What Biblical Reference?

​    by Reb Gutman Locks   

What Biblical Reference?

A viewer of Jews Should Marry Jews challenged:

      “What Biblical reference do you have to say that the Jewish lineage ascends from the mother?”

Gutman’s response:

     The clearest Torah example of the principle that Jewish lineage goes according to the mother is seen with Avraham and Sarah. Their son Isaac was a Jew (Hebrew) because Sarah was a “Jew”. Yet Avraham and Hagar’s[i] son Ishmael was an Egyptian, because his mother was an Egyptian.

     But, the actual Biblical halachic (Jewish law) reference is found in the book of Deuteronomy.[ii]

     We are warned against intermarriage, “…you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son, for he will cause your child to turn away from after Me and they will worship the gods of others…”

     The commentaries explain that “he will cause your child …” refers to the non Jewish man “married” to your daughter who will cause “your child” to turn away…that is… the children of your daughter are yours (Jews). It does not say that “she (the non Jewish “wife”) will take your children away because her children are not considered yours in this sense.

    The fact is that mothers have a much closer bond with their children than do fathers, and this bond is not just emotional, it is spiritual, too.