All My Children. A good name for a soap opera, and also a phrase that speaks to us of who is a Jew and what ought to be the inclusiveness of the Jewish community. Remember those signs people put in their car windows a while back that said “Baby On Board”? What they really ought to say now is: “Multi-ethnic, artificially inseminated, adoptive, intermarried, gay or lesbian single parent divorced-remarried-blended family on board.”

We Jews should become tolerant of this diversity, yes? NO! I don’t think so. I don’t really like tolerance. To me it smacks of begrudging acceptance, tolerating what we can’t change.

It’s like the redneck who took a civil service exam for a job in the city health department. One of the questions on the test was: “What is rabies and what can be done about them?”

His answer: “Rabies is Jewish preachers and they ain’t a goldarn thing ya can do about ’em.

No, tolerance isn’t enough. What we need instead is to include, celebrate, and embrace all of our families, all of everyone’s families, all God’s children, and welcome them all into the Jewish people. We need to fight those bigots, Gentile or Jew, who make the lives of so many a living hell, all in the name of a supposedly loving and accepting God.

P’ru u’revu, Be fruitful and multiply, God says to Adam and Eve. Begin the process of creating all my children, is God’s first command to all humankind. Of course what God meant was that we should form families with one female mother and one male father lawfully joined in holy matrimony, with 2.3 children and a dog named Spot. Right? Of course not. The nuclear family as we in the West have defined it is no longer the only kind of family that exists, and it probably never was. Those who claim to defend the eternal sanctity of only that family don’t know very much history.

Some of us live in families that have only a mommy or only a daddy. Eleven and a half percent of Jewish households with children are single parent households, and the number is increasing. Whether through choice, divorce, or death of a spouse, many of our men and women are raising children alone.

An increasing number of us were not born Jews. Some became members of the Jewish people through adoption. At the moment nearly 3 percent of all Jewish children under the age of 18 are adopted. Except for the under 18 part, since they’re now adults, Marian and I are part of that statistic. Two of our three children are adopted.

We Jews marry later than any other segment of the population, well past prime child-bearing age. Adoption has therefore become an important option for many of us. So have fertility clinics, in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, egg donation, surrogate mothers – all producing Jews with different kinds of parents than ever before.

Some of us became Jews through conversion. Many adopted children are converted as infants. Some of those who convert are grown-ups. A couple of weeks ago Cantor Schwartz and I converted a young woman on our pulpit during Shabbat Eve services. There are a number of folks here with us right now that I have had the privilege of helping join the Jewish people. I am currently working with several more. It is one of the most satisfying things I do as a Rabbi.

Some did not “officially” become Jewish at all, but have committed themselves to, and have joined a Jewish spouse in the sacred task of raising Jewish children. They do this, of course, as part of an intermarried couple. I consider it an honor to officiate at an intermarriage when I can help start a Jewish family. The ceremony is a Jewish ceremony and the children are raised as Jews. Many of these people are what we call “nominally Jewish” in that they do not practice another faith, and the only religion they are involved with is Judaism.

Can I guarantee that the children will be Jewish? Of course not. But consider this: by asking a Rabbi to marry them and not a clergy of another faith they have taken a step in this direction on their own. Over and over I receive anecdotal evidence that the children are indeed being raised as Jews.

Sometimes that confirmation can come years later. I wrote an article for the Lamp on why I officiate at intermarriages. There is a letter I received that I included in that article:

I wanted to write to tell you that on April 2 we are celebrating XX and XY's son, xx, becoming a Bar Mitzvah. It brings to mind what you said all those many years ago (16) when you said that you would marry them because you sensed a spark that needed to be nourished. You said that if you said no to their request the door would close right then, but this way there was a chance there would be a Jewish family. And you proved to be so right! Although XY has not converted and indeed practices her religion, she is a participant in all things Jewish involving her children, at Temple and at home. They belong to a reform congregation and are observing the Bar Mitzvah with the service and a small luncheon...

We are, of course, very happy and very proud that xx is, as he called to tell me last night, “reading the Hebrew from the Torah, not the transliteration.” Whatever the future brings, we will have this moment. And there are two younger children also being raised Jewish.

So this is a thank you for helping make this possible.

Some of us are Jews because of the way our Reform movement defines who is a Jew. You are aware, I’m sure, of the rule that children of a Jewish mother are Jewish. But you may not be aware that this is only about 2,000 years old. For the 2,000 years before that, if you look in the Torah you’ll see that Jewish lineage was derived from the father. You were Cohen, Levi, or Yisrael, Priest, Levite, or commoner, if your father was, not your mother.

Apparently the switch to the matrilineal system took place some time during the Roman occupation of Israel. There were a large number of pregnant Jewish women, many through rape, some through consent. The mothers were certainly known, and the fathers often were not. As a humanitarian gesture lineage began to be traced through the mother.

So we’ve had both. Looking at the entire spectrum of Jewish history, our Reform movement teaches that the child of either Jewish parent who is raised as a Jew, is Jewish. This is called Patrilineal descent, indicating that the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother is also Jewish.

Some of us are Jews who live in families with two mommies or two daddies who love each other. Some of us are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. I am part of this statistic, too. My youngest brother is gay, and I have his complete permission to speak about this in public.

Unfortunately, many in the right wing Christian community, found Russell Shorto, a contributing writer for the NY Times,

… see homosexuality … as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: it seeks to spread itself. [Russell Shorto, NY Times Magazine, June 19, 2005]

This is bigoted, pernicious garbage. People have been beaten to death because of it. The same God who hard-wired me to be attracted to women hard-wired some men to be attracted to other men and some women to be attracted to other women. Scientists have begun to study that “wiring:”

Gene researchers… [experimenting with fruit flies found that there is apparently] a kind of master sexual gene…

They… found that females given the male variant of the gene acted exactly like males in courtship, pursuing other females. Males that were artificially given the female version of the gene… turned their sexual attention to other males.

It is not clear now if there is a similar master sexual gene for humans. Still, experts said “Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science.” [Elisabeth Rosenthal, International Herald Tribune, June 3, 2005]

I am proud that our Reform movement was the first to ordain openly gay and lesbian Rabbis, Cantors, and Educators, and insist that sexual orientation be totally excluded from any part of the hiring process. I am proud of our Congregation’s welcoming stance towards all people of all sexual orientations. I am proud to be among those who will gladly officiate at a gay or lesbian wedding.

What is the upshot of all this? In an American Jewish community that was pretty much lily white, we are now blessed with people who are Asian, Black, Latino and pretty much any race, racial combination, culture, religion, ethnicity and sexual preference that you can imagine. In an American Jewish community whose families used to be far closer to the 2.3 children model, though the dog was more likely to be named Shpilkes than Spot, we now have many other configurations in far greater numbers than ever before.

At this time of repentance and renewed commitment, I ask us all to take a stance. Stand up to the bigots at school board meetings and other public forums. Don’t be afraid to correct a fellow Jew who would deny anyone who wishes to be part of our Jewish community the right to do so. I ask us all to embrace the wonderful diversity that is the reality of our faith and our families. I ask us all to make our answer to the question of who is a Jew inclusive, rather than exclusive.

Please, take a stance, not just in private but in public. After all, we are all God’s children.