Preserve the memory of your loved one with a plaque on our Yahrzeit(Yiddish) The anniversary of a death, usually marked by the lighting of a 24-hour yahrzeit candle and the recitation of Kaddish, the memorial prayer. For U.S. Jews, the unveiling of the headstone usually takes place on or around the first yahrzeit. Wall. Learn More ->
Intimate relationships bring two people together in a unique emotional and physical connection. This is something to celebrate, whether through the public festivity of a wedding, or in the private reflection of immersion in the mikvehThe ritual bath. The waters of the mikveh symbolically purify – they are seen as waters of rebirth. A convert immerses in the mikveh as part of conversion. Many Orthodox married women go to the mikveh following their period and before resuming sexual relations. Couples go to the mikveh before being married. Many, including some men, immerse before Yom Kippur; some go every Friday before Shabbat.. Sanctifying our intimate relationships elevates these unions and gives them a context of meaning and joy.
This article articulates principles of Jewish ritual as the author uses them to create a same-sex Jewish wedding
An alternative to the ketubah which explicitly rejects the language of kinyan (acquisition) in favor of the mutual language of covenant
A couple’s first-person account of the process of creating their wedding ceremony
A blessing to be read to two women under their huppah
Kathy, Joyce, and their rabbi found innovative ways to rework the traditional wedding ceremony to suit their needs as two women
The text of the sheva brakhot in Hebrew and translation, an explantion, feminist considerations, two alternative same-sex texts, and an additional prayer for heterosexual couples to add for same-sex partners whose love is not yet sanctified and recognized in the same way
This beautiful Covenant of Love ceremony begins with havdalah and is filled with personal expressions of love and well-chosen readings. This ceremony is both a good example of how a lesbian couple reckoned with tradition and also how to make a ceremony extremely personal.
A new legal formulation for kinyan as acceptance, rather than purchase
Seven wedding blessings adapted for two men
Written for two men; adaptable for any two partners
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
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