Sure, she can cook … but is she Jewish?

June 10th, 2010

My wife Lynda is a wonderful Jewish cook. Friday nights are always best when she makes her home baked challah. (Store-bought is ok, but you don’t know what you’re missing till you taste hers.) Hanukkah means a chance to sample her delicious latkes, and I can’t wait for Purim to get a taste of her exquisite hamentaschen. Sure, she cooks other things as well, but there is no denying that she is a good Jewish cook.

What makes this even more wonderful to me is that my wife is not Jewish. In this day and age, many Jewish people like me have non-Jewish spouses.

My wife has also learned to say the b’rachah (blessing) over the festival candles and has learned to make our Erev Shabbat meal special. Why does she do it? Why does she care? It is because we are a family who believe in Jesus (Yeshua) and believe that he came for the salvation of Jew and Gentile alike. Would she be doing these things if she hadn’t married me? Probably not, but that’s what a good marriage is all about: sharing and caring and learning how to please God and one another.

Is my family a Jewish home in the sense the rabbis mean it? Certainly not, but then, who says that Jewish is equal to rabbinic? How many of you who read this, I wonder, lead rabbinic lives?

No, our house is Jewish, because I am Jewish, and my faith in Jesus has done nothing to change that. In fact, it was not until I became a believer in Jesus, that I really came to appreciate what being Jewish was all about.

In many ways I feel like another Jewish man, who married a non-Jewish women, not only to his benefit but to the benefit of the entire Jewish nation. His name was Boaz and his wife was Ruth. She has a whole book in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament or Tanakh) named after her. Through her came King David and the royal line, right down to Messiah Jesus.

Most importantly, Lynda and I share a bond with each other, a love for God, and a regard for His Word as found in the Bible (both Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament). In mutual love we can proclaim the words of Ruth,

“For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” (Ruth 1:16-17)