When it comes to the Netflix series Nobody Wants This – that’s exactly how I feel: Who needs it?
This isn’t just because the show is difficult to believe; for example, what rabbi, even a Reform rabbi, would head to a bar after Friday night services? In addition, it seems like the show is being used to substantiate every intermarriage under the sun. It’s like everyone has what to say. It’s too much.
I have to be honest – I couldn’t get past the first two episodes. As with most modern sitcoms, the pilot is both intriguing and entertaining, but things seem to fall apart afterward.
However, I did see a fair bit of overlap in my own life in the little I watched.
I wasn’t born an Orthodox rabbi. In fact, my formative years were spent in a liberal Conservative synagogue, and the experience was uninspiring. My passions didn’t exactly align with religious life. I was into all board sports, including surfing, which I still do regularly here in Israel.
If there was one mantra in my family, it was that you can date anyone you want, but you must marry a Jew. This undoubtedly led me and my sisters to marry in the fold and made for some interesting relationships along the way. In truth, I don’t think I dated a Jewish woman until I graduated from college.
The longest relationship I had at the time was with a non-Jewish woman who was one year my senior. We dated on and off throughout my junior year of university. The evening the relationship finally ended due to our religious differences, we were on a dinner and movie date. She broke it off over the meal, but we saw no reason to cancel the film outing. The film, Keeping The Faith, is like the grandmother of Nobody Wants This. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but I feel like a 24-year-old movie is past the statute of limitations for spoiler alerts. It ends with the female love interest having been secretly learning for conversion all along. As the credits rolled, we both stood up and said, “That was a heaping load of crap.”
THE OTHER reason these emotions have come to mind once again is because of a recent article, “How Christmas trees and circumcision made the perfect compromise,” written by Darren Richman, an intermarried Jewish freelance reporter. He writes as if the Netflix show gives credence to his life choices, and that’s dangerous.
The article takes us on a brief tour of his family interactions vis-à-vis his marrying out. The most poignant part of the article deals with his grandfather. The mantra in Richman’s family was that marrying out would be “letting the Nazis win.” When the time came for him to tell his grandfather of his first non-Jewish girlfriend, he feared the worst. Instead, the grandfather asked the writer if he was happy. This is the summation of Richman’s piece: He’s happy, and that’s all that matters.
There couldn’t be anything more untrue.
Opinion: One's happiness isn't the most important thing
We do not live in Hollywood, and one’s happiness cannot be the sole barometer for what’s good in the world. To tie all future successes to an emotional state is a recipe for disaster. Of course, a couple needs to be attracted to each other. Of course, the relationship should be a positive, loving union. But there’s so much more than just that.
Being hyper-focused on happiness is the same as being involved in Jewish life only because it provides meaning. Meaningful experiences are a benefit of the system. It is not the reason for the commandments. Much of our world has turned its focus inward and made everything about self-fulfillment. However, Judaism is more about our obligations to God, family, and nation than anything else.
This is why so many have a visceral reaction to intermarriage. It’s not only about who wins in the Holocaust survival game. There’s nothing wrong with sticking it to Hitler, but our priorities need to be building and raising healthy Jewish families, and there’s no way to do that when marrying out.
What’s amazing about Richman’s piece is that he completely missed the meaning of brit milah (ritual circumcision). It is not simply “chopping off a part of his son’s penis,” as his wife put it. This ritual, which has kept the Jewish people more than any other mitzvah in our lexicon, is about national identity.
As a marker, circumcision has been somewhat watered down because so many non-Jews have the procedure for its medical benefits, of which there are many. But for thousands of years prior to its popularity, brit milah was a steadfast way of knowing who was a Jew.
The midrash points out that it’s the one mitzvah, unlike tallit or tefillin, that can never be “taken off.” And just as a brit milah can’t be removed, neither can a person shrug off his duty to the Jewish people, whether he “wants this” or not.
The writer is a rabbi, a wedding officiant, and a mohel who performs britot (ritual circumcisions) and conversions in Israel and worldwide. Based in Efrat, he is the founder of Magen HaBrit, an organization protecting the practice of brit milah and the children who undergo it.