Chelsea, Marc and Gitel – Studies in Dark and Light

Like millions of others this morning I opened my browser to photographs of Chelsea Clinton clad in a rhinestone studded Vera Wang gown embracing her new husband investment banker Marc Mesvinsky clad in tuxedo, yarmulke and tallis.

According to news sources, Mesvinsky who attended Hebrew school as a child, is a halachic Jew, from both sides. It was he who insisted on the interfaith ceremony incorporating elements from two faiths and his bride, the former first daughter, herself a baptized Methodist agreed.

While all know too much about the ensuring traffic snarl ups and which A list celebrities did and didn’t attend, the media will never capture the real meaning of this event. To any Jew steeped in Torah, what happened last Sunday in Westchester was a disgrace. In front of several hundred of his closest friends and paparazzi cameras streaming his face all over the globe, Mesvinsky committed spiritual suicide separating himself and his future generations from the Jewish people for all eternity.

What is even more disturbing is that no one said a word in protest. Once upon a time, not so many years ago even non religious Jews were distressed when their children married out . They cried and wailed, boycotted the ceremony, some sitting shiva and cutting ties with their beloved children sometimes for life.

But in multi-cultural, multi-ethnic America we have so called rabbis who are eager to officiate at these ceremonies and. Jews like Mesvinsky who feel that by donning kipa and talis they are honoring their Jewish roots.

The ludicrous farce of the Clinton-Mesvinsky wedding is emblematic of the Olam HaSheker, the world of lies in which we dwell. One can take some consolation in the fact that many intermarriages fail..The odds of Chelsea and Marc ending up at opposite ends of a courtroom are quite high. In the meanwhile though any believing Jew must shed tears for this couple and the others following in their example.

As to the triumphant feelings this event certainly evokes in some assimilated Jews intermarried can hardly be regarded as a solution to anti Semitism. Jewish history proves over and over again that whenever we Jews fail to “make Kiddush” (sanctify our lives according to the Torah’s dictates) the non Jews “make havdala” (divide us from them through anti Semitic attack).

While the media glare of the Mesvinsky nuptial increased the quotient of global darkness, the world has other simple unknown people who leave a legacy of light. Consider, Gital Schwartz the 93 year old Aushwitz survivor who died last February leaving an estimated 2000 Torah observant decendants. From one lonely orphan emerged an entire dynasty, which even the New York Times described as a “fist in Hitler’s eye.”