My best friend got engaged to her boyfriend about 5 years ago, but he died in January of 2022. (It’s important to know she is Jewish and goes to temple every week)
They didn’t really have a wedding planned, they were fine with just being engaged for a while.
My friend took it really hard for a while but she’s doing a little better now, at least I thought.
We went to lunch and she told me she wants to get married, and she talked to her rabbi and he said he approves and he will marry them (not legally but religiously) . I asked who and she said his name. I said I don’t know how I feel about being involved in that, but she said everyone at her temple supported it and I would be her maid of honor.
She said it’ll be small, it’ll be at temple. I said I have to think about it.
I have another Jewish friend who explained it better. Basically, she would be married according to the Jewish religion, but not by the state of California (where we live), so she would still file taxes and everything as single, but she would still be considered a married woman, if that makes sense. His mother is on board with this too and she even bought her a wedding band with her to go under her engagement ring for “the big day”
What are your thoughts? I just want her to be happy but idk how I feel about this. She’s my best friend.
6 comments
What makes you uncomfortable? If you are, it’s fine to not want to participate. If it were me I’d support my best friend even if I didn’t really understand, but if it’s counter to your beliefs that’s okay too. I think you’d be an AH to boycott but not an AH for declining to be MOH.
Honestly, I could not support my friend in this. “Till death do you part” is an important part of most vows. Once a spouse passes, you are no longer married. Even by Old Testament/Jewish Law standards. I can’t fathom a Rabbi agreeing to this. I would try to loving get my best friend to understand, she may need therapy.
I think it’s weird but it sounds like she’s grieving the fact that they were never able to be married and maybe wants some social recognition of the fact that she lost her partner and feels widowed. I’d have to wrap my head around it but I’d want to support my friend. Can you get more details about what’s involved before you decide?
I’ve never heard of a Jewish posthumous marriage ceremony. Perhaps it may be worth your while to post in r/Judaism. A Google search brings up bupkis. This sounds on the whacky side.
Yeah I wouldn’t like to be involved. What she’s doing is attaching herself to this man forever. She needs to grieve, and this is going backwards. Of course everybody grieves differently but this doesn’t seem healthy. And of course if he really wanted to marry her, he had ample time to do so, but he didn’t…
Did she get therapy since he passed away?
This is outrageous. Who is representing the thoughts, beliefs, desires, and rights of the deceased?
What would life be like if such a reprehensible notion were accepted/widespread? You want to say you and I believed in UFOs together after I pass? How about saying we were into something together that I fought against in life- when we were not? Or that I held racists or sexist or fascist ideals when I’m not alive to speak for myself, let alone dispute the claim?
This whole thing is so convoluted. You cannot enter into any kind of agreement, religious or otherwise without the other parties’ agreement! This is the highest form of human abuse I have ever heard of. IMO this is saying: Let’s redefine someone else when they have 0% chance of participating, and will be forever marked and identified by our desires and actions, not theirs.
This poor young woman needs more than love and mental healthcare. She needs to take a course in ethics and human rights. The Rabbi should be fired, not embraced, for encouraging this. The Mother and everyone else who agrees to participate need to imagine themselves in a 20 year close relationship with the deceased -who is now back to life subjugated to someone else’s decisions and possibly furious or devestated -after agreeing to speak and act for them without their consent.
I really, really hope this is a fake. Why don’t they all just take some cans of spray paint down to the cemetery and rewrite people’s epithets on their gravestones? Say they were this, that, or whatever they believed them to be-what’s wrong with that????? Yikes.