Moving Forward - An Ancient Divorce Ritual for the Modern World

Tapestries of Gold

Tapestry 1

Sivan: A Transformative Vessel

I think the ceremony was a transformative vessel and had a sense of reality. I think that, by going through it, I realized what I was actually committing to.

Sivan, a very intelligent and articulate Israeli woman, was born and raised in New York, married an American man, moved to Israel, and has been an Israeli ever since. She and her husband were married for 12½ years and have three children. Since she was raised in her religion, Sivan had a deep understanding of Jewish law and life, and as such she was able to look at, and understand, her participation in the Get from a religious perspective. She understood that, in Israel, the only way to obtain a complete legal divorce and to be able to remarry within the Jewish faith was through participation in the ancient ritual of divorce, the Get, as legislated in Jewish law. I met Sivan at a party in Herzlia, Israel, after which she graciously agreed to meet with me to share her experience as a participant in the Get.

Before Sivan and her husband made the final break through civil and religious divorce proceedings, in an effort to improve their marital situation, she and her husband attended marriage counseling. Although she was very unhappy in her marriage, she questioned herself as to whether she had unrealistic expectations for marriage or whether her discontent was in fact deep enough to end a marriage. When the marital counseling failed, she and her husband came to terms with the fact that the marriage, plagued with irreconcilable differences, was indeed over. After much time, counseling, and thought, she initiated the divorce and went through the civil divorce proceedings, including matters dealing with child custody, support, and other practical issues. After all these practical matters had been settled, the religious divorce, the Get, was set up.

As the process began, Sivan mused to herself that, since all of the legal issues of the divorce had been settled, this religious ceremony was just “a big waste of time.” She felt that the Get was “just a formality” that the state of Israel required in all divorces. Only after she went through the ritual and began to look at it from the perspective of her religious background did she realize its importance.

“I think the ceremony was a transformative vessel and had a sense of reality. I don’t know how to explain how. I think that by going through it, I realized what I was actually committing myself to,” she explained. Looking at the psychological aspect of going through the Get, Sivan stated that during the ceremony she felt a “great deal of sadness,” and by going through the ceremony, she “felt the reality of separating from my husband of 12½ years.” By participating in the process, she felt her husband “actually saying to [her]: ‘I am no longer responsible for you’”; the process made it clear to her that she was “losing a partner.” “I was losing someone who was actually taking care of me.”

Looking at the actual ritual, at how it proceeded and how it affected her, Sivan talked first about how it felt to take her kettubah (marriage certificate) out of its frame and see this beautiful certificate, which symbolically represented her marital vows, ripped up by the rabbis. She shared how “upsetting this enactment was for [her].” For Sivan, this action triggered vivid memories of the feelings she felt at the time of her wedding. She remembered feelings that “he would always be at my side.” She remembered the vows that they would “always be faithful,” that they were “so in love,” and that they “would never get divorced.” With these memories of vows made long ago so vividly returning to her, she shared that when “they actually took the kettubah and tore it in half [she] felt the impact of how these vows were no longer valid.”

Sivan talked about how going through the ritual definitively pronounced that she was moving into a new phase of life and that now she “would have to stand alone,” that the man who, on their wedding day made a commitment to “care for me [her] emotionally, financially, to support me [her] clothe me [her], shelter me [her], worry about me [her],” was saying that she was now on her own. She talked about the place in the ritual when her husband said to her, in Hebrew, the words that translate as “I chase you away from my house,” and I remembered the impact and pain she felt as these words were spoken. She stated that she “took this very hard” but didn’t want to cry in front of the rabbis with whom she already felt uncomfortable. Finally, the ritual, in her words, produced the following feeling in her: “[I] was actually cutting off my ties with him and I was responsible for myself.”

Although Sivan had initiated the divorce, the ritual acted to drive home the “reality that [she was] a woman now alone,” that she now had to “stand on her own two feet” and that she had “a tremendous responsibility and a tremendous burden on [her] shoulders.” For the first time, she felt that she now “carried a family” whereas in the past, she “had someone to share that burden with.” Sivan now understood and shared the new insight and huge realization that she “had to say good-bye to a certain innocence.”

For Sivan, the actual ritual made this realization crystal clear. As she went through the ritual, it occurred to her that she now “felt like Atlas,” “holding up the world herself.” The ritual “brought home” this new fact of life to her, and “that was very scary” for her.

With respect to the logistics of the ritual itself, Sivan and her husband brought with them two witnesses, whom they thought would be witnesses to the Get, much as there were witnesses to their wedding. However, as it turned out, they were only witnesses to the accuracy of the names of both sets of parents; the Beit Din (rabbinical court) provided the actual witnesses to the Get. As such, all the witnesses and rabbis were unknown to either divorcing party, and they were all men.

When the Get began, the first rabbi was “ridiculously formal” and “legalistically inclined.” After spending inordinate amounts of time and effort getting all the correct names and forms of names of both parents, Sivan and her husband were informed that they could not complete the process in one day and would have to return another day. Sivan was very upset by this announcement, crying and requesting that they reconsider making her return another day. She had three children at home with a babysitter in a town outside of Jerusalem, she said, and could not bear to come back another day. After being refused by the first rabbi, her husband complained to another rabbi, and a second rabbi agreed to continue and finish the Get that day. Sivan thought the second rabbi had a “sense of empathy” and “pity on a human level.” In her words, she felt that the second rabbi thought “he was helping us move on with life.”

Sivan once again entered into the ritual space. This time she experienced a ritual that she described as being “the opposite side of the coin of my marriage.” For her, this ceremony, the Get, “drove it home” that the marriage vows were being undone.

Sivan described the ritual from the perspective of what she remembered thinking at the time. She talked about remembering something in a novel about the kabbalistic writing which states that when a man divorces his young bride, even God cries. She recalled that, as this thought occurred to her during the ritual, a sense of deep sadness about the divorce became palpable in the room.

Looking at how the ritual itself was structured and how the feelings in the room were contained, Sivan remembered the physical structure of the room and the people conducting the ritual. She remembered how “the Reverend, the Rabbi, sits high above, on the stage, like it could be in a court” and observed that there “was definitely a feeling of a superior power being there from a religious perspective.” She articulated her sense that “ancient law was going into effect.”

Sivan related to me that the ritual was very formal and that the atmosphere was much like that of a courtroom. In retrospect, she recalled it as “very private. We knew no one; there was something very discreet, very personal about the ritual.” Retrospectively reflecting on the tone of the ritual itself as a result of allowing no one they knew into the room with them, she shared that “they didn’t allow the people who knew us to come into the room. I had the feeling that this was done to have this ritual be only between myself, my ex-husband, and the court.”

At this time, this formal, private ritual left Sivan feeling that there was no one there to support her, that she was “very alone,” and that she was “a woman alone in a room full of men.” As such, she felt very uncomfortable. She had to cover her hair and wear modest clothing “for them” in order to “show respect” for the religious court. For Sivan, the ritual was important because it drove home the reality of her new life as a single woman. She saw the importance and value of the ritual for her, as she went through her first, and,...