JewsByChoice.Org

As many of you know, Avi and I just got married. As Jews, we both believe deeply in following rituals and traditions. However, the way life goes, we can’t always control how or when we can fulfill all traditions and we work do the best with what we have. So, when the issue of getting married civilly rather than under a chuppah came up, we both were elated to get married but didn’t want us being legally married to take away from our future plans of a proper chuppah wedding filled with Jewish traditions; some of which we have yet to learn since neither of us has been married.

When Avi and I emailed family and friends about us getting married, I received so many “mazel tovs” along with shared experiences of many of the couples having done their own weddings quite similarly to ours. Shared experiences from Jews and non-Jews alike. There are many examples to look at.

My father, for his second marriage, did just that. He was married civilly. Later, when they were settled in and had the finances, my dad and step mom had a lovely chuppah ceremony at their home with many family and friends in tow.  Jewish Smorgasboard also did the same thing with her husband. A civil ceremony and a chuppah some months later. There is a coworker of mine who did the same thing and swears that their civil wedding is the significant one because there was less baggage associated with it. I know a frum couple in NY who also did the same thing. The list goes on and on.

What suprised me was that many of my Jewish friends did a civil wedding and lived together as married couples. Our people do experience many of the same things in life. Even when we don’t realize that what we are doing is Jewish, we find it truly is, or that it at least connects us to other Jews in ways we might not expect. For Avi and I, a civil wedding wasn’t the ideal, but it was what we chose to do. 

We both are looking forward to experiencing something uniquely Jewish for the first time together - our Chuppah.  As a Jew by birth I can say that on some level I’ve experienced most Jewish rituals. However, our wedding will be something that is truly a first for the both of us. I really like this idea. We will get to share something uniquely Jewish and experience it together in it’s rawness. 

Being married to a Jew by Choice often gives me the opportunity to reevaluate my own Jewishness. There are surely things that Jews by birth take for granted. Although I’m better at it, I often stop and remind myself that perhaps we don’t have the shared experiences from childhood or family connections. I think I’m rambling now, but to conclude I’ll just say that one thing Jews by Birth and Jews by Choice do have in common (assuming they’ve never been married) is the experience of a Jewish wedding and experiencing it together, for the first (and last) time.