Adoption: A Jewish Perspective

With Passover just around the corner, it is worth noting that the first recorded instance of adoption in the Bible is Moses. And it was very much an open adoption (his birthmother was his wet nurse!) We might point out that eventually Moses rebelled against his adoptive family, but that is because he identified with his birth family and his heritage. Is there a lesson here? Did his adoptive family respect his birth family and culture? We would have expected them to raise him as an Egyptian, but their enslavement of the Jews clearly demonstrates that did not perceive them in a positive light. Anyone moving a child out of his culture and into another should understand the potential significance of failing to respect their child's culture and heritage of birth. (As a related issue, people adopting a non-Jewish child and converting her to Judaism need to give her a strong Jewish background; just "feeling Jewish" isn't enough. There are a number of recent books on this topic, and we have met many people at conferences who were raised to "feel Jewish" but weren't given enough solid content for it to have felt meaningful to them). Sooner or later the child's heritage is likely to become important to the him, and how it was respected by the adoptive parents can easily become an issue in their relationship.

From a Jewish perspective, one who teaches or raises a child is considered like a parent (it is customary, for example, to sit shiva, or mourn, at least one day for one's "rebbe"). In Numbers 3:1-4 it says: "These are the offspring of Aaron and Moses... These are the names of the sons of Aaron..." and Moses' children aren't listed! Thus, Aaron's children are listed as the children of both Aaron and Moses; this, according to our commentators, is because Moses was their teacher, and teacher = parent. So, the parent who raises an adopted child is given the status of parent, even if the child's Jewish status still comes from the birth parent (whether he/she is Jewish or not comes from birthmom, while whether he is a Cohen, Levi or Israel comes from birthdad).

While, on the one hand, adoption has no specific legal status in Jewish law (in American civil law we create a new legal status for an adopted child, even creating a new [bogus] birth certificate), so that the biological parents still, technically speaking, are responsible for their child and create his/her legal status as a Jew, etc.; on the other hand, the adoptive parents become shlichim, messengers, of the biological parents, entrusted with the child's upbringing and given the respect and responsibility accorded to biological parents in the fifth commandment (Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother).

Credits: Jewish Children's Adoption Network

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