Moving Forward: An Ancient Divorce Ritual for the Modern World

By Marilyn Beloff

How can we mine the ancient Jewish ritual rite of passage for its gold in order to create new healing rituals for those in the secular world facing the death of a marriage? Drawing on her own healing and transformative experience in the ancient Jewish ritual of Divorce and her journey as a therapist, Dr. Marilyn Beloff provides personal, in-depth anecdotes and practical suggestions on how to create your own healing ritual of divorce.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543955057

Book preview

Moving Forward

Copyright © 2018 by Marilyn Beloff

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN (Print Edition): 978-1-54395-504-0

ISBN (eBook Edition): 978-1-54395-505-7

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Part One

My Personal Journey

Setting the Stage

Part Two

Mining the Gold

Tapestries of Gold

Sivan: A Transformative Vessel

Daniel M.: A Great Release

Ruth: Taking Action

Alvin: I Call It Magic

Hanna: Portrait of a Strong Woman

Mark: The Story of Closure with Intention

Shira: The Power and Grace of Forgiveness

Part Three

Mining the Past

Golden Threads

What We Can Learn from the Ancient Jewish Divorce Ritual

Musing on Transformation of the Ancient Jewish Divorce Ritual

Moving Forward

Creating New, Healing Rituals of Divorce for the Modern World

Reflections

Suggested Reading

Appendix : Companion Video

Trainings and Lectures

Foreword

I have worked as a divorce lawyer for 20 years, assisting clients as they navigate the legal end of a marriage. The landscape of the end of a marriage is vast: It is dominated by pain, fear, fleeting exhilaration of new life, confusion, shame, anger, sorrow, and emotional, physical, and visceral dislocations. Viewed against this panorama, I have long been conscious of how discrete and almost insignificant the legal end of a marriage is.

In my work as a lawyer, I have had tremendous opportunities to learn from my clients. I have watched them bring courage to their fear, grace to their sorrow, and generosity to a spouse even as they struggled with resentment and anger. I have often wished I had an opportunity to give these men and women more, to give them a gift for the positive transformation of their experiences.

Marilyn Beloff has written about such a gift. In this original and courageous book, she examines the ancient Jewish divorce ritual, the Get, and draws seven portraits of men and women who have shared their experience of this ritual with her. Each portrait has its own unique breath, heart, and spirit. Beloff often speaks of kavannah—intention—and she has brought this concept fully alive in her work.

Beloff’s book transcends the orthodoxy of the Get. She is diligent not only in critically examining this ritual in its original forms, but also in keenly and meticulously preserving the personal spirit within her interviews. In a culture that encourages professional distance, Beloff bravely sets aside her objective professional persona to listen with her heart and to draw her portraits with the luminous quality of the sacred.

By grounding her work in the personal, Beloff has written a book that is highly accessible. At the same time, it is abundantly clear that the academic foundation for her work is rigorous. She begins her book with a very personal and unsentimental description of her experience during her own Get. She goes on to introduce the reader to Depth Psychology, the academic discipline that supported her research on divorce ritual. From there, she leads us into her remarkable portraits. Like a collection of linked short stories, the portraits reverberate with the life of each of the men and women who have shared their experiences with Beloff. In constructing her portraits so carefully, she has managed to do the near impossible: She has maintained the voice of spirit that whispers from the heart of each of these ordinary and extraordinary men and women as they move through divorce into the land of their future.

Structurally, Beloff’s book resembles the stages of ritual itself. After taking the reader through personal stories examining divorce ritual, she then provides a bridge into the future. In Part Three of her book, she distills her incredible knowledge into a simple vessel for the creation of personal ritual. She completes her work with a video to allow readers a moving, visual, and auditory experience, as well as a thorough bibliography for those who wish to read more on this topic.

Beloff asks, What if we, as a culture, honestly faced the death and fragility of our relationships and our truths around divorce, giving divorce its due through a formal ritual rite of passage? With her book, Beloff takes a bold step onto this new terrain.

—Nancy C. Cameron, QC

Author of Collaborative Practice: Deepening the Dialogue

President of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals in 2009

Acknowledgments

This book would never have been possible without the gracious, generous, and incredibly thoughtful participants of my doctoral study. You know who you are, and you are not named in order to protect your identity. I cannot thank you enough for sharing your intimate world with me. Your stories, wisdom, and words will now serve to inspire others to move forward, free to love again.

I would like to thank Nancy Cameron, QC, for her unwavering support and encouragement, which allowed me to fulfill my dream and publish my book. Nancy’s Foreword is a definitive opening to this book, and her words help to set the tone of what I have tried to accomplish.

I am incredibly grateful to my many colleagues, friends and family who have been my greatest cheerleaders and supporters. To those who have read my many manuscripts, shared your thoughts, made suggestions, helped with editing, and even volunteered to be in my video, I cannot thank you enough.

To those who encouraged and cajoled me to write this book, and to share my passion about its potential use and helpfulness in our secular world: It makes me smile just thinking about your involvement. To my nearest and dearest friends, I do not know how I would have made it through life without you.

To my sister, thank you so much for your constant editing and grammar checks. Thank you for being such an amazing big sister and for your constant love and unconditional support throughout my life. As siblings and friends, we have traveled together through so much, as both children and adults. I am so grateful for your presence, love, and authentic truth as we move forward together into the next phase of our lives.

To my nieces, thank you for each of your unique perspectives on life, for letting me into your lives, first as children and now as equals. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

To my parents, who are no longer with us, I am beyond grateful for the foundation of love you gave me, teaching me the importance of compassion, empathy, authenticity, learning, and family. To my mother for her quiet, yet powerful, wisdom and her down-to-earth manner, and to my father for giving me a balance of spiritual foundation, openness, and fun, I give you my deepest appreciation.

To my incredible, supportive, insightful children, I can’t thank you enough for your ongoing support throughout this process. As I have told you since you were very small children, you have always been my greatest teachers in life. We have grown and moved forward together as human beings, and I cherish each and every moment we are fortunate to have together, along with your own delicious children.

To my daughter and son-in-law, I am extremely grateful for your presence, your perspective, and your adding so much to our family.

To my precious grandchildren, I will borrow an expression often spoken by my father to his grandchildren: You are the most precious jewels of my life. Thank you for reminding me every day that life is about love, learning, growth, and the pure joy of being with those you love.

To my wonderful, brilliant, wise, and loving husband, who was at my side throughout the process of researching, writing, and publishing this book, thank you. You have always been the wordsmith I turned to when looking for the best way to phrase my thoughts; your vocabulary has always blown me away. More importantly, through my relationship with you, I have learned that authentic love is really possible.

To all of you, gentle readers, I am grateful to you for taking the time to read my book. I wish you all the best in your journey.

Part One

My Personal Journey

On December 25, 1994, I walked apprehensively up the stairs of the synagogue. I felt as if I was in a dream. My life with the man I was about to ritually divorce flashed before my eyes. I recalled that it was in this very synagogue, on the bema (podium), where I first kissed my then boyfriend. I was 16 and he was 17. This boy/man all too soon became