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I know because I was in that line.
And remember Valentines' Day comes out of the Catholic religious
tradition. Nevertheless, it has become the American holiday for couples to show appreciation for each other.
Lucky for me this year my wife baked the best chocolate fudge cake with bits of cherry licorice sprinkled on top. All the waiting in line was worth it.
But marriage needs more than a Valentine's Day gift and card to sustain it for the long run. It is a mystery to really understand why marriages last and why others do not. Financial challenges and even changes in the gender roles of married life are changing the landscape of what the typical married couple looks like today.
Furthermore, religion plays a complicated role in marriage, given the numbers of people who marry someone from outside the religious tradition they grew up in.
I have been conducting premarital counseling for 25 years. In today's economy, the old-school approach -- a man providing economic resources and a woman taking care of the house and the family -- is history. Now, not only do both husband and wife work, but the growing trend is that women are earning more than their husbands. This leads to another issue: Who will take care of the children? A small but growing trend in American society is that the women become the primary breadwinners and the men stay home and become the primary caregivers.
In the world of religion, interfaith marriage is commonplace. That can mean within religious systems or between completely different religions. When the couples meet, rarely do they engage in the conversation of what religion will they raise their kids as a precondition before falling love. It is usually after they have completed the courting rituals and are determined to get married that they approach me and say, "Please marry us." The thing I fear most is when they say, "We haven't decided what religion to raise the kids. Maybe we will let them decide for themselves."
How is it possible that they can make a decision to spend the rest of their lives together as a married couple but refuse to decide in which religious tradition to raise their future children? Compassion dictates I work with them to create the kind of family with values that all can share together.
I have seen and worked with interfaith families who raise their children as Jews while one spouse keeps his or her faith or simply chooses not to convert. This happens every day in other religious traditions in American life. As long as there is agreement on both sides as to what is in the children's best interest, then that kind of diversity can work out for the best. But it takes effort and understanding of all sides to take religion seriously. It takes a commitment to join a religious institution and participate in the social and cultural life of the community to give children a sense that they belong to a faith tradition.
It means the couple must recognize that faith, religion and spirituality can enhance a family as it can enrich a marriage, too. I know of couples who come from strong religious backgrounds but different religions and decide to adopt another faith because they do not want to hurt their parents. Of course people come up with all kinds of responses to deal with the issue of interfaith marriages. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
With the rate of divorce reaching fifty percent, according to some estimates, religion should be a stabilizing factor and not a divisive one for American families.
I have seen enough marriages fail because of so many other factors that I hate to see religion be just another impediment rather than an asset to strengthening our children's values systems and the moral fabric of the country.
Remember, it does take a village to raise not only our children, but also our married couples.
Rabbi Brad L. Bloom is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Yam on Hilton Head Island. He can be reached at 843-689-2178.
