Faith
I Don’t Know What to Do Anymore - A Christian Girlfriend?
Question
I have had a girlfriend for a year now. We love each other, there is love and enjoyment, and I am only good with her. At the beginning of the relationship I did not know that she was not Jewish, because she was from my base. After a few months I learned that she was Christian, but because of the feelings and the good I had with her, I stayed with her. Even when I asked her at that stage whether she was willing to convert, she said no. I did not want to pressure her, and I told myself that either the relationship would end soon, or that it would pass for her. Now I am in a problem. We have been together for a year, she wants to bring children into the world, and to get married. We are still in the army, I am 21 and she is 20. At first she agreed, and went out of the army for a course called Netiv, which is part of the conversion process through the army. She finished it with a not very good feeling; this is part 1 of the course. She is not willing to continue the Netiv course, because she says that at age 12 she decided that she wants to be Christian, that this is what she wants, that she is not willing to change, and that she will not feel comfortable when she finishes the course and speaks with the rabbi and says that she is ready to become Jewish. Her whole family is Christian, and she lives alone with her mother, and her mother is certainly influencing her and is not willing for her to become Jewish. Honored rabbi, I am not willing for my children to be half Jewish and half Christian, and I explained this to her. I want my children to be only Jewish, and this is important to me. What should be done to make her understand, to try to persuade her?
Please help me as soon as possible
Answer
שלום וברכה
How great are the words of the Sages, who decades ago prohibited the enlistment of girls into the IDF, with the prohibition of yehareg ve-al yaavor, and we have, unfortunately, witnessed in many cases the mistake that you made, which many others also made: they met someone within the framework of the Jewish army without even imagining that she was from another people, and later, when the matter became known, they found themselves standing before a broken cistern. So frustrating and so painful. Formal conversion is not a magic solution to the problem of assimilation. Conversion is one of the most fundamental acts that exist in the world: changing religion and identity is not like changing socks. Conversion to Judaism is a rebirth and the acceptance of a soul from a completely different world, one that transforms a person and uproots him entirely from his former roots. True conversion cannot exist unless the convert accepts upon himself or herself to observe Torah and mitzvot in full.
Conversion by deception, without a genuine commitment to observe Torah and mitzvot, is not a valid conversion. Even if one managed to deceive the converting rabbi and receive a conversion certificate, that does not mean that the conversion took effect. In truth, the status of the convert without genuine acceptance of Torah and mitzvot is like his status before this conversion, that is, a gentile. If you succeed in bringing her to a state of true conversion, it may be easier for her to convert, even though the initial awakening was for social reasons, which is a case of conversion that is not ideal from the outset. But as long as, and apparently this is the case, there is no real desire to convert and accept the yoke of Torah and mitzvot, then even if you succeed in bringing her to a formal conversion, nothing at all will be gained by it. She will remain a gentile as she is, and the children she bears will be complete gentiles.
And not as you wrote, that children to a Jew with a Christian woman are half Jews and half Christians; this is not the case at all. Children to a woman who is not Jewish are not Jewish, even if the biological father is Jewish. So the Creator determined in His Torah. If the situation is such that she will not convert, then as a Jew who wishes to continue Judaism to his descendants after him, the most correct thing is to break away immediately. And the faster you break away from her, the easier the process will be; the more you continue to connect with her, the harder it will be to separate later. Remember well that in all generations, even Jews who fell to the lowest margins knew and warned their descendants, Remember, you are Jews, and do not marry someone who is not from among your people. This is not only a religious outlook; it is a human outlook for every people that wishes to preserve its unique identity.
You have no idea in the world of souls how far your soul is from the soul of the Christian girl you met, thousands of light-years. And how grim it is that this is the only transgression about which the Sages said that one comes with one’s spouse to the Heavenly Court without the ability to be released, simply, bound to him like a dog. Hashem should protect us from the dreadful disgrace, before all the souls of the family members present there. I certainly do not wish to arouse fear; this is not the right approach. One simply has to internalize how insane this idea is, and how it is a slap in the face to all the generations that came before you, up to the holy patriarchs, that you, who are the last ring today in a chain of hundreds of generations, are pulling the entire chain in a completely different direction. I will not refrain from quoting what is written in the holy books, that this deed is equivalent before the Creator of the world to someone who takes the king’s head and bends it into a filthy toilet. Hashem should protect us. To make separation easier, please think from time to time about the horrible and cruel murders suffered by hundreds of thousands of our people at the hands of Christians in the name of the Christian religion, the religion of kindness and mercy, during the Crusades, the expulsion from Spain, and so on. Among the murdered are surely also members of your own family from generations ago.
Those hundreds of thousands could have saved their lives easily by assimilating with them, and they chose willingly to go to the stake rather than attach themselves to them. Apparently there is something to be wary of in these people, even if you do not understand why now. Imagine that you would have to conduct a Jewish-Christian life, and hear from your partner what happened at church and what the priest said, and you would dine with her at the Christmas meal, and celebrate with her Sylvester in memory of the man to whose credit all the cruelty that the Christian religion showed toward the Jews is attributed: in the dungeons of the Inquisition, in murders, in hangings, and in being burned at the stake. Can you imagine such a situation? I cannot. Run from her, and peace will be yours. Know that you can find a relationship at a much more successful level with a Jewish girl. Higher values such as preventing assimilation and preserving identity are not made cheap by a present relationship, even if it seems brilliant. And Hashem will help you to stand successfully in your test - Menashe Yisrael
