Post-denominational Marriage
From The Jewish Week:
Take Lynn and Gideon, for example. She says she grew up “tangentially†Jewish. “It was an ethnicity, like being Italian,†Lynn describes. Her family belonged to a Conservative synagogue that they attended on Yom Kippur only and as she puts it, “even that was considered an ordeal.†Gideon, on the other hand, grew up Orthodox, and went to an Orthodox day school.
So what kind of married home do they have now? “Post-denominational,†says Lynn, which means taking their practice from various traditions. “I’ve learned a lot while Gideon takes his education for granted,†Lynn explains, “so what we do or don’t do is really up to me.†Now they have Shabbat dinner together every Friday night and keep their home kosher, but not to the letter. “We have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,†Lynn says.
But these aren’t just issues for Orthodox-Reform marriages. Even when a couple comes from the same Jewish denomination on paper, they can have a chasm between them. Ayala was raised on the observant end of the Conservative movement while her husband was raised at the other extreme. Ayala explained that her husband only “realizes now what a sacrifice and what a commitment†he made when, for example, he agreed to keep a kosher home.
In love and marriage among the Jews, then, even what’s kosher is a recipe for delicate compromise. But it’s heartening to see the spice and variety of Jewish life emerge from all the choices made by so many Jewish couples.
My fiance and I were both raised in the Reform movement, but we tend to have a rather different outlook on certain aspects Judaism and Jewish life. Finding a balance is a challenging process, yet one with great rewards. Just as it face-to-face encounters can help us with difficult geo-political divides, I can only hope that as this trend continues, perhaps we will be able to bridge some of the denominational boundaries of Jewish life, one marriage at a time.
