Interfaithfamily.com and Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben have put together a short video that gives interfaith couples some good basic advice when getting ready to plan their weddings. They say that this is the first in the series, so we look forward to seeing the rest!
Kim and Matthew wrote to me to describe why they chose my Autumn Gold ketubah, and to describe how they customized their interfaith wedding ceremony to fit their personalities:
“One reason we chose your artwork is that my fiancé very much likes Japanese décor. We have created a “flower ceremony” within our ceremony during which we are exchanging five flowers with specific meanings to give each other for the recipe for a great marriage. Specifically, we are using the Lotus Flower because it blooms in tough times, the Lily of the Valley which means happiness, the Chrysanthemum which means love and longevity, the Yellow Rose which means friendship and finally Ivy which means Fidelity. The Japanese Maple Leaf that we found on your website was yet another aspect of the Japanese decor and fit our theme perfectly! The moment we found your website we knew it was perfect.”
In addition to their wonderfully unique “flower ceremony”, Kim and Matthew chose to sign their ketubah during the wedding ceremony, instead of before (as is tradition). They also added two extra witness lines so that both the bride and the groom could choose two people close to them to sign it.
Modern Ketubah is proud to now offer interfaith couples three new texts written specifically for them. I have written these new texts to honor how an interfaith marriage represents the coming together of two traditions, a merging of two different families into one new, stronger one. Here are a sample of what each new Interfaith text says:
- Interfaith 1: “Our lives are now forever intertwined. Our similarities will bind us, our differences will enrich us, and our love will define us.”
- Interfaith 2: “We approach this ketubah as two individuals with different backgrounds and individual lives, but shall leave it as one couple, one family, joined in love and commitment to each other.”
- Interfaith 3: “We will create a home built on the foundations of our traditions, and nurtured by the values of our families.”
Learn about all of the options you have available for your interfaith ketubah. To read these new texts, visit my page on text options for your ketubah and choose Interfaith 1, Interfaith 2, or Interfaith 3 from the menu for English texts.
Modern Ketubah is proud to now offer interfaith couples new choices to better customize their ketubahs. Each of my ketubah features a large poetic verse incorporated into the design. These verses usually come from Jewish tradition, such as “Ani l’dodi v’dod li” (I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine), which a very popular phrase for Jewish weddings which comes from the Song of Solomon.
To help interfaith couples make their ketubah more inclusive of both of their traditions, I have added a number of new poetic verses from a variety of non-traditional and non-religous sources, including Aristotle, Thoreau, and Ghandi. Through these words, any couple should be able to find a sentiment that best expresses what their ketubah means for them:
- Love must be as much a light as it is a flame (Henry Thoreau)
- Life is the flower for which love is the honey (Victor Hugo)
- To live without loving is not really to live (Moliere)
- Where there is love there is life (Gandhi)
- Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies (Aristotle)
These verses can be added to any of my designs. To see all of the verses available for your ketubah, visit my page on options for your ketubah. If you have a suggestion for another verse, please let me know.
For anyone who is orthodox, and is also in an interfaith relationship, I highly recommend the article “Orthodox Paradox” written by Noah Feldman for the New York Times Magazine this past weekend. He describes his love and connection to his community, and his sadness at their not being able to accept his choice for a wife. The Jewcy online magazine has an interesting Q&A follow-up with him. When asked why he was surprised that his yeshiva cropped him and his non-Jewish girlfriend out of a reunion photo, Feldman responded:
What is troubling about the view you describe—which I never sensed from my classmates—is its implication that somehow modern Orthodox people should be protected from my living my life as I choose…. People who are comfortable with their own life choices don’t get “offended” when others choose differently.
