Jews Get Divorce — Rabbi Ezra Weinberg

Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our service on March 13th when we heard a special guest drash on the lifelong spiritual and communal impact of divorce from Rabbi Ezra Weinberg. Rabbi Ezra is the founder of the divorce support network Jews Get Divorce. Get divorce. Get it? 

If you find our content helpful in your life, we hope we *get* your five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:07:01
Unknown
He got it got, they got.

00:00:07:03 - 00:00:54:06
Unknown
Now, Hello. Hello and welcome to Contact High. Today's episode is a sherbet replay of our service on March 13th, when we heard a special guest draw on the lifelong spiritual and communal impact of divorce from Rabbi Ezra Weinberg. Rabbi Ezra is the founder of the Divorce Support Network. Jews get divorce, get divorce, get it. Great. If you find our content helpful in your life, we hope we get your five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

00:00:54:08 - 00:01:00:18
Unknown
Thank you. Now take it away, Rabbi.

00:01:00:20 - 00:01:33:00
Unknown
Spots alone that Chavez. I've been an admirer from afar for a long time, and, I've been wanting to come to Michigan. It's a real, I don't know how many of you have a, bucket list for schools that you want to experience before you die? Michigan was on my bucket list. And so just be be to be here in this context, as my mom likes to say, it's beyond the beyond.

00:01:33:02 - 00:01:49:10
Unknown
I'm so grateful to you, your leadership. And to j CFC of Chicago for engineering this incredible weekend of conversation on divorce.

00:01:49:12 - 00:02:15:01
Unknown
I'm framing what I want to share with you today, around the power of transitional moments. Jody, you must have, like, no one. I was going to say, within our tradition, we love our liminal moments. Kabbalah. Chabad is one of those liminal moments. Have. Della, we love saying goodbye to one thing and saying hello to something else and imagining, feeling, what's that in-between space?

00:02:15:03 - 00:02:41:08
Unknown
So I want to call our attention to three different transitions. One from the Torah, one from the Jewish calendar, and one as a sacred life cycle events. And we'll start with the Torah. Actually, you kind of set it a little bit. So I, we we are, we are. Where are we in our story? We are, we are at the end of the building of the Mishkan.

00:02:41:10 - 00:03:05:21
Unknown
And really, we're at the end of the book of Exodus. And, that's what I want to highlight, actually, what a contrast to the way the book of Exodus ends with God's presence dwelling on the Mishkan and our it's built and we're we're finally here. There's a wholeness that's been created. What a contrast in the beginning of Exodus, when we're enslaved as a people.

00:03:05:23 - 00:03:30:11
Unknown
And, so we're just we're finally a free nation dwelling in the wilderness, celebrating a divine homecoming, to this beautiful, portable shul that we built, so that God may dwell upon us. And all of that is just a setup for Leviticus, which starts next week. Which begins to answer the question. So we built the Mishkan.

00:03:30:13 - 00:03:57:14
Unknown
Now what do we do with it? How will it be used? Who gets access? How does it get disassembled and reassembled from where it goes, and so on. So in the space of one week, we go from creation to function. We go from design to the day to day. From being to doing, there's a lot of creative energy, in between, in between those states.

00:03:57:16 - 00:04:20:16
Unknown
And to mark this moment, to mark the moment when the when the book of the Torah ends, what do we say? We say Isaac Rasok from strength to strength. May we all be strengthened if we need Kazakh. And these words signify transition. And I'm going to come back to that transition. Number two, we're in a transition moment in the Jewish calendar.

00:04:20:18 - 00:04:43:06
Unknown
As Rabbi Stephen alluded to, this is Shabbat Kadesh, the Shabbat of the month, which is a kick off, as we're preparing for the month of Nissan, not just a new month or a new moon, but actually, it's a new year. It's the new year of months. Nissan is the first month. And we just finished Adar, the month of, which was the 12 month.

00:04:43:08 - 00:05:09:09
Unknown
There's so many New Years in Judaism, it's very hard to keep track. And so we're, we're clearing away all the residue of Purim, and making way for the purification of Passover. We're shifting our gaze as our journey of Passover cleaning begins and the process for planning a seder, and getting rid of all the leaven bread, the hummus, intensifies.

00:05:09:09 - 00:05:40:11
Unknown
And this Shabbat like, is the beginning of that transition. We're transitioning from the joyful Purim upside down energy of Adar, and we are moving towards the focused, orderly, liberatory, pace of the energy of. Listen. And transition number three. And this is the reason I was invited here, one much closer to home yet has been a topic of discussion for the Jewish people since the time of the Torah.

00:05:40:13 - 00:06:04:22
Unknown
That's a transition that often happens in many, of our families. That happened to me both as a child and as an adult. That's the transition that alters the shape of the Jewish family in unforeseen ways. Talking about divorce a little bit more about me. I'm from Philadelphia and I live there now, although I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

00:06:05:00 - 00:06:27:01
Unknown
And, that's important because not only is that the closest thing I have to a tribal village in the U.S., but it's also where my parents lived, the final months of their marriage, just before my second birthday, they split up, and my mom moved to Philadelphia, where she would eventually enroll in rabbinical school. I have no memory of my parents together.

00:06:27:03 - 00:06:54:00
Unknown
Both my parents were savvy, community leaders, who could make their way in different Jewish communities. But when they got divorced, the Jewish community had nothing to offer them, no suggestions for how to contain the anger and bitterness that intensified after the separation. No alternatives to litigation, were offered. They had their day in court that day.

00:06:54:00 - 00:07:18:17
Unknown
I remember ripples of animosity, whip lashing in our family for years from that day. Where was the Jewish community? Why weren't my parents pointed to someone who understands the psychology of divorce, who understands the destabilizing nature of this life events, and can offer at least a menu of options that includes de-escalation tactics.

00:07:18:18 - 00:07:53:11
Unknown
Just over 40 years later, unmarried living in Washington Heights in Manhattan with my wife and two kids, my then wife, also a product of divorce. Our two kids have seven grandparents grandma, grandpa, Baba, soft, CC Bon Papa and my mamita. On Rosh Scottish Elul in 2019, six months before the start of the pandemic, we separated. So much happened in a short time.

00:07:53:13 - 00:08:23:15
Unknown
But when I approached my rabbi for advice at this stage of life, all I remember were some instructions for how to get the Jewish divorce to get, which I appreciated. But it was not even close to what I needed in that moment, my life was falling apart. I needed with my parents 40 years earlier, needed to be held, embraced, supported, given a map or a menu for how to begin navigating the challenges that I was facing.

00:08:23:17 - 00:08:29:06
Unknown
Someone to help me reconcile the ever present source of shame.

00:08:29:08 - 00:08:53:04
Unknown
How could I put my kids through what I went through? So I reached out to many rabbis, and soon I realized what I needed. What my parents needed still did not exist. I'm grateful to say it's been six and a half years since my marriage ended. I can't say it was an amicable divorce. We went through the legal system, we share custody.

00:08:53:06 - 00:09:18:22
Unknown
We use a parent coordinator. I'm on the road a lot to make sure I'm a regular part of their lives. We're still not comfortable around each other, but we were able to come together for the bar mitzvah of our son, nearly two years ago. No small feat. I'm. I assume I'm not the only one in the room here who has been intimately connected with a divorce and have been a mitzvah.

00:09:19:00 - 00:09:45:22
Unknown
And because the experience that I described about my own upbringing inside, inside of divorce, I've had this continual thought my entire life, there has to be a better way to do this. Surely the wisdom, the Jewish wisdom on divorce can be a guiding light, even if contemporary Jewish community has largely avoided this topic. We are so good as a people, supporting many other forms of loss.

00:09:46:00 - 00:10:10:15
Unknown
We are so good. So I began writing about this topic and writing and reading and beginning to develop conversation guides, for clergy that I wish had been used on me or any of my parents. And one of the first things I discovered is actually one of the one of the commandments in the Torah. One of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah is divorce.

00:10:10:17 - 00:10:40:09
Unknown
Most people, including in the observant world, are shocked to hear that if it's a mitzvah, that means that on some level it's sacred. It's holy. And that's just the beginning of what I discovered. It turns out Judaism has a lot to say about divorce and has been talking about it for thousands of years. It shows up in the Torah, the Talmud, the Midrash, almost all of our classic sources have what to say on the subject, even if it's totally outdated.

00:10:40:11 - 00:11:10:03
Unknown
It's even featured in the traditional Tituba. The marriage documents. Our tradition seems to be very open to the idea that sometimes a marriage, for a variety of reasons, ends and once I knew this and began internalizing it, it changed me. Fast forward to today. I'm the founder of two Jewish organizations I reviewed, Jews Get Divorce. We really do get divorce.

00:11:10:05 - 00:11:33:18
Unknown
This Shabbat, I'm representing our food, whose mission is to create Jewish communal infrastructure for divorce support and our animating question is this how can we show up better for people going through divorce in the Jewish community? In a few minutes, I offer three specific ways. We have specific ways we can show up, for that population among us.

00:11:33:23 - 00:11:56:19
Unknown
But first, a teeny bit more background in our training, which we actually did a little bit of training today with some of the rabbis, some of the local rabbis, we challenged some very powerful, myths about divorce. And I'm just going to lift up one tonight. The myth number one, and the myth is that divorce is solely an individual problem.

00:11:56:21 - 00:12:24:19
Unknown
Meaning that our that the community bears no responsibility. Your marriage ended. Good luck with that. That's how I experienced it. But we know it doesn't make sense. The ripple effect of divorce can be felt in so many ways, and part of exposing that myth is just acknowledging that divorce is a life cycle moment for many of us going through it or witnessing and others, it's treated more like a mental health disorder.

00:12:24:21 - 00:12:51:09
Unknown
It sounds obvious, but calling it a life cycle event begins already begins to, destigmatize it. A life cycle event, like a bar mitzvah or or a bat mitzvah or wedding death conversion. A new baby divorces in that category of events in Judaism. And all of those events require communal support in different ways. And for whatever reason, we don't think of divorce as a life cycle event.

00:12:51:11 - 00:13:20:09
Unknown
And it's not because, you know, is that because not everybody gets divorced? Not everyone has children, not everyone gets married, not everyone. Has it been a mitzvah or goes through conversion? The only life cycle is that everyone's entitled to a birth and death. All of us are born. All of us are going to die. But it is a powerful communal value that we show up at those key moments to support that transition for those most impacted by it.

00:13:20:11 - 00:13:49:12
Unknown
I don't think it's controversial to say that divorce is arguably one of the most destabilizing events that some of us will face in our lifetimes. Raise your hand if you've been impacted by divorce in your lifetime. Thank you. So why don't we consider it a life cycle worthy of communal attention? I have three short answers. It's awkward social interactions.

00:13:49:12 - 00:14:21:06
Unknown
We don't. We don't know what to say. Number two, fear. Tremendous amount of fear for lots of reasons. Fear that it's contagious. Fear of abuse, which is real. That there maybe you have been abuse. It's too much to handle. We'll be in over our heads if we try to support them. And maybe the most common one is the fear of taking sides.

00:14:21:08 - 00:14:47:13
Unknown
And those are all legitimate fears. And the third reason, maybe why we don't consider the life cycle shame. That might be the most insidious of all, the sense of failure and disappointment that accompanies divorce can be debilitating and triggering for the listener to, This was the most significant decision in my life, and it ended this way.

00:14:47:15 - 00:15:10:01
Unknown
It could be extremely hard to interact with that experience. So when we don't know what to do or say, we do the polite thing and we give divorced people space, leave them alone, give them their privacy. And it's a good impact. But what happens more often than not, they get isolated. People don't reach out to the people. People don't reach out.

00:15:10:03 - 00:15:32:08
Unknown
And the fear that I alluded to builds on both sides. It becomes harder and harder to show up in community. When you perceive that people are afraid to talk to you. And this is not the case for mourners who are also dealing with loss. You know, how the Jewish community supports mourners has been an important data point for me.

00:15:32:10 - 00:16:05:19
Unknown
Let's zoom into that moment for a second. Okay? For I think for many people, like, do they automatically want to spend the first week after losing a parent surrounded by people left to their own devices? I would say a lot of people prefer to be vulnerable in private. But Judaism overrides that instinct with our with all of our death and Shiva rituals, we don't allow you to be isolated for long periods of time in the acute aftermath of loss.

00:16:05:20 - 00:16:35:03
Unknown
Divorce. People don't have that protection. We don't have the practices around divorce that we have around death. Understandable divorce as a common phenomenon is new. And yet, if it's as destabilizing as we know it to be, I think the best versions of ourselves would want to be actively supporting this population. We just need to know how. So how can we better show up as communities to the divorces and the divorcing among us?

00:16:35:05 - 00:16:59:06
Unknown
Here are three concrete ideas. There are many more. Number one, we could start a mentoring program, match up current and recently divorced folks with those who've been through it. Have them meet up once a month for a year for an hour. Expanded activities could include studying together, creating divorce rituals, or just a phone check in. Think of it as a divorce.

00:16:59:06 - 00:17:24:14
Unknown
Have route to my divorce. Friends were a lifeline to me, especially in the early months and years. Number two create moments during the services to acknowledge that divorce happens. Perhaps the blessing for Gomel, which is read during the Torah service bench in Gomo, which is a moment where we're just thinking that we survived something, right? Perhaps do that on a divorce.

00:17:24:14 - 00:17:48:03
Unknown
Versary give a divorce Torah that mentions a divorce. A huge reason. The the a huge reason why I'm here tonight, doctor Mishcon, is because Rabbi Lizhi recommended I watch this sermon. The rush on the sermon given by Rabbi Stephen from a few years back, talking about your divorce. And, you know, and I was so moved by that that I reached out to you.

00:17:48:06 - 00:18:20:01
Unknown
And one thing led to another. And here I am. But I don't think divorce tours about divorce need to be limited to clergy, who've gone through it. Children of divorce, adult who have divorced children. There are so many stories, that worth sharing. And I guarantee you, every time the word divorce is mentioned from the pulpit, someone in the congregation feel seen and is grateful.

00:18:20:03 - 00:18:45:14
Unknown
Number three, including recent divorces on the court column, the healing for the pray for, you know, the visiting, the sick. The including on that list of people to visit and check in on this committee can help even strategize for ways to reintegrate newly single people back into the community through a sure buddy program after coming to synagogue.

00:18:45:14 - 00:19:13:11
Unknown
As a married person, it could be extremely helpful to have someone next to you in an early period of transition. And I'll just say one more thing about these ideas. It's really an invitation. We are a food or looking for pilot communities who would want to help test out some of these ideas, help us explore what it might look like and what some of the challenges, would arise if we make supporting the divorce, a communal responsibility.

00:19:13:13 - 00:19:34:01
Unknown
And I want to begin to wrap this up with, an invitation. One of the most surprising and frustrating challenges of being at this life stage within community is sharing the news and letting people know you're going through a divorce. And as I've mentioned, it's a hard moment both for the share of that news and for the receiver.

00:19:34:07 - 00:19:53:04
Unknown
We don't know what to say, and more often than not, our responses come out as pity or something else that Lynn sideways. Rabbi Steven, you specifically talked about this in the sermon. I referenced, in the trainings that we do, we offer a list of helpful and non helpful things to say to a person recently going through it.

00:19:53:06 - 00:20:14:05
Unknown
I'm not going to show that now, but feel free to ask me afterwards. Here's what I will offer. Earlier I, I earlier tonight I referenced the communal moment in our cycle of reading Torah, where we acknowledge the end of something and pave the way for a new beginning. This is the Kazakh Kazakh moment, which happens to be this week, tomorrow morning.

00:20:14:05 - 00:20:39:00
Unknown
In many communities across the world, the Torah reader will come to the final sentence in the book of Exodus and pauses and everybody rises. And, the Torah reader completes the final sentence, and we all join together on that last word. This week it's, behold, I see him and all their journeys and the entire cohort chants in unison.

00:20:39:02 - 00:21:04:15
Unknown
Isaac Herzog, the Kazakh and the Torah reader, empowered by the community, repeats the same three words. Isaac Herzog Video Hasek in essence, the moment is declaring, as we conclude, one book of the Torah and transition to the new book, may we all be strengthened together. And then we all sit down. I want to conclude with an offering about how this moment might connect us with divorce.

00:21:04:16 - 00:21:29:01
Unknown
But before I do, I just want to quote Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book, Man is Not Alone when he says that prayer is a risk. And I'm inviting you to take a risk with me. Imagine with me the addition of one small part to this communal moments. We just acknowledge the end of one book and the transition to the next book of Torah.

00:21:29:03 - 00:21:52:15
Unknown
So in that spirit, what could there be room for that same type of acknowledgment but in our lives? What if, when we stood up right before that last sentence was chanted, we paused just a few seconds longer. And then those in our community whose marriages have ended in the past year, who have been prepped in advance, silently approach the Torah.

00:21:52:17 - 00:22:35:16
Unknown
It might look something like this first, the entire congregation says Isaac Herzog. Bennett Hasek. Second, the divorced among us would respond quietly. Kazakh? Indeed, Kazakh. And finally, like a sandwich of strength, the Torah reader would add their own. Isaac Herzog with each Kazakh. That's it. Just one more repetition of Kazakh. Kazakh? No explanation needed. I think it would say we got you your life as part of the fabric of who we are, and we are aware of the enormity of change that you are going through.

00:22:35:18 - 00:22:56:02
Unknown
We are not only praying with you for strength, but we are all connected to the source of strength that is going to help move you through these days, months and years ahead. We are with you imperfectly, but we will be there with you. That feels like a taste of the world to come. Who's ready to imagine that with me?

00:22:56:03 - 00:23:09:10
Unknown
Shabbat shalom. Kazakh. Kazakh, Kazakh. We need sensing and.

00:23:09:12 - 00:23:29:01
Unknown
Shabbat replay is a production of Michigan Chicago. Our theme music was composed and performed by Kalman Strauss. You can always see where and when our next service will be on our calendar. There's a link in the show notes and if you appreciated the program, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. I know you've heard it before, but it really does help.

00:23:29:03 - 00:23:32:07
Unknown
On behalf of Team Michigan, thank you for listening.