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LOVE AND MARRIAGE

These theological concepts have important ethical implications; and in relation to marriage, Creation and Redemption are the basic themes of the Sheva Berachot(Seven Wedding Blessings). In Levi­ticus 19: 1ff.. our imitation of God as the means to achieve holiness is described in great detail. An analysis of the passage demonstrates that the emphasis is overwhelmingly on ethical behavior, but there are also acts that distinguish a Jewish society from others. The hermeneutic of Reform Judaism is an ethical critique of kedusha (holiness), but to identify the holy only with the ethical is a grievous error. Holiness means living a life in relation to and in the presence of God . Marriage is the sanctified relationship par excellence that sets the parameters of all others.“Kedusha is ac­quired through fulfilling the mitzvot.”"

Reform Judaism is its quasi-halakhic guide to Jewish living. In Gates of Mitzvah" Rabbi Herbert Bronstein asserts that marriage is a mitzvah incumbent upon every Jew:

It is a mitzvah for a Jew to marry and to live together with his/her spouse in a manner worthy of the traditional Hebrew designation for marriage, kiddushin."”

It is the meaning of the term kiddushin that is essential to our understanding of Jewish marriage. Only when we understand the values that define the word will we be able to ask the appropri­ate halakhic questions. One of the best descriptions of the meaning of marriage as kiddushin in Reform Judaism is found in an essay in Gates of Mitzvah. The essay is both definitional and emblematic. It does not define the halakhah of marriage, but it describes the theology and ethics that must be represented by the halakhah."

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