Teachings: Separation & divorce

The Lament: Hidden Key to Effective Listening

by Barry Bub, MD

This free example article is from the recently released 2nd edition of Seeking and Soaring: Jewish Approaches to Spiritual Guidance and Development, published in honor of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. Eds. Rabbis Goldie Milgram and Shohama Wiener, Reclaiming Judaism Press.
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Spiritual Guidance for Those Who Are Divorcing

Thoughts on Spirituality and The Divorce Process

The integration of the loss of a formerly loved one into our lives is really holy work.

I've come to look upon a life as a very dramatic tapestry....many colors and patterns weave in and out along the way. The colors tend to change intensity and shade with time, as the loss evolves into a sacred memory. Loss becomes enshrined in our Memory Tapestry, under the best of psychological circumstances, as "a great challenge or difficulty which I survived or even overcame", instead of "woe, behold the great trauma(s) which befell me in life."

Description of a Traditional "Get" Ritual

Understanding Jewish Divorce Documents and Process

First, there must be a trained scribe who is knowledgeable about formatting of a get and who will write the document in formal Hebrew calligraphy. S/he will use a heavy wooden, unleaded stylus to inscribe the back side of a heavy sheet of paper or parchment with twelve long straight lines. Then, two half-lines will be impressed as well. There are many additional technical customs, about such things as margins and use of space on a line. The paper is then turned over and the tops of the letters of each word are penned to hang from the almost invisible lines.

What Do Rites of Passage Accomplish?

What do Rites of Passage Accomplish? by Rabbi Goldie Milgram with Barry Bub

Rituals and their symbolic, action, and liturgical components facilitate lifecycle events or significant transitions by:

·     providing the framework of support for desired or necessary change

·     acting as speed bumps that invite reflection and integration