Kiddushin (Talmud)

Jewish law, an engagement (kiddushin) is a contract between a man and a woman where they mutually promise to marry each other, and the terms on which it shall take place.^[1] The promise may be made by the intending parties or by their respective parents or other relatives on their behalf.^[2]

Sherira Gaon in his letter, the first sugya (topic) in the Babylonian Talmud of Kiddushin is a Saboraic or Geonic addition and was not written by Amoraim like the rest of the Talmud.^[4] The sugya focuses on stylistic and grammatical issues that bear no halachic or aggadic implications.^[5] Nevertheless, Yitzchok Zilberstein ruled that one cannot make a siyum if he has not learned the opening sugya.^[6]

King David and his son Prince Absalom.^[8][9]

Modern Orthodox Jews^{[citation needed]} do reach out to intermarried Jews, especially Jewish women (because Orthodox Jewish law considers the children of Jewish women to be Jews regardless of the father's status).^[12] For Orthodox Jews marriage of a Jewish man with a Jewish woman is a reunion of two halves of the same Soul;^[13] thus for the Orthodox a Jewish man to have any relationship with a "Shiksa" (gentile woman) or a Jewish woman to have any relationship with a goy (gentile man) would be considered a disgrace. Some Orthodox families will sit shiva (Mourning) for someone who has married outside the faith because unless to prevent assimilation both the father and the mother teach both their sons and daughters to accept the Iron Yoke of the Torah,^[14] the chances are not good the child will be raised in the Jewish faith; hence the sitting of Shiva is mourning for successive generations of children who will not be raised Jewish. Hence to the Orthodox Jews Intermarriage is the "Silent Holocaust (Judaism)