יש להבין את המדרש שבני יעקב נשאו את אחיותיהם (פרקי דר"א פל"ה), למרות שזה מאשים אותם בגילוי עריות, דבר שאסור אפילו לבני נח מלפני מתן תורה [ועיין בסנהדרין נח:], שרצו חז"ל להרחיק מאבותינו כל שמץ של נשואי תערובת, למען צורך חינוך הדור. זו כנראה גם מגמת המשך המדרש (שם) שמציין שיוסף התחתן עם בת דינה, ומדרש אחר (ב"ר פ יא) האומר ששמעון, ולא פוטי פרע, נשא את דינה אחותו.

יש מדרשים שאלמלא ההבנה הזאת, שחז"ל דרשו לצורך דורם, לא היינו מבינים אותם. למשל (ב"ר עו ט): "ויקם בלילה הוא ויקח את שתי נשיו ואת שתי שפחותיו וגו'" (בראשית לב כג) - ודינה היכן היא? נתנה בתיבה ונעל בפניה, אמר: הרשע הזה [עֵשָׂו] עינו רמה היא, שלא יתלה עיניו ויראה אותה ויקח אותה ממני. ר"ה בשם ר' אבא הכהן ברדלא אמר: אמר לו הקב"ה: "למס מרעהו חסד" (איוב ו יד) - מנעת מרעך חסד, מנעת חסדך מן אחוך, דאלו איתנסיבת לגברא לא זינתה, בתמיה. לא בקשת להשיאה למהול, הרי היא נשאת לערל; לא בקשת להשיאה דרך היתר, הרי נשאת דרך איסור. הה"ד "ותצא דינה בת לאה..." (בראשית לד א).

יש להקשות, הרי זה הגיוני ביותר שיעקב לא רצה להשיא את בתו לעשו הרשע, אלא אם כן נשאל: למי היה צריך להשיאה? מההמשך שם מוכח שזהו מה שעומד מאחורי המדרש, כשמוסיפים ששמעון, אחיה, בסוף לקחה. רוצים ללמד לדורות הגלות, שיעקב חטא (מתוך צדקתו) כשהקפיד מדי ברמת המשודך לבתו. עדיף להשיא את הבת ליהודי, אף אם אינו צדיק מושלם, מאשר להיות בררני מדי ולהסתכן בנשואי תערובת.

נשי השבטים היו ארמיות ומצריות ואדומיות ומדיניות. והזכיר שאול בן הכנענית לבדה, בעבור שעשה שמעון שלא כהוגן לקחת את כנענית, ועל זה הדבר הזכיר מות ער ואונן בעבור היותם בני כנענית.

Alan Brill writes that for most Centrist Orthodox Jews, their Orthodoxy has nothing to do with doctrine but is about lifestyle and family values

Being Orthodox is about family on Shabbat, shiva calls, hospital visits, sharing simchas, and helping others. They consider the warmth of the community as their Orthodox Judaism, yet are oblivious to doctrine and practice demarcations. . . . Many define faith as “everyday morality” rather than institutional commitment or theological Orthodoxy

I would add that not only is this not new, I believe it is how traditional Judaism has always functioned and is applicable to much of the haredi world as well. In other words, many in the Orthodox world would agree with the Reconstructionist saying, “Belonging is more important than believing”

I was surprised to see Michael Satlow write: “There is no rabbinic law against intercourse with a prostitute.” Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality (Atlanta 1995), p. 166. This is incorrect, as Sanhedrin 82a explicitly states

בית דינו של חשמונאי גזרו הבא על הכותית [ס”א הגויה] חייב עליה משום נדה שפחה וכו’

See also Geoffrey Alderman’s article, “It is Not a Sin to Visit a Prostitute,” in his The Communal Gadfly (Brighton, 2009), pp. 267-268. I don’t know how he can write such nonsense as the following

As far as I am aware, there is no general halachic prohibition on Jewish men sleeping with prostitutes, unless the whore is herself Jewish. If not, then, according to the Talmud, a Jewish man who feels the need to visit a prostitute must simply take care to do so in a town in which he is not known – which strikes me as very sound advice

If the whore is Jewish, however, we are faced with the certainty of multiple acts of adultery [!], all of which are prohibited. This is because intercourse is itself a form of marriage. So the first Jewish man a prostitute consorts with becomes her husband [!]; if she wishes to consort with anyone else, this first Jewish customer will have to give her a get [!]. So will the second, and so on. [!] (I am ignoring for my present purposes, considerations of mikveh, since I have yet to learn of any brothel that has one)

Since the consequences of intermarriage are so devastating, one must wonder why there is no explicit biblical prohibition. Be that as it may, in coming years watch for the Conservative movement to halakhically legitimize intermarriage by relying on the view that it is only rabbinically prohibited. As with other rabbinic prohibitions previously abolished by the Conservatives, they will argue that this too can be set aside for important societal concerns

אל תיתן את בתך לבנו של הנכרי, שכן דבר זה גורם להרחקת בתך ובן בתך מיהדות ומסירתם לעתיד לא⁠־יהודי. זאת ועוד, אל תיקח את בת הנכרי כאישה לבנך. אל תחשוב שהשפעתך ודוגמת חיי משפחתך יניעו את הנכרית להיכנס לרוח היהודית ולאורח החיים היהודי. אל תהיה סבור שרחמה של אישה נכרייה יכול ללדת לך נכדים יהודיים הניתנים לחינוך ברוח היהדות. לא רק שהאם הנכרית לא תלד ילדים ליהדות, אלא גם בנך שנולד לך מאם יהודיה יסור מאחרי, משום שהוא – חותנו הנכרי – ירחיק אותו מנאמנותו לתורה לדרכים והשקפות לא⁠־יהודיות: ״כי יסיר את בנך מאחרי״. שניהם, זה כזה, בתך שהתחתנה עם נכרי, ובנך שהתחתן עם נכרית, ייכשלו בדרכים הלא⁠־יהודיות של עבודת האלילים: ״ועבדו אלהים אחרים״.

The prohibition of marriage with any foreigner is a great innovation on Ezra's part, and it's one that, as we shall see, was not universally accepted at all. The high incidence of intermarriage is perhaps indicated by the fact that it took several months to identify all those who had intermarried and to send away their spouses and their children. Even priests were among those who didn't view intermarriage per se as a violation of the covenant

Ezra’s interpretation of Mosaic prescriptions about marriage is an expansive one. The Torah does prohibit intermarriage with the native Canaanites at the time of the conquest, the rationale being that they would lead Israelites into abhorrent pagan practices, child sacrifices, and so on. But of course it's actually not a complete prohibition - there is actually a legal provision for how to go about marrying a captive Canaanite woman; so it's not a completely unqualified prohibition to begin with

The Torah then also prohibits intermarriage with certain, very specific foreigners, Moabites and Ammonites, specifically because of their cruel treatment of the Israelites during their trek from Egypt to the Promised Land. Egyptians are prohibited only to the third generation. But there's no prohibition against marriage with other foreigners - a Phoenician, an Arab - so long as they enter into the covenant of Yahweh, as long as they don't lead the Israelite partner into the worship of other gods. The rationale for intermarriage prohibitions in the Pentateuch are always behavioral, they're always moral. If this person will lead you astray to abhorrent practices that is prohibited. But marriage into the group is not prohibited. Indeed, Israel's kings married foreign women regularly. Many of the kings of Israel were themselves offspring of these foreign women. They were still fully Israelite. Israelite identity passed through the male line

But Ezra who is protective of Israel's religious identity, is zealous for the Lord, is wary of God's wrath - he's interpreting and promulgating these prohibitions in such a way as to create a general ban on intermarriage of any kind. Israel mustn't make the same mistake twice. Israelite identity is now made contingent in Ezra's view on the status of both the mother and the father. One is only an Israelite if one has both an Israelite mother and an Israelite father. Both must be of the "holy seed." This is a phrase which is being coined now in Ezra's time and is now serving as a rationale for the ban on intermarriage. It's not that a person is prohibited because they will lead you astray to the worship of other gods. That's something that can be corrected if the person in fact enters into the religious community of Israel. The rationale is that they just simply are not of holy seed and there's nothing that you can do to change that, so this becomes a permanent and universal ban

So that's the first very important thing that Ezra tries to do: the dissolution of marriage with foreign spouses and to establish a blanket universal ban on intermarriage, to make Israelite identity dependent on the native Israelite status of both mother and father

The acceptance of foreigners is well documented in post-exilic Judaism, despite Ezra's polemical efforts to exclude foreigners from the community. It's important to remember that Ezra's reforms never became normative for the entire community. Post-exilic, and later Rabbinic Judaism, never adopted the purely genealogical definition of Jewish identity. They allowed for the phenomenon of conversion and marriage into the covenant by persons of foreign birth who accepted the God of Israel; a possibility that Ezra completely forecloses. Ezra's extreme views were popular among sectarian groups, so Ezra and exclusivism is championed, for example, in writings that are found at Qumram. It exerted some influence on early Christian bans on marriage, absolute bans on marriage between believers and unbelievers

There are some very important and striking themes in the story. First, there's the ethnic element of Jewish identity, rather than religious, that comes to the fore in the book of Esther. The presentation is secular, the Jews are described as a people, an ethnos. Esther is fully assimilated to her gentile environment

מי אני האט געשריבן:וואס ר׳ צדוק הכהן מלובלין זצ״ל שרייבט בפוקד עקרים (אות ה):

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ער גייט אריין דארט באריכות עפ״י חסידות בהא דרצה שמשון הגיבור בנשים פלישתים. ער גייט אויך אריין באריכות בהא דנלקחה אסתר באונס לאחשורש און אז די בני בניו של המן שלמדו תורה בבני ברק איז דורך דעם וואס בנות ישראל זענען נתאנס געווארן ע״י זרעו ע״ש.

[left]Esther raised embarrassing problems for the rabbis. How could a nice Jewish girl like Esther marry a Gentile king? One rabbi proposed the use of a doppelgänger who replaced her in the marital bed. How did she maintain normal Jewish religious practices, such as eating kosher food, while in the palace? They did credit her with inventing an ingenious method to enable her to keep track of when it was Shabbat – she named her seven serving girls after the days of the week, so always knew what to do when it was the turn of the girl called Shabbat. There is an odd, and decidedly anachronistic, modern reflection on such concerns in the beautiful Sabbath prayer from the musical Fiddler on the Roof

May you be like Ruth and like Esther

May you be deserving of praise

Strengthen them, O Lord

And keep them from the strangers’ ways

These words do not follow the traditional language for blessing daughters which wishes them to be like the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. For Jewish life in Czarist Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, where Fiddler on the Roof is set, such a change would have been shocking, because these alternative names represent two highly problematic situations for that traditional society. After all, Ruth was a convert to Judaism and Esther married out! However, for the writers and composer of the musical living in today’s United States, with considerable Jewish assimilation to ‘the strangers’ ways’ and a high level of intermarriage, Ruth and Esther may indeed have become exemplary role models[/left]