As they sign their Jewish marriage covenant, I feel the
various threads of emotion start to twist and tangle again.
You’re in the middle
of a shame experience, I gently remind myself.
I breathe deeply and feel the knot unfurl. It is a subtle
shame – not enough to impede my enjoyment of the wedding, but just enough to
seep into my thoughts. Thoughts telling me I’m tainted, that I shouldn’t get
too close to the happy couple, that they don’t want to be associated with me. Telling
me to make myself smaller.
You’re in the middle
of a shame experience, I repeat. This
may be harder than expected.
---
I had expected to be completely divorced by now. Done.
Finished with the entire process. It’s been over two years since our court date
in Cambridge, which was super sad and also relatively smooth and followed by
getting food together at the Cambridgeside
Galleria. When the civil divorce was finalized four months later, we started
seeking a ghet, a Jewish divorce
document.
They feel sorta parallel – the civil process and the ghet. You submit your paperwork, then
you go in front of a court, then you get some letter confirming that the
divorce has occurred and you are now considered independent entities. Except in
Judaism, it’s super gendered.
---
I want to talk about patriarchy, and I want to talk about
shame. I want to explore these topics to better understand the psychological experience
caused by systems of oppression in general, and to illustrate the specifics of
how patriarchal oppression continues to impact me as a so-called “progressive”
Jew today. I believe that as a Jewish community, we need to do better to
address and eradicate patriarchy from our systems and rituals. This belief comes from my principles
as a queer
feminist
Jew.
And it also comes from my own need, out of the depth of my own experience… as a
response to my own shame.
Charlie Glickman talks about shame as an experience of
disconnection that tells us how we’re doing by our community’s standards of
behavior. Sometimes shame can be
really helpful, when we’ve done something that betrays our values and we
need to work to reconnect. But when something’s off in the social system, shame
is often part of the problem.
I experienced a lot of shame throughout the divorce
process. I felt shame as I watched myself hurt
someone I love. I felt shame about having made a personal
and public
commitment that I did not keep. I pulled back from the Jewish community that we had been involved
in together – I didn’t know how to show my face.
I had also faced a lot of patriarchy throughout the wedding
process. I felt it when I went dress
shopping, I felt it when I tried to talk
through the details with my partner, and I felt it especially
in the Jewish
ritual we were working to reimagine.
---
I’m no Jewish legal scholar, but let me explain what I think
happened:
I walk in with the
person who had been my husband. A kind rabbi smiles and shakes our hands. We
meet the two men asked to serve as witnesses for us. Very generous of them.
They shake our hands with reserve and sympathy. We sit down in an overheated
room, and I’m uncomfortable and thirsty.
This will only take
twenty minutes, I assure myself. Then
it will be over, I’ll drink water, and we’ll get lunch. I’m excited to see
if Inna’s Kitchen is open, and to get
time to catch up with Matt,
my
ex.
The rabbi gives us an outline of the ritual. Matt
had made the official request for the ghet
(the divorce document) to be drafted and delivered to me. The witnesses were
there to confirm the delivery. Matt
was there because, no matter the legal meaning of the ritual, this was really
about both of us. And like, for “closure,” maybe?
Maybe, but it doesn’t work. There is an error in the
paperwork. Someone confused something about our Hebrew names and the ghet in the rabbi’s hands is not valid.
It will not do the trick. This is not done.
That’s when I start to really feel it… if we’d moved through
the ritual smoothly, would I have felt it in the same way? I’m not sure. But
there I was, sitting in a room with four men: a rabbi, two witness, and the
person who had been my husband. And they were frustrated. But I was the one
most impacted.
---
I don’t feel ashamed of the tears. I don’t feel ashamed of
needing a few minutes to take off my sweater and get water and use the
restroom. I don’t feel ashamed of asking questions.
I feel ashamed because I feel subordinate, dependent, and
powerless. I feel ashamed because at the most fundamental level, my status in
the community is on the line. Because of the patriarchy. Because the function
of the ghet is for a man to release a
woman from marriage, as delivered by a rabbi, with two men witnessing. Back to
the days of gender binary hetero patriarchy power system. (Back to the days of Pooh?)
We were both raised in affiliation with the Conservative Jewish movement, we got married within
that movement, and we were trying to divorce accordingly. And the patriarchy
only got thicker as we went along. Something about wanting to make sure the ghet would have as good a chance as
possible of being honored by Orthodox communities should anyone ever care. The
rabbi starts saying that we do it that way so that if I have a child and my
child wants to be Orthodox then an Orthodox rabbi would respect the ghet as somehow a legitimate divorce
that then allowed me to be legitimately remarried and have so-called
“legitimate” children. It’s a long hypothetical dystopian fantasy in which this
divorce remains a shadow that can call into question everything yet to happen
in my life. I will continue to be suspect and this ghet will be the thing that will satisfy people that I am okay,
that my actions are okay, that I can love again and build a family in
acceptable, “legitimate,” ways.
Shame. Tangled, twisted knots of shame.
And this was very clearly directed towards me, not towards
Matt.
Because patriarchy.
---
It was a female rabbi who had prepared the document actually
– but she lives elsewhere, and the rabbi trying to deliver it is male. So that’s
a quirk in the ever-quirky system of Conservative Judaism. The witnesses were
to be men, but the rabbi could be any Conservative rabbi? The (male) rabbi
explains it as a sort of wink to the Orthodox movement, just in case, to try to
make the document as “acceptable” as possible. I keep asking questions until
the rabbi stops and says: I think this is
interesting, but you probably want to get on with your day.
To him it's interesting. How to be a progressive rabbi in a
patriarchal religion. An intellectually and probably morally satisfying
mission. But see, it’s not just intellectual for me. Shame is social
feeling. I want to be a “legitimate” community member. I want all my
functioning and rights – I shouldn’t have to give that up just to avoid this
experience of patriarchy.
It’s not only about injustice – that makes it into something
that is intellectual, theoretical, something we can all be “against” together.
We are all against disempowering women. Especially the “we” of progressive
Jewish community. We’re committed, in concept.
It’s not only about microaggressions – the men were sweet to
me even though they didn't know what to do with my tears. They expressed a mix
of “pleasure to meet you” and “sorry we meet on this occasion,” and then, after
it didn’t work, they uttered hope for something to come of the process. They
were trying, in concept.
What it was really about for me, that day, was the
psychological experience of being in that room and being subordinate,
dependent, and powerless. My status in the community was in question, and – and
this centuries old system of power persisted through these men in the room who
considered themselves my equals in every other way and yet were participating
in, defending, upholding, honoring that system of power. As was I, in my
own way.
---
Shame is a social emotion about not feeling part of a
community. Not because I’m being shunned or feel disliked – but because I can
tell that I’m not being cared for. My needs aren’t being met. I feel ashamed
that my community would desert me so – leave me so subordinate and
alone. Even when I actually get the ghet,
that's a psychological experience that I will hold with me. It’s the psychological
toll of systems of power and oppression that we know we are “against” but – but
are still here. I can't reject it on my own; I would be even more isolated.
I can only ask questions and accept the tears and seek help. And that is all
compounded when the room is full of men, and the men respond to me with
intellectual attention, as I keep hearing the rabbi say: I think this is interesting, but you probably want to get on with your
day.
No, rabbi. I want to get on with my life.
No, rabbi. I want to get on with my life.