Shalom and thank you for your question! The truth is – you could marry a ‘nice, not Jewish guy’.
You have free choice.
Really this answer should be very short.
There is no LOGICAL reason why you should not marry out of your religion.
If you believe in your religion,
then, it’s a whole different ball game…
When you SEE something, you don’t need to believe it, it’s there, or seems to be anyway. (Brain scientists show that our brain actually constructs the picture we see based on previous input to the brain, among other things.) So the expression ‘seeing is believing’ is self-contradictory.
Chapter 1 in the tractate of the Talmud called ‘Pirkei Avot’ specifies how the Torah was handed down from Moses to his disciple Joshua, from Joshua to the Elders, and so on… Which Torah is it referring to? The Five Books of Moses only?
Definitely not. There is a discussion amongst commentators as to what is the spiritual advantage of the second set of Tablets, after Moses broke the first. The answer is that the body of the Oral law came with the second tablets, and was handed down together with the Five Books of Moses, throughout the generations.
It’s a package deal. As Rambam (also known as Maimonides,) the codifier of Jewish law and master of Jewish philosophy says:
“This Torah shall not be swapped…”
Ok. So it’s a package deal, and we believe in ALL of it, even though some of it ‘makes sense’ (to the less trained or untrained mind, ) and some of it doesn’t!
We are living in an era where the idea of marriage at all is not self understood. Judaic values are based on traditional family life, which is being questioned by many.
It is getting much harder to find marriage oriented people in general. If we veer from the Torah orientation, we can end up in places very far away from what was known up until now as ‘family life’.
It is interesting to note that the Talmud states that 40 days before a person is conceived, (the soul exists already in the spiritual realms,) it is decreed in Heaven who that person will marry. Not only that, but the two souls of the male and female are actually two halves of the same whole. Which means among other things, that the person you were destined to marry, if you are Jewish, is also Jewish. You CAN miss the boat, it’s your choice.
An essential part of Jewish belief is prayer.
The matriarchs poured out their souls in prayer to bear children, Eliezer the servant of Abraham turned to G-d to help him find a wife for Isaac, King David composed the psalms, which are a poetic and dramatic dialogue with G-d, covering a large gamut of human experience and emotions.
We are given the option to use the tools of prayer and receive guidance from learned men and women.
It is a good idea to increase your chances of finding a Jewish spouse by spending time in Jewish places like your local Chabad house. There you may be exposed to fun and educational activities as well, with a Jewish orientation.
When you identify more with the values inherent in the Jewish religion, the question can not only disappear , but turn into the opposite. How could someone marry out of the Jewish faith?
caveat to the answer about marriage to a non-Jew, or not.
I did not mean to say that there is no second chance. My teacher always says:
Until you make a mistake, you have free choice.
After you made it (look at it as) Divinely ordained… Then you are in plan B, a new chapter in your life which you can make the most of.
The commandments are called ‘Mitzvot’, which comes from the Hebrew root ‘to connect ‘. Each commandment we fulfill connects us to G-d, to Divine will and wisdom. Isn’t that a good place to be?
