As Forest Gump’s Mother said: Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you’re gonna get. Aren’t mothers amazing?
I won’t get into the reasons here, but the plain and simple truth is that as of last Sunday, I am officially divorced. Since I married religiously according to the Jewish Faith, I also had to divorce the same way.
Just to clear up some confusion – I have not seen my ex-wife for 9 months. It just took forever to do the procedure, due to many factors (some of which are related to travel, some because my ex is in Israel and I’m in the USA now, and some just related to bureaucracy and logistics).
The procedure was quite elaborate! There were 3 rabbis who acted as “Judges”, one of them doubling as the Scribe (The “Sofer” in Hebrew, who is normally a separate person) and also as my first Witness, and yet another Rabbi, this one was to be my second witness (According to the Jewish Faith, you are supposed to have two witnesses when you sign your Marriage Certificate, and also two witnesses when you sign your Divorce Certificate).
There were 3 potential complications in my divorce:
- The fact that I am in the USA, and my Marriage records + ex-wife were both in Israel. This meant the Rabbis needed to communicate with the Israeli branch, and this took a considerable amount of time. However, fortunately, it eventually happened and I received a call summoning me to sign my Divorce Papers.
- If there’s shared property or children, or some disagreement between the sides, the judges would have to intervene and judge according to Halacha (Jewish Law). Fortunately, our decision to divorce was mutual, there were no children, and no shared properties that were under any kind of disagreement.
- The procedure itself, which is quite elaborate. The Rabbis must make sure you will not retract your request to divorce, and that you were not forced into the divorce, or paid money to divorce, and that no threat of violence is placed on me, etc. Fortunately none of that is true, and the divorce was allowed to happen.
I followed the ceremony, which I have to note, was wise and obviously carefully worded, in what I assume is the result of a few millennia of learning from bad experiences…!
Another interesting point, is how your parents are identified. I had to call my parents during the ceremony, so that the Rabbis can verify with them what they are called, by their community and/or circle of friends. It turned out this was not without merit, as my dad goes by 3 or 4 different names!