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Take this hypothetical situation:

A Jewish couple which has fulfilled the requirements of peru urevu wants to adopt an additional child but (perhaps due to the immense cost of Jewish day school) does not want the child to be halachically defined as a Jew.

Is this allowed?

Scimonster
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Clint Eastwood
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1 Answers1

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It would just be messy, for all sorts of reasons. So it's 9AM Saturday morning, mom and dad are walking to synagogue, while their kid is getting a ride to the mall with friends? How do you work out family meals when one member doesn't have to keep kosher? When the food they cook becomes non-kosher?

I can't think of a good "thou-shalt-not" spelled out in a particular book, but planning on a relationship where there will be a massive gap vis-a-vis religion between parents and adopted child? Doesn't sound healthy for anyone involved.

Shalom
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    It's a difficult thing to do, but is it allowed? – Clint Eastwood Jan 23 '15 at 14:17
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    @ClintEastwood -- someone asked Rabbi Mordechai Willig about going to the movies with someone else's spouse of the opposite gender. (He and she both liked Harry Potter, and their respective spouses didn't.) He said it was a bad idea. "Oh? Where does it say so?" "The whole Torah!" – Shalom Jan 23 '15 at 16:22
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    I heard a similar story: Ben Gurion asked the Chazon Ish where it's written that you shouldn't draft girls; the Chazon Ish opened his jacket, pointed to his chest, and said "in mein hartz shteit da" -- "this is written in my heart." ( cc @ClintEastwood ) – MTL Jan 23 '15 at 17:59
  • I have a similar writeup as to why a kohen should not marry the widow of a Yisrael or Levi (as specified in Yechezkel). http://sabbahillel.blogspot.com/2011/05/can-kohen-marry-widow-of-nonkohen.html – sabbahillel Jan 25 '15 at 00:09
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    While I have a good deal of respect for you, R' Shalom, you're not the Chazon Ish. In other words, I suspect you're right, both because of what you say (it seems right to me) and because of who you are: but that doesn't make this answer particularly valuable to the general public. – msh210 Jan 25 '15 at 17:22
  • @msh210 agreed I'm not the Chazon Ish! I'm not saying, "don't do it because the high-and-mighty Shalom declared it prohibited." I'm pointing out that it's likely to make all sorts of problems for parents and/or child (and I can elaborate if anyone wants). The Rabbi Willig story was to point out that some things are horribly bad ideas even if you can't find a chapter and verse to prohibit them. – Shalom Jan 25 '15 at 21:50
  • https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19861990/reisner_conversion.pdf –  May 23 '16 at 02:33
  • http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/adoption.html –  May 23 '16 at 02:34