Tuesday, October 24, 2006
A Judaic Basis for "Adoption" Without Lies or Name Changes
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Talmmudist and philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik sums up the Jewish law:
Judaism saw the teacher as the creator through love and commitment of the personality of the pupil. Both become personae because an I-Thou community is formed. That is why Judaism called disciples sons and masters fathers. . . Our Talmudic sages stated) "Whoever teaches his friend's son Torah acquires him as a natural child" (Sanhedrin I9b). . . . Judaism did not recognize the Roman institution of adoption since the Roman concept is directed toward substituting a legal fiction for a biological fact and thus creating the illusion of a natural relation-ship between the foster parents and the adopted son. Judaism stated its case in no uncertain terms: what the Creator granted one and the other should not be interfered with; the-natural relationship must not be altered. Any intervention on the part of some legal authority would amount to interference with the omniscience and original plan of the Maker. The childless mother and father must reconcile themselves with the fact of natural barrenness and sterility. Yet they may attain the full covenantal experience of parenthood, exercise the fundamental right to have a child and be united within a community of I-thou-he. There is no need to withhold from the adopted child information con-cerning his or her natural parents. The new form of parenthood does not conflict with the biological relation. It manifests itself in a new dimension which may be separated from the natural one. In order to become Abraham [a spiritual parent], one does not necessarily have to live through the stage of Abram [a biological parent). The irrevocable in human existence is not the natural but the spiritual child; the three-fold community is based upon existential, not biological, unity. The ex-istence of I and thou can be inseparably bound with a third existence even though the latter is, biologically speaking, a stranger to them.
in Solovetchik, Family Redeemed, pp.60-61
Talmmudist and philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik sums up the Jewish law:
Judaism saw the teacher as the creator through love and commitment of the personality of the pupil. Both become personae because an I-Thou community is formed. That is why Judaism called disciples sons and masters fathers. . . Our Talmudic sages stated) "Whoever teaches his friend's son Torah acquires him as a natural child" (Sanhedrin I9b). . . . Judaism did not recognize the Roman institution of adoption since the Roman concept is directed toward substituting a legal fiction for a biological fact and thus creating the illusion of a natural relation-ship between the foster parents and the adopted son. Judaism stated its case in no uncertain terms: what the Creator granted one and the other should not be interfered with; the-natural relationship must not be altered. Any intervention on the part of some legal authority would amount to interference with the omniscience and original plan of the Maker. The childless mother and father must reconcile themselves with the fact of natural barrenness and sterility. Yet they may attain the full covenantal experience of parenthood, exercise the fundamental right to have a child and be united within a community of I-thou-he. There is no need to withhold from the adopted child information con-cerning his or her natural parents. The new form of parenthood does not conflict with the biological relation. It manifests itself in a new dimension which may be separated from the natural one. In order to become Abraham [a spiritual parent], one does not necessarily have to live through the stage of Abram [a biological parent). The irrevocable in human existence is not the natural but the spiritual child; the three-fold community is based upon existential, not biological, unity. The ex-istence of I and thou can be inseparably bound with a third existence even though the latter is, biologically speaking, a stranger to them.
in Solovetchik, Family Redeemed, pp.60-61
# posted by Senior Mom @ 3:53 PM 
