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To speak and teach about divorce and Judaism

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Divorce can be one of life’s most painful transitions, but you don’t have to navigate it alone.

Join us for a 90-minute virtual workshop of healing, connection, laughter, and Jewish wisdom designed especially for adults who are divorced or in the process of divorce.

The Talmud teaches that the broken tablets from Sinai were placed in the Ark right alongside the whole ones — brokenness, too, is holy. Join Rabbis Deborah Newbrun and Ezra Weinberg for an intimate online session for anyone navigating divorce: story-sharing, text study, and a simple paper-tearing ritual to name what you’re releasing and what wisdom you’re carrying forward. Bring paper, a pen, and an open heart.

You are a tablet: perhaps shattered, definitely sacred, still being carried forward.

Surprisingly enough, divorce is actually one of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah. If you were ever curious about the voice Jewish tradition gives to this ancient and sacred mitzvah and lifecycle moment, this class is for you. In addition to mining some of the ancient sources, there will be space to explore the central spiritual gestures of divorce and also imagine / create what an emotionally and spiritually intelligent divorce ritual might look like today. People who have been divorced and who have never been divorced are all welcome to attend. Our three sessions will be as follows:

  • The Prohibition of Isolation: Is divorce a private issue or a public issue in the Jewish community?
  • Hidden in plain sight: Where does divorce live within the Jewish Tradition?
  • Chazak Chazak: Rituals for ending big chapters of our lives

For many people, the end of a marriage is often accompanied by fear, uncertainty, and change.
You are invited to discover some of the ancient Jewish wisdom that can provide comfort through the hard moments of change and offer a glimpse of what transformation can look like.

Please join Rabbi Ezra Weinberg for a five-session support circle for Jewish men. This group is for Jewish men who are in the first 5 years since separation, or for Jewish men actively struggling in a long-term divorce. Each session will include time for learning and time for integration. Through carefully guided facilitation, participants will be invited to bring their challenges and questions to the circle. Off-line chavruta (study partners) will also be made possible for those who want.

The lengths to which some of us will go to avoid conflict are extreme, but what if we flipped the script on conflict? What if we understood conflict as an invitation to embrace difficult aspects of ourselves and others in order to grow? Conflict transformation theory says that conflict is actually not the problem, rather it is how we respond to conflict that creates the most difficulty. The good news is that we always have a choice in how we respond.

Most Jews are directly impacted or living themselves within a divorced family system.  And yet divorce is a topic that is difficult to discuss. In this course, we will navigate both the contemporary taboos associated with divorce alongside the Jewish textual tradition. With guidance from 2000 years of rabbinic conversation, laws. and stories, we will learn how divorce can be a mitzvah.