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Midwifing a couple through a divorce ritual is challenging. Often clergy are doing this for people we know, respect, and have come to care for greatly - both of them. Our task is to help two souls disentwine, to remove the kiddushin, the "holiness," that sanctified them as for each other alone.
Today is the divorce of two longtime congregants. I am standing between them and ask them to stand back to back and hold open their palms. I place a reciprocal copy of their signed get, their document of Jewish divorce, onto their palms. His get releases her, her get releases him. They are each facing three of their closest friends, who are sitting about eighteen feet away on opposite sides of the room.
"People who love and care for you are here. Look to your friends, members of the inner circle of your life. You can go to them in a moment. For now, please look at the darkest print on the get which you are holding. It is for you to take turns reading aloud.
Jenny is weeping softly, she’s wanted this divorce for so long but waited until the children went off to college. Still, it is hard with so much history between them. Stephan is pale and quiet. His new relationship with a woman in another state has not been going well. I wonder what he is feeling and thinking.
“Now, in accordance with the order agreed upon earlier tonight, please take turns reading this declaration of severance aloud.”
Stephan’s sad, yet strong voice begins: "Your doorway is no longer my doorway. I no longer have the right to comment on your actions. Your well-being is now in your own hands. I do this lishmi, lishma, u'lesheim geirushin, for my sake, for her sake, and with the intent of effecting a divorce."
Jenny repeats the same phrase, only corrected for gender, lishmo, for him. I find myself silently praying to be able to bring through an appropriate blessing for the moment. They really tried everything to make it work, but this marriage could not be saved. Together they were able to design and sign a co-parenting agreement in the presence of their three children and read it aloud to them. This document was also included in the civil divorce filing.
Earlier in the ritual, each partner was offered the opportunity to speak about forgiveness. Stephan spoke of forgiving being called terrible names. Jenny surprised everyone by speaking of offering forgiveness for the private detective her partner had assigned to report on her every movement.
"That is not the real you," she tells her soon-to-be-former partner. "I know someday you will find your center and regain your happiness." The get was then read aloud to the witnesses, one man and one woman from the congregation; the details checked and rechecked, and they took turns signing it.
Standing between the partners who are still facing away from each other, my hands hover over their heads. I adapt a phrase from the liturgy for the ending of the Sabbath, for moving from sacred time into the every day. "n'vareh et ha-mavdil beyn kodesh l'hol....Let us bless the One Who Differentiates between those who have been reserved for each other in holiness and those who are now wholly separate and free. This completes your divorce.
“A copy of your documents will be placed on file at the two rabbinical associations to which I belong in case you or future generations should need proof. While you may have an impulse now to turn to comfort one another, it is no longer your province to do so. Your friends are waiting to receive you; walk toward them and they will take you out through separate doorways."
All parts of the spectrum of Judaism allow for shlichut, whereby a “messenger,” representing one of the two parties brings the documents to the home of a partner who chooses not to attend the ritual. I can recall several occasions when we prepared the documents with only one party present and then went to the door of his or her partner who waited inside, read the statement of closure, and obtained her/his signature on a receipt for the get. This allows for those who need ritual to have it, and for those who prefer not to be present for the whole experience to still have Jewish legal and spiritual closure on their Jewish marriage.
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