I apologize in advance for the misleading hyperbolic title. This post will surely not deliver on what it suggests but perhaps it got your attention. The title is a pun on Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man. That book didn’t deliver on its resplendent title either but it was interesting, and I hope this will be too.
My branches may cease to be Jewish in the Halachic sense. I’ve already described the difference between Secular and Halachic Jews in other posts. To quickly recap, a secular Jewish identity need not follow the traditional prescribed law of who is a Jew (born of a Jewish mother or a convert). My branches will have a secular Jewish identity (among a few other strong identities) combined with a Catholic religious identity. They will not be considered Halachic Jews as I remain classified.
I was not brought up to have attachment to my Jewish identity. It was a fact, but there was no emphasis on why it was important. In fact, my mother’s family were non-religious secular Jews going back a century. My mother became a Christian before I was born. My father is a pastor. I was raised in the Protestant church. The only ancestral Jewishness I was familiar with was secular. Because we were Christian those kinds of Jewish materialistic accomplishments must not have been so important to emphasize for my parents. I was lightly indoctrinated to be a good Christian with a casual, incidental Jewish identity.
It wasn’t until I was 40 and had three kids that I decided to thoroughly explore Jewish identity and Judaism. This was primarily because I had gleaned the necessity of religion for raising a family. At that point I wasn’t sure which way to go or what to commit to. I didn’t feel a calling to return to the Protestantism of my youth.
Discovering the beauty, depth and wisdom of Judaism awakened the ever present Jewish identity I was born with. More importantly, it helped me understand myself.
I had always understood that trying to make my family Jewish in the traditional sense would be an impossible task. I gradually realized I was “cut off” from Israel—in the painful, uncompromising Old Testament meaning. It had always been so, but discovering a Jewish identity after one had established a non-Jewish life (a great life thanks be to God!) meant there was no going back. A traditional Jewish family life was a puzzle piece that was never going to fit.
It was at this moment of paralysis after a long and deep exploration of Judaism that Catholicism came into my life. It came by way of Jews who were saying they had found “fulfillment” in the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church. That sure sounded nice.
Learning about Catholicism was an extremely rapid process. I seemingly knew all the basics. Every beautiful truth I was finding had a 1 to 1 Jewish correlation. In hindsight it now seems clear the Holy Spirit first led me down the path of Judaism to give me a deep education on the Jewish roots of the Catholic faith.
Now let’s return to branches. I can now understand why a Jew would want Jewish grandchildren. Particularly a religious Jew. In their belief they have a mission in the world only the Jews can fulfill. Although I now understand this drive culminates in Christ, this is something I do still believe about the Jewish people. However, as a Catholic I realize it is my greater priority to have Catholic grandchildren. If one’s Catholic children were also somehow considered Halachic Jews I suppose one might encourage like pairings—but it could limit marriage options in a challenging way. The difficulty of such a sectarian enterprise reminds me of the Frankists, who had become a Catholic Jewish sect that only survived for 100-150 years.
The similarity of core Jewish and Catholic teachings could collide in the future for my own branches. Judaism and Christianity both uncompromisingly require they be the religion children of interfaith couples are raised in. For my children I must impress upon them Christ and the Church over and above even the almost irresistible pulls of ethnicity.
Now I can see how serious a folly it would be to withhold Christ and his sacraments from one’s children if they possess the knowledge. Catholicism teaches that a Catholic can be intermarried with a non-Catholic. The caveat is that the children must still be raised Catholic.
People are free to prefer their own ethnicities for marriage. It works quite well as many nations have long been bonded to Catholicism. I do foresee this kind of ethnic qualifier of who a Jewish Catholic marries as too unrealistically limiting. Perhaps a Jewish Catholic who marries a secular Jew might succeed in raising Catholic Jewish children—but even here I am skeptical although I know it happens.
Thus it is important to nurture the Hebrew Catholic movement which is unencumbered by Halacha. I wrote about matrimony and the fusing of cultures into one flesh in one of my earlier posts.
