Postcards from the Imagination

You could always do what women doctors do: keep Virginia Heatter as your professional name (as an editor, poet, teacher etc.) but use Virginia Abramson or Mrs. Seth Abramson as your everyday name. We all know of Brigit Pegeen Kelly, but in everyday life she is Brigit Madonick.

There are many ways to look at what it means to have a "Jewish" ceremony and I think that the balance you suggest pays homage to Seth's familiy's traditions while having a strong symbolsim that does not necessarily require that the bride and groom be Jewish.

Let me also suggest one other tradition that you might consider: walking around Seth seven times. Seven is a very significant number in Judaism for a number of reasons, but the most beautiful explanation I have heard for this tradition that in circling the groom seven times, the bride enters the seven spheres of her beloved´s soul. Maybe you should have him circle you seven times as well.

One other note about glass breaking. You have accurately described two of the available explanations, but the most traditional (and probably the original dating back to Talmudic times) explanation is that it symbolizes the idea of keeping Jerusalem and Israel in mind even at times of joy. Just as the Temple in Jerusalem is destroyed, so the bride and groom break a glass to show their identification with the sorrow of Jewish exile.

1. Matt's right on target with his description of the traditional reason behind breaking the glass, but I would add that the breaking can be extended beyond Jewish history to symbolize that, even during a moment of extreme joy, it is important to recognize that there are still things "broken" in the world (past and present).

2. The name - we hypenated. Neither of us could conceive of having a different last name than our children.

3. The elements you plan to incorporate into the wedding are beautiful, and you deserve much credit for embracing them. I'll just say that, for us, there was nothing more important than time privately immediately after the ceremony (yichud). It was a chance to center ourselves before joining the chaos.

Yes, you do what feels right to you and don't let other people talk you out of it. I couldn't conceive of changing my name -- I liked my name and I was used to it. To the family members that were vocal against my keeping my name, I still sign Christmas cards "Rebecca & Chris Livingston" -- just to give them an aneurism -- even now, 10 years later.

My parents divorced when I was pretty young and my mother took back her maiden name -- so the "but what name will your children have?" was never an issue for me. My mom was still my mom even though we had different names. It generated very little friction in my life growing up. The only time it did was when my sister and I got a scholarship to attend a Jewish summer -- it was too much for their early 80's computers to handle kids with different last names -- so that summer we were "Rebecca and Erica Schnur" -- oh the teasings we endured.

It's gonna be your name -- you be happy with it!

camp -- it was a "Jewish summer camp"

C. Dale, Seth and I are hopelessly sappy about one another. (See, for instance, the sidebar on his blog. I keep joking to him that I feel so eulogized!) We like the idea of presenting ourselves to the world as a husband-wife team of poets, editors, etc. because that’s profoundly how we feel about ourselves in relation to the larger world. As far as staking our separate claims to individuality—I’m oddly confident that our work and personalities will do the job.

Matt, thanks for the suggestion! That sounds like a lovely a tradition.

David, your #1 is excellent. Seth and I both like the idea of having a socially-conscious aspect to the ceremony.

Reb, I love the “Rebecca and Chris Livingston” Christmas cards! One year, back when I had the money to buy gifts, I decided to protest the commercialism of X-mas by donating bags and bags of hats, gloves, scarves, and sweaters to a homeless shelter in my family members’ names. Instead of some cheap piece of crap they were they were going to toss in the closet anyway, I gave everyone a card telling them about the donation. They were not impressed. :-)

I've had some friends and colleagues take each other's names, which I think is nice, mutual, and equitable: so, you would both become "Heatter Abramson"s, which I think does have a nice ring to it.

In the early '80's I went to the wedding of a man who was Jewish and a woman who was a practicing psychic healer. They combined elements of a traditional Jewish ceremony with pagan/wicca traditions. They had a rabbi and cantor, she circled around him seven times, they drank from the glass and then *both* stepped on the glass together. She then swept an area of ground with a broom (making it sacred ground), they joined hands, and jumped together over the broom onto the sacred ground.

It was a long ceremony and I don't remember everything that went on in it. It was one of the more unique weddings I've been to.

Another idea for how to handle name changes, which I've seen some people do: taking each other's last name as your middle name. So (in your case, for example) your name would then be Virginia Abramson Heatter, and Seth's would be Seth Heatter Abramson.

I have been reading blogs for a couple months now, but probably you don't know me at all so it feels a little creepy to post a comment. Even so, here is what we did. I made my maiden name my legal middle name, took my husband's last name, and we made an agreement that each of our children, male or female, would have my maiden/middle name as theirs. My sister also gave "our" maiden name to her children as middle names. So, the cousins all have the same middle name, and our children have both of our names. Interesting twist: my daughter is getting married this year, and taking her spouse's last name, so she will no longer have the last name that was (originally) my husband's, but will still have the middle name that came from my family. It has worked for us. Best wishes on your marriage.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Kelly! That's exactly what I think I'm going to do.