will live forever; even in death, we refuse to see ourselves as truly mortal.  Because of this, we see the world, at best, as an unlimited resource to use only for our own benefit, and at worst, as an enemy we must hold back and overcome in order to secure our own immortality.  Our insecurities and delusions about death threaten both our quality of life and our ability to properly function in the world.  

 

Yet despite the passion the tradition displays for redeeming captives, pidyon sh’vuyim is not always so simple. As my teacher, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, warns, “beware those who assume that religion can obviate reason and make obvious the complicated.” Redeeming captives often calls for a complex discussion about many conflicting values.

 

The rabbis of the Talmud were not blind to this. In fact, they warned that the Jewish community must not redeem captives for “more than they are worth” for fear that enemies will see capturing Jews as a lucrative activity and be encouraged to do more kidnappings (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 45a; Maimonides, Laws of Gifts to the Poor, 8:12). Additionally, a Jew is not permitted to knowingly endanger one person’s life, even if it is for the sake of saving the life of another (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzi’a 62a); thus, one is forbidden to redeem a captive if doing so would put his own life or another person’s life in danger.

 

Of course, it is necessary to point out that these exceptions to the general rule are not without their own ambiguities. For instance, none of the Jewish legal literature gives a precise definition of how to determine the “worth” of captives. Thank God, it is not as if there is a large market (or a Kelley’s Blue Book) for kidnapped Jews that can give one a sense of the “fair” price. In the recent case of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, for example, how would one go about determining whether the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners was too high a price?

 

Additionally, the Jewish legal tradition offers many ways to bypass the rule of not paying excessive amounts for Jewish captives. For example, if the captive is a promising student of Torah, or if the captive has the capacity to become an important figure in the Jewish community, he or she can be redeemed for more than what would be considered normal (Shulhan Arukh Yoreh De’ah 252:4). And several important authorities (including the 17th Century Polish luminary Rabbi Joel Sirkes, commonly known as the “BaKh”), disagree altogether with the directive against redeeming captives for excessive amounts (Siftei Kohen Yoreh De’ah 252:4).

 

Finally, the issue of endangering others in the service of redeeming captives is very complicated in the context of a protracted conflict with a particular enemy – as was the case with Shalit. To be sure, it was frightening to hear some of the Palestinian prisoners released as part of that exchange call for more attacks against innocent Israeli civilians, especially since many of them have participated in those attacks in the past. On the other hand, the lives of Israeli civilians are under constant threat as it is; it is difficult to know with certainty whether the release of those particular prisoners make Israeli civilians less safe than they were before the exchange. And all this must be weighed against the backdrop of the clear and present danger to the life of the captive; and Jews must go to (almost) any length to save a life (Maimonides, Laws of Shabbat 2:16).

 

This consideration, by the way, is not separate from the questions about the costs of redeeming captives. Again, following the Shalit deal, it was terrifying to hear some Palestinians call for more kidnappings as a means of obtaining the freedom of thousands of other Palestinians or as a means of securing concessions in future peace negotiations. But how much of that talk is cause for legitimate concern and how much is mere inflammatory rhetoric? Once again, it is hard to know whether those Palestinians who oppose the State of Israel would have avoided kidnapping Israelis in the future if capturing Shalit turned out not to be as lucrative as they had hoped. The evidence suggests that so long as the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians remains unresolved, Palestinians opposed to Israel need no additional motivation to kidnap or otherwise harm Israelis.

 

In short, there is not one “Jewish ethic” at play in cases like these, but a difficult conversation between several Jewish ethical ideals, human compassion, and a complicated, often unpredictable, reality on the ground. Let us hope that the day is soon at hand when we no longer have to worry about making such decisions, and let us do everything we can to expedite that day.