Brian Schwartzman: From my home studio, welcome to Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations. Ezra Weinberg: Half the Jewish world have step families and have divorce in their family. We know the statistics. It's normal, but it's not normalized. Brian Schwartzman: I'm your host, Brian Schwartzman. Today I'll be speaking with Ariel Collis and Reb Ezra Weinberg. We'll be discussing their joint Evolve essay, the Case for Jewish Communal Support for Divorce. In short, they argued that Jewish communities in general haven't done a very good job of helping those going through divorce as well as their affected families. And by the way, if you're interested in what you hear today, if it's relevant to your life, you should know that Reb Ezra is teaching a six part online course for Ritualwell, and that's called Crossing a Narrow Bridge, Reframing Jewish Divorce. Ritual well, online Learning offers a chance to make real connections and form community. We'll have a link how to sign up in our show notes. You can also find out more at ritualwell.org. Before we get to our guest, I wanted to check in with my friend, my executive producer, Rabbi Jacob Staub. Jacob, as we're recording in early September, how are you? How are you this week? Jacob Staub: I'm really good, Brian. How are you doing? Brian Schwartzman: Well, thanks. Yeah, we need to catch up. Good to see you through the magic of, not Zoom, but Zencastr is how we're talking. Jacob Staub: It's so different. Brian Schwartzman: It is. Well, hopefully it sounds better to folks at home. Audiophiles might be able to tell the difference. So Jacob, we recorded this interview over the summer. Listeners might notice Rabbi, or Reb Weinberg makes a direct reference to Tisha B'av. For various reasons, we're releasing this now and I think it makes sense to do so. Ezra and Ariel talk about the importance of including those going through divorce in meals and community events. And as we're about to begin Sukkot, from what I understand, inviting guests is a major aspect of the holiday. So Jacob, I'm wondering if you could help say a little more about the connection between guests and Sukkot and how that might play into, thematically, hopefully it does, to this conversation we're having today. Jacob Staub: Sure. That's a great question. So I have two thoughts. One, when I think of a Sukkot, the booth, it's a temporary dwelling place where you're out in the wilds of your backyard or whatever, and it's not so secure and it's not permanent. And so it's meant to remind us that things are not permanent, including in, nowadays, the majority of cases in the US, marriages. And so connecting the Sukkot to the vulnerability of relationships, I think is something that's worth thinking about. The second point you've already alluded to, but the primary message of Reb Ezra and Ariel is that the Jewish community should find more effective ways of supporting and including individuals and families affected by divorce. And Sukkot is associated with ushpizin, which is I guess an Aramaic word for guests. We invite not only friends and family and acquaintances, but people who are not with us, who are no longer alive. Sometimes it's the patriarchs and matriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, sometimes it's a grandparent. And the Sukkot stands for bringing people in. And so I really do think that this is completely appropriate to the conversation we're about to have. Brian Schwartzman: I guess I never realized this. There's a Day of the Dead element to Sukkot where we invite our ancestors, their spirits in, or I guess I'm not familiar with this teaching. Jacob Staub: I don't know that I would call it Day of the Dead. I don't know so much about Day of the Dead, but there's definitely, not just a day of inviting people in, not just a week, but it's certainly a component of traditional Jewish life is to go to a grave before Rosh Hashanah, to invite in and communicate with your departed loved ones. And so it's not alien at all. But that's kind of an aside to the question of divorce. Brian Schwartzman: Sure. I know how much you like baseball. This is the fall, so I had to throw you a curve ball. Jacob Staub: Yeah, well you still have a few weeks before playoffs. Brian Schwartzman: Right, right, right. I feel like every time you come on the show, I put you on the spot in one way or another. So I'm going to do it again, although I did give you a heads-up. So I don't know, some, is it two decades ago? I mean, you went through what you've written about and what you've said to me was a pretty painful, difficult divorce. And I guess just coming with that experience, I'm wondering if you could tell us what resonated for you in the essay that Ezra and Ariel wrote or what they said in the interview, and maybe even why you solicited the piece to begin with. Jacob Staub: Well, let me answer that last part first. I was aware of the work that Ezra was beginning to do, I guess. I became aware almost two years ago and thought, "Yeah, this is something that's I haven't heard much about, haven't read much about that it needs surfacing." But speaking more personally, my primary memory of the years in the middle of and following the breakup of our marriage was a feeling of disorientation. Had never actually, I was 50 years old, I'd never lived alone. So the first several nights of living in an apartment alone were interesting. But in general, besides that, I was living in a new place. I was adjusting to new relationships with my kids. I was losing many of the people who had been friends of both of us who really didn't know how to handle the taking sides issue, and so they tried, but not so successfully. Everything was out of kilter. And what really helped me through was the steadfast and constant support of a number of close friends, some of whom actually called me every day, many of whom had lunch or dinner with me once a week or once every other week. And they really were anchoring in this disoriented and unmoored new kind of life. And in my case, I had really an established and wonderful community at RRC, at the Reconstruction Rabbinical College. But when I was thinking about the message of Reb Ezra and Ariel is that I would focus less on the particular program or technique of including people and more about what will work in a given case to make people feel befriended and supported and anchored and not alone, not out all by themselves. And I do think that's critical, and I think there's a lot of stuff that synagogue communities and other communities can really do to help that out. And I think their point about how we know how to deal with mourners and shiva and all that, and we don't talk about, don't really focus on divorce as an unmooring and unsettling and difficult time is completely correct and it really deserves our attention. Brian Schwartzman: Thanks, Jacob. Thanks for opening up in this way and really helping to frame and set the table for this important conversation, which I think will raise a lot of the issues that you just raised. So thank you. Jacob Staub: No problem. Brian Schwartzman: Now before we start the interview, a reminder, all of the essays discussed on this show are available to read for free on the Evolve website, which is evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org. And Evolve is of course, part of a network, a small network of websites operated, overseen by the organization Reconstructing Judaism. You might also want to check out reconstructingjudaism.org, which really explains what Reconstructionist Judaism it is and shares a lot of resources and ways to learn and connect. And of course, there's ritualwell.org. And by the way, while we're at it, if you have any interest at all in a career in the Rabbinate, check out rrc.edu. You can learn a lot you need to know about what studying for the Rabbinate might look like. And now it's time for our guest. The first is Ariel Collis, who is an economic consultant, and when he's not advising law firms on economic issues, he discusses Jewish rituals and contexts, especially with regards to those going through divorce with his friend, Reb Ezra Weinberg. He has been a member of modern Orthodox, conservative, and reconstructionist congregations. If we had a reform, we'd be going for the cycle there. He lives in Baltimore with his three children. Reb Ezra Weinberg is a Philadelphia based rabbi and practitioner of conflict transformation. He's the founder of Revoice, a Journey of Discovery for Jewish Families After Divorce. Among his various projects, he officiates weddings and Bene Mitzvah, teaches courses on connecting to Jewish prayer, and helps communities gets unstuck around the topic of Israel. When he graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2009, he became part of the first ever mother son duo to be ordained as rabbis. His mother, Rabbi Sheila Weinberg, graduated RRC in 1986. Ariel Collis, Reb Ezra Weinberg, welcome both to the Evolve podcast. It's wonderful to have you. Ariel Collis: Thank you. Ezra Weinberg: Thanks for bringing us on. Brian Schwartzman: Of course. Of course. When I first heard from Rabbi Jacob Staub that there was going to be an Evolve essay on divorce and Jewish communal support for divorce, I sort of wondered at first like, "Wasn't this a cutting edge issue in the 1970s? Hasn't it become normalized in society?" It sounded off the face of it less cutting edge than some of the things we normally talk about. And your essay that you wrote together tells a really compelling different story. And I thought a place to start to illustrate is Ariel, I was wondering if you could share the episode of what happened when you approached your congregational rabbi in the, as you were in the stages of going through a separation or divorce. Ariel Collis: Sure. So Ezra and I, for a long time, had been talking about divorce ever since sort of my separation from my ex-wife. And one of the things that he mentioned was that, "Why don't you go to the rabbi? Why don't you seek counsel? See what he has to say about this." So I went to the rabbi, it was almost a homework assignment that I was given, and I went to the rabbi and I said to him, "I'm going through a very confusing, very difficult time. Is there any advice that you can give me?" And he basically said, "Well, Judaism has something to say about the Get, but that's about it. There's really no other, no other advice I can give you." And- Brian Schwartzman: And what's a Get, again? Sorry. Ariel Collis: Excuse me. And then that's a Jewish divorce document. Jewish document of divorce. And I was like, "Okay, well, is there anything more?" And he gave me some advice about joining communal organizations and things like that, but nothing really specific to my situation. And I found that very alienating and I felt like there must be something more. And that was one of the reasons that I started talking to Ezra about publishing these ideas that he had about being more, about bringing in Judaism to help people through the process of divorce and using Jewish customs and things that really work to help people get through this. Brian Schwartzman: Wow. I didn't realize it was a collaborative effort, almost a test case. I mean, Ezra, when you heard this, was that the response you were expecting? Did it confirm sort of a hypothesis? Had you had similar experiences? Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, I mean, Ariel and I, we were friends as kids. I lived in Philadelphia until I was 14, and our friendship reignited after a long lapse around our divorce. And I had a hunch that rabbis typically have a deer in headlights response to divorce. That's just one of the things... I'm a rabbi. I was not given any real training around how to console and connect and help a family reconfigure itself. And I went through this as a child, both Ariel and I went through this as children. And so when Ariel and I met, we decided... We became divorced, [foreign language 00:16:46], I like to call just people, we would talk to each other once a month and kind of check in about this dual experience. And yeah, I had a hunch that the rabbis were not going to be able to show up for Ariel as... It's not in the playbook, it's not in the rabbinic playbook in any movement really. Unless you have that direct experience yourself, it's very hard to know what to say. There's nothing in Judaism to say to someone when you hear that they're getting divorced. Some people say that you should say mazel tov, but most people just say, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," and that's a really complicated thing to say to somebody when you don't really know what's going on. It comes off as a consolation, like there was a death and there are death aspects of it. But to say you're sorry, maybe you're just sorry that they got divorced. And maybe that's not an appropriate thing to say. Brian Schwartzman: What is an appropriate thing to say when you encounter someone who's been divorced right after it? Or is it totally depend on 15 different contexts that you may not be aware of? Ezra Weinberg: No, that's just such a good question. I think what's not an okay thing to say is not intuitive, but don't assume what people are feeling. So if you say mazel tov or I'm sorry, you're indicating, "Oh, they must be in this really bad state," or "Oh, they must be really relieved." And both those things are probably true at different times, but I think you want to give a values neutral statement indicating you care. So the thing that was most helpful to me that someone said to me once was, "Wow, that's a big deal. That's huge." And they also said, "What would be a helpful response in this moment?" And I thought that was a great question. What would be a helpful response? They let me kind of determine the emotional reality that I needed in that moment. Brian Schwartzman: So acknowledging the power without necessarily assigning a positive or negative value judgment to it- Ezra Weinberg: Or an emotion. Brian Schwartzman: ... could be helpful. Emotion. Ezra Weinberg: Yeah. A rabbi friend of mine from the reconstructionist movement, Rabbi Jamie Arnold in Colorado, and I came up with something else to say, which we'd like to, we think it would be helpful. One possible response could be what we say when we finish a Book of the Torah. I think two weeks ago when we finished the Book of Numbers, there's a phrase that says [foreign language 00:19:52], which means "May you go from strength and be strengthened, and we all shall be strengthened." But what it indicates is it's the end of, when you say that you finish a chapter of the Torah and you go to the next chapter, and it's such a good metaphor, you're ending one chapter of your life and you're going to another chapter and you're praying for strength. Who doesn't need that? Brian Schwartzman: Wow. And it seems really fortunate and maybe essential that you two had each other as [inaudible 00:20:27], as you were going through this. And I think what you didn't say is that you actually met as children when your parents were going through divorce, which is really striking. But yet, I mean, I think each of you wanted something more from community. I mean, you wrote that Judaism is meant to be a full service religion with wisdom, community built in, especially during the most defining moment of our lives. So I guess Ariel, maybe you could start, can you talk about what you were looking for that you didn't find, that you felt like you couldn't go to your community for? Ariel Collis: Sure. I think I was looking for, I mean, I don't know that I knew that I was looking for this at the time, but over time, this is what it's evolved into, what I've seen that I was looking for. I was looking for three things. One, somebody to say, "You are not alone. I've experienced the same things that you have." And while my friends who hadn't gone through it could offer sympathy, they couldn't offer empathy, and that was one of the things that I was looking for. And then also that somebody cared. That was the other thing. That I was not alone, but then there was also caring behind it. Because I think unless you've gone through it's harder to both give the empathy and the caring and also to understand really that you're not alone. Because I think for some people who haven't experienced it does feel like an other experience and not something that they relate to, directly. And I think that's sometimes some of the comments that people give that impression, the expression of you're an other rather than you're one of us. Ezra Weinberg: Can I add? Ariel Collis: Please. Brian Schwartzman: Absolutely. Ezra Weinberg: One of the things that Ariel wrote and brought to that article that really struck me, and I've talked about this in multiple settings, is I think the rabbi said, "We don't take sides." And that was such a fear-based moment, I think, from the rabbi, and I think actually governs a lot of people's response to divorce. They're so afraid of taking sides or appear as though they're taking sides, that it paralyzes them from doing anything. It's as if the excuse "We don't take sides" prevents any possible ways of connecting, comforting, bringing resources and support. And it's really unfortunate that fear has really governed the course of action around it and has not, many people have not been able to move beyond the fear of taking sides. There's a lot you can do, and you could even, you could cultivate a language of how not to take sides. That is one of the things we've talked about is how to move forward in the conversation. Even if sides, if blame comes up, how to not go down that path and still... Because it's, divorce is messy, we can't get around that, but I believe we're sophisticated enough people that we can still offer support and other resources that don't hinge on our ability to be partial. Does that make sense? Ariel Collis: Yeah. And if I could add, I think that one of the things that we're trying to talk about is that maybe the first thing is the support. Maybe the first offer is support, rather than the "I don't take sides," because that's really what you need to hear at that moment, that I support you. And supporting doesn't necessarily have to be taking sides one way or another in divorce. "I'm here for you. What can I do? How can I help?" sort of thing. Brian Schwartzman: What would you say to folks who view divorce as a failure or, either from the outside or the inside, or isn't even something shameful? Ariel Collis: Well, I guess first in a sense, it doesn't matter because even if you view it as a failure or a tragedy or something awful, you still need somebody to support you. And that's something that the community can do. If you normalize the experience, if you make it public, if you make it regular, then even if it is felt as a tragedy or as a failure, it can be very useful in helping the person get through the situation. I know that Ezra might have a slightly different take on the issue. Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. And I think it's actually very, the feeling of failure is very insidious, because we give so much weight to the success of marriage. Marriage is like for many people, the most important thing they do in their entire life. And so to not succeed, and to feel like it fails, breaks a lot of notions of who someone is and who they thought they were and the life they were leading. But I think most of us in society value a failed experience. You hear from the world of sports that most athletes, they learn from their failures, and we just don't... Anyone who's successful talks about their failures. So we just don't like to, many of us don't like to apply that thinking to relationships because the stakes are so high. But I don't know, I think it is a block for a lot of people. I was having this discussion, it was a real debate, like is divorce the same thing as a failed marriage? And can you differentiate between a relationship that didn't last versus you yourself being the failure? And I think those two get often intertwined, "Well, my marriage didn't last. I must be the failure." And there's that feeling and pervasive, but we have to think the support we would get in synagogue would help us push those two apart. The marriage was one thing, and who we are continues and thrives and can thrive. Brian Schwartzman: Has Evolve nourished your thinking? Deepened your conversations? Consider supporting our work and learning with our groundbreaking teachers. The next Evolve web conversation is Monday, October 2nd at 1:00 PM Eastern Time. I know that's pretty soon, sorry for the short notice, but it's with Rabbi Lex Rothberg. You may know Lex as the co-host of the very popular and influential podcast Judaism Unbound. Lex has written for Evolve and also serves as an Evolve board member, and he helped us with some really helpful advice when we started this podcast. The title of his talk is Pillars of the Cloud, the Liberatory Potential of Digital Judaism and supporters who contribute $250 or more can join this conversation live. That's Monday, October 2nd at 1:00 PM Eastern. You can find a link to sign up on our show notes or more information on evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org. And if you haven't checked out Judaism Unbound, why not start with episode 3/26, which came out just a couple weeks ago. Lex and his co-host Dan Levison interview Marcus Holly, a rabbinical student at RRC, who is an operatically trained theater artists and ritual leader. We'll also have a link to that show in the notes back to the conversation with Ariel and Ezra. One of the practical suggestions you offer in the essay is what if communities offered meal trains for people going through divorce? And I wanted to ask why that's important, and also because it does evoke illness and death, I feel like that's usually, or maybe birth with... So I guess how do we think about that in the context of what we usually associate meal trains with? Ariel Collis: Sure. I guess there's two things. One in the experience that I grew up with, food was a way of showing affection. And to have the community come out and give you food and sort of take care of you at a time of great need is a wonderful thing, and it's very comforting and it can be a huge help. But one of the things that I was told by my mother, when she went through her divorce process, that helped her was the community coming out and inviting her to meals also. Not just giving, but inviting her out, providing a social context, providing a community. And these were people from her synagogue. And that sort of gave her life regularity, good food, a friend group, people to choose from, from a friend group. And it was really of vital importance to her. And I think that's a wonderful thing. But at its most basic level, just helping out and taking care of the most basic needs of somebody. You see that with funerals, you see that... You do see that with births, death, that, it's a beautiful thing. And I think it shows people are loved and supported and that can help somebody through a very, very tough time. Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, yeah. Just figuring out ways to show up for people. There's this weird sense with divorce, unlike the other lifecycle events, that it's a private thing and that we should be hidden from view. And there's an isolation that happens from that. People don't want to meddle in with the divorce. They're afraid of what the ugliness that it might ensue. But supporting someone is not inherently ugly. And it's also when it comes to support around shiva, it's, halachically Jewish law forbids you to be by yourself, be alone for your morning period. You have to have a minion, you have to be around people, you can't go through this yourself. But in divorce, you can totally go through it by yourself, and there's no mechanism to prevent that from happening. So I think what Ariel, we were talking about is different ways of showing up for people so they don't get isolated. Because I think when we go through something difficult, there is for many of us an instinct to hide, "I don't want people to see what I'm going through," but one of the purposes of community is to show up in difficult moments so that we traverse that instinct and give us what we actually need rather than what our alarmist, fear-based, scared brain is going through, which is like, "Oh, I don't want anyone to know what's going on with me." That's an instinct, we need to, the Jewish community helps us push through that and it should in this lifecycle event as well. Brian Schwartzman: So I've got lots more questions, but I think it's a good time to point out that you've started a project with the goal of changing attitudes and behaviors around this with a project, a new project called Revoice. So can you tell us what it is and what you're doing, what you hope to do? Ezra Weinberg: Sure. Thank you. The idea for Revoice, which is basically a network of resources for Jews going through divorce, it came out of this bizarre realization that the resources that didn't exist for my parents, when they were going through a divorce, continue to not exist for me today. And I realized that when I began thinking about my first child's bar mitzvah coming up and realizing that I'm in the middle of a divorce myself, and there's no playbook to help us and help any rabbi we're working with kind of figure out how to negotiate, how to have a conversation, how to bring back families, a family that was basically a united family that was divided. How do you do that for a day? And my own personal situation as a kid, I had two bar mitzvahs. Brian Schwartzman: Wow. Ezra Weinberg: My parents, they did not have, there was no support then. There was no organization to give advice. There were no mediators, there wasn't even the language around it. And they couldn't figure out how to get along enough to figure out one Bar mitzvah. So I had two bar mitzvahs on consecutive weeks- Brian Schwartzman: For different sides of the family? Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, it was very weird. It was very last minute. It's a whole story. But then as I'm, 35 years later, I'm going through this myself and the situation hasn't changed. I feel like we need to construct an approach to divorce in the Jewish world. It just doesn't exist. And so Revoice is the beginning of that. And so, one of the projects, I developed a course called the Torah of Divorce, which I've "taught at a few different synagogues in Philadelphia, just to help people think about it. And every time I teach this class, people come up to me and they're like, wow, Judaism has something to say about divorce?" Yes, Judaism has a lot to say about divorce. In fact, I said I would mention Tisha B'av, which is today, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the temples of the Jerusalem. For those who are studying the Talmud and the cycle of the Talmud, it's called Daf Yomi. It's this page of Talmud every day. This month, we're exactly the moment in the Talmud where we're studying the tractate on divorce, it's called [foreign language 00:36:39]. And literally a couple of weeks ago, there was a whole chapter of [foreign language 00:36:44]. It took a break from all the divorce laws and all of the information about what you do to deliver a divorce. And it had a whole chapter on the destruction of the temple, which I found really interesting and surprising. And I was like, "Wow, what does the destruction of the temple have to do with divorce?" So I felt very appropriate that we should be meeting today and having a podcast about divorce on the anniversary of the destruction of the temple because it's right there in the Talmud. And that's my point is that Judaism has all kinds of conversations about divorce. Historically. We have laws about it. We have part of tractate of the Talmud, it's in the Torah. Divorce and marriage are in the Torah, not as we know them now, but... So the fact that what Ariel said earlier that there could be a conception that Judaism, from a rabbi, that Judaism doesn't talk about divorce, it's not true. We have a whole history of divorce. And so Revoice is about bringing the tradition back and helping us navigate a pathway forward to support people through this process. Brian Schwartzman: And have you thought about it? Is there a metaphor there between divorce and the destruction of the temple? Does it raise more questions than answers for you? What did you take away from that? Ezra Weinberg: Absolutely. I mean, it's not a perfect metaphor because you could say that God divorces Israel. There's language around that, in the tradition, that God is divorcing Israel and we are left alone and God abandons us, really using high conflict narrative. But it's hard to fully justify because God reclaims us around Rosh Hashanah. So seven weeks of this weird period between today and Rosh Hashanah, it's exactly seven weeks actually. But some of the imagery is really stark, too, like a high conflict divorce, in the Book of Lamentations, which is typically read traditionally on Tisha B'av. Brian Schwartzman: Ariel. You are not a rabbi, you're not a Jewish communal professional, but you're a very engaged Jew who grew up sort of embraced by the Jewish community, found a lot of meaning there. What are you hoping to accomplish beyond finding more comfort for yourself? It seems like you also have changes you'd like to see in the broader world. Ariel Collis: Well, the reason I wanted to write this article was that Ezra and I... Really, he reached out to me after my separation and like he said, we had a divorce talking group, and we really hashed out the issues in our divorce. And throughout that time, he just started talking about these ideas that he had about making it more public, giving people support using Jewish traditions. And I would kind of push him with that. And I would say, "Okay, well when you say support, do you mean with a shiva? What do you mean?" And we'd go back and forth and we'd hash this out. And eventually I was like, "These are really good ideas." And I started sharing them with everybody that I knew. And what I wanted to do with this article was just get it out to more people. I think it's important ideas. I think it helped me. I think it could help a lot of other people. And certainly if a rabbi had a playbook that could help them to have words to say you to somebody who goes to them and says, "What should I do about my divorce? I've just got divorced. Do you have any advice?" And they have something, they have Jewish tradition, they have things that they could institute within the congregation to help make the transition back to going to shul easier, to make the transition back to life easier, depending on the time within the process, when things start settling down, integrate me back into the congregation more fully when I want to get out there. If a rabbi could have that, if the congregation could have those steps, that would be hugely helpful for me, and then I thought, "This would be helpful for a lot of other people," and that's what I wanted to share. And also, I wanted to prompt Ezra to start writing the playbook that he's talking about. Brian Schwartzman: I will share, before this interview, I had a conversation with Rabbi Linda Holtzman, who is a long-standing teacher at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and teaches a lot of what we call practical rabbinics, how to be a rabbi. And I asked about divorce in the curriculum, and she said when she was a student, I believe in the late seventies, they learned the laws of divorce, and that was it. That was all there was. And she said in 2023, and I know Ezra, you've graduated a few years ago at this point, that things are a lot different. That they do talk a lot about how the rabbi can oft be, serve in a pastoral role in this case and really look for, to be attuned to what the person going through a divorce in this lifecycle might be feeling. And try to figure out ways that the rabbi, and I guess by extension the community might be of service. So I'm wondering if that's encouraging, if there are things you think could or should be added to the curriculum. Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, I learned with Rabbi Linda at RRC, was in her lifecycles class. And I think one of the assignments was to re-envision a divorce ritual, maybe a more meaningful and experience in a separation. So I know RRC has a creative approach to ritual and lifecycle events, which is valuable, but that's one piece of a large puzzle. And divorce is a, it's a paradigm changer for someone's life. When there's kids, it changes their lives too, dramatically, and changes your relationship, can change your relationship to God, to religion, to community, to your family, to all future lifecycle events. There's such a domino effect that divorce has on someone's life. And I'd like the curriculum to kind of, I don't know, hold the gravitas of this moment. Yeah, no. So one thing I'm offering in Revoice is we're developing a curriculum for rabbis to train them as divorce first responders, because a lot of rabbis are in that role anyway, but they don't have the training. And maybe rabbinical schools... Eventually, I would like to get this into rabbinical schools. I'd like rabbis to have, to understand what's going on in a divorce, to know where they can be helpful and where they're in over their heads. Maybe if it's too high conflict, it's out of their purview, but just having the language. Most people don't even know that high conflict is a term, for a high conflict divorce. There's just amicable and everything else. And so developing a little bit of language, but this training is aimed at helping clergy, of all the different kinds of clergy we have in the Jewish community, help them respond confidently and effectively to divorce situations. Ariel Collis: And if I could add, so I live in Baltimore and there's a large modern Orthodox community, and I have lots of friends in the modern Orthodox community and some of my friends read our article and they thought, wow, "This is good and this is relevant." I don't think this is sort of out of the ordinary and it's not... It's something that's sort of doesn't need to be off the beaten path for Judaism. There's a lot of room within Judaism to integrate this and not just in the reconstructionist movement. I think that certainly modern Orthodox where... The synagogue that I went to is modern Orthodox. The rabbis that I went to were modern orthodox, so they certainly wouldn't have studied at RRC. And I think that there's a lot of things that would be good and relevant, that don't take people to too weird of a path, that would be good to integrate into just regular synagogue life, like starting rituals that could go across the Jewish sex. Ezra Weinberg: Let me give two examples. I just had my first, I'm calling it a Jewish men's divorce circle, and it's a virtual men's group, of divorced men who were different places in their divorce, but just to come together to talk. And we just had our first meeting a couple days ago, and two ideas came up from this meeting. It wasn't even a brainstorm, but I just like when we get together, people who are going through similar challenges, ideas come up. One of them said, "I wish I could say Kaddish for my marriage. I wish I could, but the problem is I don't know when to start." Because divorce, this isn't an event. Usually it's a protracted moment that kind of keeps, has layers to it. But I loved hearing that. "I wish I could say Kaddish for my marriage." The other idea was basic mentorship. Like someone who's been divorced a long time being coupled up with someone who's newly divorced. We do this, the alcoholic movement does this, they call it sponsorship. You get someone who's been in recovery for a long time as a sponsor to a new person. It's not a brilliant idea, but it's basic support systems from other places that could be useful. Brian Schwartzman: Let me ask this, since you mentioned a Jewish, you mentioned Jewish men support groups. Do you think Jewish men might experience divorce differently or have unique needs in a Jewish community? Ezra Weinberg: I don't like to make too many broad sweeping generalizations, but my sense is that it is more common for men to kind of isolate themselves. And the divorce support that does exist typically is about around abuse, and that's going to be much more centered around women. And apologize if I sound overly heteronormative about this, but- Brian Schwartzman: I guess it was a heteronormative question, so you could blame me if I set you up there. Ezra Weinberg: Okay. But yeah, when it comes to abuse, that's much more typically around women and the aguna issue, in the Orthodox world, women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce, a Get, much more that's halachically according to Jewish law, much more of a problem for women whose ex-husbands won't grant them the status of divorced so they can move on. So yeah, typically, I've noticed that there haven't been a lot of support services around divorce targeted towards men, this is why I wanted to experiment, at least, with a men's group. Brian Schwartzman: If you're enjoying this episode, please take a moment to give us a five star rating or leave a review in Apple Podcast. These ratings really help people find out about the show. And by the way, I'm excited about this, we are so close to 100,000 episodes downloaded. You're listening, you're really listening. Just 2,000 to go, I can't believe it. Thank you for listening and help us cross this threshold. It's going to happen really soon. All right, now back to our conversation. Ariel, one suggestion that got into the article, which I found really striking was this idea or a question even of what would it look like if congregations started putting announcements about divorce in their bulletins, if they're still mailing printed bulletins, or in their weekly emails? I wasn't sure if that was a thought experiment if you were advocating for this as something congregations should do, but I wanted to hear more about it. Ariel Collis: One of the things that really fascinated me, when we started talking about this, was the similarities and the path that can be shown through Jewish customs having to do with death. So one of the things that, a stark contrast between divorce and how we handle death is death, though very painful, I mean one of the most painful things in people's lives, and certainly people don't want to think about and they don't want to talk about death, but yet it becomes extremely public with congregations. They announce it from the bema, they announce it in the newsletters, they have people, after they do rituals around mourning, they come and they give talks about their life and they give contributions to the synagogue and they have meals dedicated to them in the synagogue. So all of this I saw, and I saw that this was incredibly helpful for people. So one of the things that Ezra had suggested was what if you could do the same things with divorce? So you could announce it from the bema, but one of his key provisos was if somebody wants it. It would be a question that was asked in advance. But one, it would take care of a big problem, which is you have to go around to everybody individually and tell them that you're divorced. And I think that's similar with death, that you'd have to go, without these announcements, the person, it would be an onus on the person to go around to everybody individually and say, "Listen, this relative died. I'm very sad." Which you're in no condition to do when you're in a position of mourning. And I think similar with divorce, I didn't want to go up to everybody and say, "Hey, I'm splitting from my wife," or "Hey, I'm in the middle of a divorce right now."But if you announce it from the bema, that would take that burden away from people and it would also make it public and it would also make it less of, there'd be less stigma around it because the rabbi's saying it, everybody heard it, there's no... It's not private, it's not shameful. It's something that's just out there. So again, I don't know that everybody would want to do that, but I think of a few people heard it and they saw the reaction from a congregation, a largely sympathetic reaction. I think that would go a long way to alleviating some of the shame and some of the isolation that comes along with that announcement. And I think that could possibly be a good thing. Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, I try to envision this, what this would look like because I haven't fully landed on how this could be executed and how it could ultimately work. And like Ariel says, it's not for everybody, but a few examples could really start something. I go to the South Philly Shtiebel, the synagogue that I attend, and at the end of synagogue, just envisioning they do announcements and they do like this Kaddish has been sponsored by the list of people, so-and-so on your wedding, everybody says "Mazel tov!" So-and-so on the memory of your parents, [inaudible 00:54:57]. And they'll say, [foreign language 00:55:00], they can easily switch from the mazel tov energy to the condolence energy. And then so what if they said, "And I want to also announce that we have a separation in our community this week and we just want to offer you [foreign language 00:55:15], may you have strength in this transitional moments." I know another synagogue in Philadelphia, BCBI, where someone has had a divorciversary Kaddish, but the synagogue didn't want them to announce that. So they have had to kind of couch it because they were like, they didn't want to want to broadcast divorce. There was this weird shame around it. I appreciate the pioneering work of this person trying to do that, but it's clearly difficult for a community to imagine how to bring in this lifecycle in a public way. But I think it's important to envision how we could be more public because being private hasn't served. Being overly private as a gut instinct hasn't reduced the amount of shame, that sense of failure, that goes along with this. So I do want to encourage out of the box thinking around this. Brian Schwartzman: It's funny when I first read that, I interpreted it as sort of almost like a declaration of a divorce positive statement. This is a good thing that we're recognizing. And now after listening to you, I'm hearing it more as here is a way to name and identify the enormity of the thing and all the complicated emotions that go with it. So I don't know if either is closer to the intent, but I'm hearing it a different way today than when I read it. Ariel Collis: Yeah, I think that, again, the principles around dealing with death I think are a good guide, that this is an enormous event and it's a huge break from the past, and there's a tendency to isolate. There's a tendency to want to be by yourself, but at a time when you really need support and you really need a community to be there. And really the only way for the community to be there is to be told to be there. You need to announce the shiva minions in order for people to show up. And similarly, there needs to be something public in order for people to show up. Brian Schwartzman: We haven't talked a lot about kids maybe because that could be its own, forget podcast, its own course or something. But I guess I'm wondering generally, or even in your own experience, what are some of the biggest challenges to keeping children whose parents are going through a divorce or separation actively engaged in Jewish life or just limiting the general life disruption? Ezra Weinberg: I mean, one of the key things that was done for us as children, I mean our mothers were introduced to each other specifically because they were two divorced women in an era where there wasn't a lot of divorce. And so consequential to that, Ariel and I became friends who were going through the same thing as children. I think that that should be obvious. People who are going through divorce should be connected with other people who are going through it, so you don't feel alone. That's the key trope in this is that you don't feel alone. And so that's important for children as much as it is, if not more than for the adults, that you can have someone who really can identify with your experience, who knows what it's like to go between houses, if that's the arrangement, who knows what it's like to have step-families... I mean, it's funny that I'm saying this. Back to your point, Brian at the beginning, how this is, we thought, this is so normal. It is normal. Half the Jewish world have step-families and have divorce in their family. We know the statistics, it's normal, but it's not normalized. For children either. It's not normalized in the Jewish community. We haven't updated our synagogue structures and the way we talk about this, we haven't updated... I'll quote Rabbi Perry Netter who wrote the book Divorce is a Mitzvah. It's a great book on the subject, wrote it about 20 years ago. And he said, "Synagogues operate typically, and not all of them, but still the typical synagogue operates under the mama bear, papa bear, and baby bear model of Jewish life." And that's not Jewish life anymore. But we haven't figured out a way to talk about it publicly, to normalize it yet. So that's part of what Revoice is aiming to do, is to bring it into the discourse. And I think that children need to see that too. That it's normal, that it's normalized. They feel like it's normal. They know a lot of people, but it hasn't been seen as okay, in terms of the way we talk about Jewish life. Ariel Collis: I mean, one of the things that we were talking about that did not make it into the article was the idea of a rabbinic checklist for divorced parents that after the separation and divorce, the rabbi just has a checklist like, "Okay, have you thought about holidays? Have you thought about their bar mitzvah? Have you thought, here's some basic steps that you can take. 1, 2, 3," and then they just... Things that you wouldn't think about. You talk about splitting holidays, or where would the kids be? How would they get to synagogue? And also, I think this did make it into the article that a list of intentions for the parents, not only where they are now, but where they will be in a little bit. Like, in a little bit, would it be okay for both of you to go to synagogue together on the high holidays? In a little bit, would it be okay to do Shabbat together every now and then just as a broader family celebration? And I think if a rabbi had something, a checklist like that, then I think one of the things that a kid would see was, "Oh, okay, this is normal. People have this planned out. People aren't just floundering around. They have a plan and I feel safe in that plan." And that would be something that I think it certainly would've been better for me both as a kid and as an adult if somebody had gone in and say, "Oh yeah, no, there's a standard checklist for all. This is something that people have put in a lot of thought into." Brian Schwartzman: Ariel. We started out with an example of where you unfortunately felt really blown off by a particular rabbi. Since you've started this work, you've written about it, is there an example you had where something went right for you in a Jewish context, or you felt held and supported? Just so we have some sense of what a more positive way would look like. Ariel Collis: I think I'm still figuring out that. I don't know that I've felt... I mean, I've gone to synagogue and I felt the warm embrace of a congregation that knows that I'm divorced and is okay with that and is good to me in that. And that feels very comforting, and I feel like I'm still part of the congregation and that's wonderful, but I think there still is a whole lot of confusion and it hasn't been figured out yet. So I don't know that I have a wholly positive story. I think maybe Ezra, do you? Ezra Weinberg: I mean, I'm an unusual case because I'm teaching about this stuff as well, so I'm kind of refusing to be isolated about it. I'm kind of made it my crusade to help people, but I am collecting, I am in the beginning process of trying to collect stories from people. That's another thing that's helpful is hearing other people's stories. That's what's powerful about group work is hearing that, because I keep thinking about Tisha B'av, and feel like your question, Brian, reminds me the afternoon of Tisha B'av, it goes from this really dark place of destruction and mourning and desolation and the afternoon. It's the only service in the afternoon where you're supposed to wear [foreign language 01:04:29] and [foreign language 01:04:31], the leather straps that you wrap around your arm. It's the only service of the year you wear it in the afternoon. And the reason for it is that the end of Tisha B'av is like this birth of hope, of a Messianic figure, we'll call it, is born on Tisha B'av, so in the midst of despair. I actually, Messianism is not, is considered kind of a fundamentalist aspect of religion, but I actually had a messianic experience with divorce in my own life. My parents who had a very high conflict divorce, my entire childhood and adulthood through college, through young adulthood, I actually moved to Israel partly to get away from them. I moved back. When my kid was born, it took about 36 years for my parents to finally realize, "Oh, we can be together. We can actually spend time together. We actually have stuff in common." And now my parents get together for birthdays and for Shabbat sometimes. We were together last week on Shabbat. For me, that's a messianic vision of what can happen. Sometimes it takes a lot of years and many... But it can happen that a relationship can get transformed. One that's defined by high conflict can shift, and so I witnessed that in my life. Took a long time. But I don't want to be prescriptive and say that's going to happen to you. But I also believe transformation does happen and it happens more with intention and with tools, and they didn't have those tools. It took a lot of time. But for me, my parents' relationship, now, is a success story even though it was a very long, took decades. Brian Schwartzman: Wow. Ezra Weinberg: So it gives me some hope that I can offer that to other people. Ariel Collis: And I just realized that the perfectly obvious answer to your question, which I completely ignored, is that everything within the context of my relationship with Ezra, and the support that he's given, and the ideas that he's generated, and what I've learned, is within a Jewish context. My mother met her best friend in Jewish day school. Her best friend recommended that after she got divorced, that she should talk to another recent divorcee. That was Ezra's mother, Ezra's mother's a rabbi. They were put together because they were deeply involved in the Jewish community and they could relate to each other. This is not, these were not random connections, and this is all in our conversations. Then the support that Ezra's given me, and I hope that I've given him, have all been within the context of a Jewish thought process on these issues, which has been an amazingly positive influence in my life. It's helped me get through some very, very tough times. So I would say that yes, the Jewish context of our conversations has helped and the Jewish community has given me an avenue of amazing support. So I couldn't think of it, but I think it's because it's like the fish, "What do you mean there's water?" It's just that it's all around me and that's part of it. Brian Schwartzman: Wow. Ezra, can you tell us where people can find or learn more about Revoice at this point? Ezra Weinberg: Yeah. Right now I just have a Facebook page, which you can look, you can search on Facebook for Revoice, but I am putting up a website this summer. That's my, I'm in the middle of launching that. So when it's up, I will give you that information. Brian Schwartzman: And if it's up before we go live with this episode, it will be in our show notes. Ezra Weinberg: Great. Brian Schwartzman: Ariel, Ezra, thank you both so much for a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate everything you brought to the table and bringing this conversation to the forefront. Ariel Collis: Thank you for having us on. Ezra Weinberg: Yeah, thanks for giving us this opportunity. Brian Schwartzman: What did you think of today's episode? I want to hear from you. Evolve is about curating meaningful conversations and your very much a part of that. Send me your questions, comments, feedback. You can reach me at my real actual email address, bschwartzman@reconstructingjudaism.org. S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z-M-A-N. And folks you've actually been writing, I wanted to share a portion of what one new listener wrote because I was touched and thought you might want to hear it. This is Lynn Schwartz from Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, Oregon. Lynn wrote, "It was very rewarding to listen to Brian's conversation with Rabbi Kamasar about preparing for the high holidays and so much more," and she's referring to our most recent conversation with Rabbi Nathan Kamasar. Thank you so much, Lynn. We're thrilled to have you join our community of listeners. By the way, Lynn also wrote, "Incidentally, as a person with hearing loss, I often read transcripts when available as I'm listening to a podcast or other recordings. I appreciate that a transcript is available on your site, though, as you likely know, it sometimes found some, but not all, Hebrew words confounding." Thanks again, Lynn. We are committed to accessibility and that's why we publish a full transcript for every episode. If you're listening on your phone, there's a link in the episode description to the webpage, or you could go to evolve.fireside.fm and find the episode. The transcripts are available under episode details. Now, we know they aren't perfect, so if you spot an issue or have a suggestion on how the transcript or any aspect of the show could be better, please let me know. Again, you can reach me at bschwartzman@reconstructingjudaism.org. We'll be back next month with an all new episode. Evolve, Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations is executive produced by Rabbi Jacob Staub and edited by Sam Walks. Our theme song, [inaudible 01:11:28], is by Rabbi Miriam Margoles. This show is a production of Reconstructing Judaism. I'm your host, Brian Schwartzman, and we'll see you next time.