(Bereishit Rabbah 22:2)

 

       Last week when I wrote about gay marriage, I mentioned a comment I made at a conference on family life in Mexico City.  , "The biggest problem facing family life today is not that gays want to marry; it is that nobody else does."  I meant the comment to be tongue-in-cheek, but it had a touch of truth to it.   Today I see marriage becoming less and less popular.  

 

       Young people in my community are marrying later and later.  Many are not marrying at all.  Many live together in long term relationships without bothering to marry.  Following the lead of celebrities, some have children without the benefit of marriage.  For those who do marry, many of those marriages end up in divorce.  Incidentally, I am not opposed to divorce when a marriage becomes too painful or destructive.  But it should be a sad last resort. 

 

       As people become older, particularly if they have been married before, they do not wish to commit to marriage again.  I find this is true particularly of seniors.  They find partners but do not wish to legally commit.  I tell couples, "I have a huppah (marriage canopy) in my car.  Let me make it official."  They tell me, "Rabbi, if we need you we know where to find you."  Relationships are popular, but marriage seems an unnecessary complication to their lives.

 

       I come from a tradition that teaches, "a man should leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife and they should be one flesh."  (Genesis 2:24)  Marriage does not come naturally; male animals are more prone to spread their seed around.  But for humans marriage is the path to holiness.  When two people stand in a public ceremony before the community and before God and vow to build a home together, it makes a difference.  Public commitments matter.

 

       Why get married?  The first reason is the one given by the Torah itself - "it is not good for many to be alone."  If each of us has a purpose or mission in life, we do better if we have someone else present, able to encourage us in our endeavors and support us as we go.  The book of Ecclesiastes teaches, "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has not another to help him up." (Ecclesiastes 4:9 - 10) 

 

       I have no absolute evidence that married people have been more successful over the course of history than single people.  But I do suspect based on my own sense of people that having a person present in one's life does contribute to success.  I have always loved a story that I have often told in the past.  The mayor drives up to a gas station with his wife.  They notice that the gas station attendant is a man she used to date in high school.  The mayor starts bragging, "Aren't you glad you married me instead of him, a mere gas station attendant?"  The mayor's wife sharply answers back, "If I had married him, he would have been the mayor."

 

       The second reason to get married is that I believe it is the ideal way to raise children.  If a marriage works, it assures that there are two parents present in their children's life.  One sad reality of divorce is that too often one parent disappears from his or her children.  Today we see more and more children being raised by single parents without the presence of a second parent.  I am convinced that when the Torah tells a man to cleave unto his wife, it is with the hope that he will become a presence in the life of any children he sires.  Can single parents do the job?  Of course, but it is certainly more difficult.

 

       The Hebrew word for marriage is kiddushin, a term that also means holiness.  The Biblical vision is the search for holiness in life.  Marriages, when they are at their best, become a way of achieving holiness.   That is why I have attempted as a spiritual leader to encourage the public commitment of a marriage ceremony to my members.