The marriage was over. The civil divorce was final. Yet there was another knot to be untied. Within the Jewish religious tradition there is another divorce, a Jewish divorce, a “Get.” This document is necessary to enable both parties to be remarried within the religion at some future time. Civil divorces are not recognized as legitimate in the more religious circles of Jewish culture, from Conservative to Orthodox.
Only the man, the husband can request the “Get” from his wife, through an Orthodox rabbi, and traditionally she will grant his request.
In America, the tradition of the Jewish divorce is now uncommon. Married couples separate, divorce and remarry without much religious contact.
In this case, the mother of the wife was religious and wanted her daughter to be free in the future to remarry as a Jewish woman. The ex-wife called the ex-husband and asked him unofficially of course, if he would be willing to request a “Get”. He agreed and they planned to go together to an Orthodox rabbi in Northeast Philadelphia, where newly settled Russian immigrants live, where the “old-time” Orthodox Judaism flourishes. Here the religious Jewish men wear black suits and black felt hats. Their sideburns are long and curly. The women dress plainly and with long skirts. They cover their heads with a wig, called a “Shet’l”.
At the Jewish divorce ceremony only one woman is present, the wife of the husband who was requesting the “Get.” The Rabbi who performs the ceremony is a leader in the local Hasidic sect. In this case the Rabbi lived in a modest semi-detached home in a new neighborhood of houses, built close together, with newly sodded lawns, and no landscaping.
The two people who had lived together now drove separately to the street, where all the houses looked the same. The only distinguishing indicator of the rabbi’s home was the number of the address. One car parked behind the other at the curb in front of the empty street. The two got out of their cars and met in the center of the sidewalk that led to the rabbi’s home. The distance between the street and the front door felt like the aisle in a Synagogue that led to the marriage canopy, but the opposite event was about to occur.
Together they walked nervously toward the door. The distance seemed great, like a surreal dream. Their hands touched accidentally, and then they clasped, walking together toward an unknown experience.
Their hands released as the doorbell button was pressed. Some light shuffling could be heard inside the house. Then the door opened wide, and a slight very pale young man with a sparse beard and the usual black suit and black hat greeted them with a soft and solemn “Shalom.” He reached out and shook the hand of the husband, but not the wife, and said: “Follow me.” He had a definite Slavic accent.
They followed silently down a dimly lit, bare hall to the basement stairway. There was a woman in a simple housedress, who glanced at them from the kitchen, where she cooked aromatic food in large pots. Her look was quick, and then back to her work. This was none of her business.
Down the stairs behind the serious young man, they entered a large furnished room with a white linoleum floor. A number of men, all dressed the same milled around. One was older than the others, but not a white bearded Rabbi that the couple expected. He was another sparse bearded older man with the attitude of a leader among all of the others.
One man sat at a table with an old-fashioned ink pen, a large opened bottle of black ink and a plain white piece of paper. The Rabbi had other assistants who would facilitate the mysterious ceremony that lay ahead.
A specific part of the room was considered the sanctuary, where the divorce ceremony was to occur, no separate walls, just a space separated by white lines of tape on the floor.
The man seated at the table, the scribe, got up, put on and then took off his overcoat as he moved back to his table with the writing materials. The rabbi went to the coat rack, and put on his overcoat as if dressing to go outside to a different building. After all of his buttons were fastened, he crossed the line into the ceremonial space, unbuttoned his coat, removed it, and placed it over the back of a chair.
The couple stood silent and clueless while these rituals were conducted.
Then the Rabbi spoke with a heavy accent to the husband. He asked for basic information, the husband’s name, and the names of his parents, and grandparents. Without raising his eyes he asked for the same information from the wife. The scribe wrote in Hebrew everything that was said.
The couple stood next to each other, half amused and half intimidated by the activity around them. They caught each other’s eyes and smiled. They both stifled the desire to laugh out loud, successfully, thank God.
Eyes returned to the Rabbi, who was speaking Hebrew as fast as humanly possible. Yet the scribe wrote with his usual rhythm slowly and carefully, missing nothing.. He had obviously heard these words hundreds of times before in the Judaic tradition.
Many minutes of quick talk continued as the husband and wife stood, still joined together in the eyes of God, though separate in the eyes of the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Rabbi stopped abruptly, and with eyes on the couple reached behind him for the still wet inked piece of paper, the official divorce document. The scribe handed it to the patriarch dutifully in the usual way. The Rabbi eyed the calligraphy, and when assured that all the details had been included, folded the sheet three times. He motioned the husband to sit in the only empty chair, and then addressed the wife.
“I shall hand you this folded document, the “Get”, and you will walk around your husband three times with averted eyes, and then drop this folded paper into his cupped hands. You are not to touch his hands through the paper. It must drop in the air down into his waiting palms. Do you understand?” he asked flashing his eyes at her face for a moment.
She smiled at him then quickly stiffened at the seriousness of his demeanor. She glanced into the eyes of her husband for the last time as his wife, and received the folded paper, without even a sideward look at the Rabbi. She obediently marched seven times around the man who had been her intimate, her husband in the eyes of God.
After the third cycle was completed, standing directly before him she lifted her hand with the document lightly grasped above his cupped hands. As ordered she dropped the paper toward her target. The document dropped quickly, but the distance was felt long to husband and wife, the final separation.
The husband received the “Get”, opened it, and then handed it back to the Rabbi, who promised to make copies and mail them to both individuals.
Still physically together they were escorted back up the stairs, and down the hallway to the front door. The cooking Rabbi’s wife was no longer in the kitchen, but the food still simmered in the great pots. The home was dim, and seemed empty of human breath. They felt stifled as they crossed the threshold into the bright fresh air outside. The front yard seemed fresh, plain and modern after the heavy ancient European experience that just happened. The door closed behind them.
Again they marched down the sidewalk toward their separate cars. With no evidence in hand of the ritual of divorce, it all seemed a hallucination. Both were sad and silent walking together, not touching, not looking at each other…disconnected. The ritual, in spite of its humorous anachronistic nature had power…the power to finalize their separation once and for all.
He walked her to her car. Both were hot beyond the effects of the summer heat. Air conditioning would be needed for the rides back home. Both leaned against the car looking at each other eye to eye, and spoke of the end of their history.
She said: “I feel like we failed…no maybe like I failed, because I’ve been through this before. What have I learned from this repetition? Funny, I still have no idea what I’m supposed to get…to understand.” Tears welled up and overflowed down her cheeks slowly and delicately.
He wanted to touch them with his finger to feel the softness of this sad liquid, to again touch her vulnerability. His hand moved, and then stopped. He believed he no longer had the right to that intimacy. Yet the closeness of this moment was as sweet as any of their happiest times.
“ I don’t believe that you failed, and I don’t believe we failed. We worked to be successful, and ended separate. We haven’t lost the memories of all the good we did and had, and the memories of what we meant to each other in our time. Our marriage will always be part of us. We are changed by our experiences with each other, better for them, I’m sure. There will always be a part of us that is loving because of our life together. We just separate here, sad and yet still loving to enter different lives.”
After a final warm embrace the fully divorced individuals got into their cars and drove separately into the future.