[396] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: More male/female stuff... warning...
amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Oct 5 00:07:22 1988
My reasons...
Well, first of all, Judaism is the single most important thing
in my life. And, while I don't require that a potential girlfriend
also feel that way about it, I do want her to be able to share
in the celebration of my religion; not as a passive observer but
as an active and equal participant.
Second of all, there is a chance with any relationship that it
will "click" and result in a marriage. And, assuming that I
were able to surmount the first difficulty, I would not want to
get into a situation where I had to choose between my love for
another person and my love for my religion. All three of us
would lose.
And that's not a trivial thing. I remember reading somewhere
that we're approaching the point where more Jews will be
lost through intermarriage than in a year of the Holocaust.
As the son of someone who was born while her parents were
escaping from Germany, I feel a certain responsibility to the
millions who died for being Jewish. This responsibility is
to have children and to raise them as Jews, as well as to be
a better Jew myself than I might otherwise be.
I would also like to comment on Jonathan's response. I have has
(sorry, have had) this conversation with many people many times
before, and many people seem to have trouble understanding that
being Jewish is not like being a redhead or a SIPB member.
Please don't take this as a slight to you, since you (collective)
probably *do* understand, at least somewhat. But my reaction,
and I presume Jonathan's as well, to Henry's response was "Oh,
no, not again." These conversations tend to either end very
quickly with everyone understanding (this is the less frequent
case, alas), or else they tend to go on for weeks, degenerating
into pointless flamage (as opposed to useful flamage, which is
how they generally start).
I hope this helps you to understand why this is so important
to me (us, if I may speak for Jon as well). If not, please feel
free to ask for more clarification, either here or through mail
to one of us.
- Rhu
