And there was yet another troubling story in the Bible. Like in the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah , when they put the foreign wives and children of mixed marriages out of the assembly, as a way of purifying the people after the return from Babylon. While in exile and while living in disobedience to God, the men had married foreign women, who worshipped different gods. Once the people returned to Jerusalem, put on sackcloth and ashes and repented of their ways, they were commanded to put away their foreign wives and children, unless, of course, they wanted to convert to Judaism.
Like Ruth, the Moabitess, the righteous convert, who by faith took on the fullness of what it meant to be a Jew. “Your God shall be my God and your people shall be my people” she said.
What was the fate of these poor women and children? Presumably, they returned to the homelands and to their own people. Did they feel confused, cast aside? Not fully Jewish and yet still carrying a piece of Jewishness with them?
I find it to be a common problem even today, with those of us who are children of mixed marriages. We feel a conflict, torn between two worlds, familiar with both but never fully at home in either one. There is a lostness in their eyes, a lack of a sense of belonging, spiritually, culturally.
The children of mixed marriages lost between two worlds, in the Bible and now in the author's world. I love how this author brings the Bible to life in real time and how she questions the "lessons."
ReplyDeleteSo well written! And I so resonate with this although my parents were of the same Jewish world...but the Deaf community was their real family...and we as her hearing children never part of that and even at times disliked by my mother who mistrusted the hearing world. Codas live between worlds as well...never fully belonging to either.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see how you'd feel the same way.
DeleteI'd be curious to hear how the Jewish community treated them, how that was handled. Maybe in another piece.
DeleteI continue to appreciate the refusal of the narrator to take anything for granted, to notice the details of the wives and children who were dismissed, her compassion in thinking about what must have happened to them.
ReplyDelete