Interfaith Weddings: Start with the Rabbi

You want to understand the element of religion and interfaith weddings a la the Clinton Wedding?

Start with the Rabbi

Rabbi at Chelsea Clinton’s Wedding Has Been on a Spiritual Journey

Rabbi James Ponet, who last Saturday co-officiated at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky...As Yale’s chief rabbi since 1981, Rabbi Ponet has led a very public journey, from strict observance — which counseled against
intermarriages — to a more open liberalism that can permit them.

...He said he was indifferent about Judaism before college. When he graduated with the class of 1964 from the Loomis School (now called Loomis Chaffee) in Windsor,
Conn., the future rabbi was listed in his yearbook as James Edward Podnetsky (Ponet).

“I can’t give you a sound bite” on the name change, Rabbi Ponet said Tuesday, speaking about what must have been a freighted decision before beginning his freshman year at Yale (class of ’68).

Oh, I can.

Change your name, change your persona. Your identity. Your break with your past and your roots, family, character, religious/ethnic identity.

“The first time I glimpsed observant Judaism was at Rabbi Israel’s” house, Rabbi Ponet said, referring to Richard Israel, Yale rabbi of his student years. “And I was enchanted by it.”

'Enchanted'? Oh my.

By the time Rabbi Ponet was a junior, he was “deeply obsessed” with religion. Before graduating, he wrote to Hebrew Union College, the Reform Jewish seminary, and said: “I do not wish to be a pulpit rabbi. I grew up in your movement and I am ignorant. I appeal to you to let me come study my religion.”

Obsessed is a bit odd for a person who is to be a spiritual guide.

After his ordination in 1973, Rabbi Ponet studied in Israel for eight years. When he returned to be the Yale rabbi, in 1981, he prayed daily. He kept the Jewish Sabbath, not working or driving or otherwise using electricity on Saturday. He always wore a kipa — that is Hebrew; the Yiddish word is “yarmulke” — the traditional Jewish head covering. On Rosh Hashana, he was known to storm undergraduate dining halls, hop on a table, and blow the shofar, or ram’s horn, loudly to herald the arrival of the Jewish New Year.

It was the kind of assertive, public Judaism that could take even religious students by surprise. Then, about five years ago, Rabbi Ponet’s public persona began to change. The yarmulke disappeared; he could be heard joking about eating shellfish again, as young Podnetsky had in his youth. Did he get less observant? “In the public eye,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that in the private eye. I still consider Shabbat” — the Sabbath — “the pivot of my life.”

Obsessed? I'd say semi-psychotic. Or at least exhibiting signs of schizophrenia.

Those who know Rabbi Ponet say that he is both unmistakably Jewish and deeply interested in other traditions.

Interested or - ensnared?

Oh, well, as the generation so the Rabbi.


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