I’m taking a class right now, rather ponderously named Daughters of Eve: The Role of Women in Western Religion. Despite the mouthful of a name, the class is really good.
As a requirement of the course each student has to present something about a western religion. I’ve decided to do a presentation about Ketubot both because many of them are fantastically beautiful, and I love the idea of having a visual representation of a couple’s commitment to each other on display in their home - it strikes me as very romantic.
Now, I’ve done a great deal of research, viewed a number of Ketubot, have a bunch picked out that I’m going to use in my presentation from a variety of different countries. I’ve done research about the religious significance, the artistic significance, and the daily (weekly) use of the Ketubah during Shabbat ceremonies.
I guess what I would really like is the perspective of someone (someones) who actually has one of these things. I have no idea how comfortable people would be talking about it - I mean, the impression I get is that the Ketubah is displayed in many Jewish homes so it can’t be THAT private, but it does deal with the intimate details of the marital relationship, and I don’t want to offend anyone.
So, with that disclaimer out of the way: To anyone who has a Ketubah - this obviously includes married Jewish people, or non-Jews married to Jews - what do you think about your Ketubah? Did you spend a lot of time choosing how it would look? Is it purely traditional, or did you opt to include some modern influences? Do you refer to it during Shabbat as my research suggests? In short, tell me all about your Ketubah!
As an aside, there seem to be about 4 different spellings of Ketubah floating around in the literature - if I’ve selected the “wrong” one, I apologize.
I have to say, the artistic, public-displayed Ketubah is something that always bothered me. The Ketubah is not like marriage vows in a Christian ceremony, wherein love and devotion are expressed, and therefore proudly displayed. The Ketubah is a financial document obligating the husband or his estate to the wife in the event of divorce or his death. The LAST think a woman should want is for her husband to know where her Ketubah is kept. If she can’t produce it when the worst happens to her marriage, she can’t prove that there’s anything still due her.
When I got married, I insisted that we not spend a lot on the Ketubah, and not have it well-displayed for exactly that reason. Thank G-d we are both still as much (and more!) in love with one another as we were on our wedding day, but the Ketubah exists for those situations in which, G-d forbid, love and trust break down and someone needs a legal document to wrest a claim from the other. My wife keeps her Ketubah well-hidden, as well she should.
I certainly have no awareness of any Shabbat ceremony or custom that involves the Ketubah.
Ours is just a standard issue ketubah from the synagogue. It’s nice enough looking, I guess, but nothing worth displaying. It’s only point of interest is who signed it. Obviously, it had to be signed by Jews, and since wifey was fairly new to Texas, and I was brand new to Judaism, Jews we knew were a bit scarce. So one of the signers was a guy who had a fiance who was in the conversion class who, it turned out, already had a wife in Israel. IIRC, he was also wanted by the Israeli police for something or other. The other signer was federal judge.
I have never heard of any wife hiding the ketubah from her husband, although the wording of the thing makes it clear that, in a community governed by Jewish law, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I also don’t know of anything outside of weddings and divorces where a ketubah is mentioned. Certainly there’s no Shabbat ceremony that I’ve ever heard of.
Ours is… wait for this! … Standard Army Issue :eek: :o You see, both my wife and I were in the IDF when we got married, so we were married by a military Rabbi.
FTR – it isn’t particularly artistic, it actually mentions a real amount of money (given in NIS, not Zuzim or some such nonsense), and it most certainly is not hanging on the wall anywhere! Oh, and it’s in Hebrew all the way (most Ketuboth are in Aramaic, but not Military ones.) It is meaningless as far as we are concerned (unless all hell breaks loose, in which case it could actually be meaningful in court… but I digress)
Both of us are somewhere in the nonobservant-to-atheist range however, so I don’t know if our experience is exactly what you are looking for.
ETA Should we be helping members with their homework? :looks around furtively:
Humm - interesting. Good thing I asked, otherwise I would have looked like an idjit.
FWIW, it seems to be a continuous theme that the Ketubah is supposed to be a lovely thing (some suggesting that it’s supposed to follow hiddur mitzvah) and there are certainly huge collections of them available. Many of them appear to be very elaboratly made, and quite beautiful. Is it possible that you folks are unique in your blasé (if it can be described that way) attitude? Both of you are boys, right? Is it possible that the Ketubah is more important for women? Some of my sources have suggested that in prepairing Shabbat “stuff” the wife might consult the Ketubah as a sort of spiritual avatar - to get herself in the correct frame of mind or something, as opposed to it having an actual “function”.
Is this false? I really don’t want to look like a total twit when talking about this in class.
I think this is more of a ye olde thing, sort of like other Western forms of Rococo. Probably less true in the 20-21st centuries.
Which one of the three of us is chopped liver? More to the point – from my experience with other couples, including some religious ones, I don’t think we are outliers in our attitude, no.
Maybe, I couldn’t say, as we are both quite secular. However cmkellris orthodox, so if he’s saying it’s not a big deal, I’d tend to take his word for it.
I don’t know about any woman consulting it for any reason. If she did, maybe I should be worried.
Some of them are very decorative, and it’s not rare for them to be displayed. It costs some change to get one such made though. I’d guess that the starting price would be around $500. I don’t think it’s at all rare to have a pricey one made up (what are fathers-of-the-bride for, right?), nor is it rare to display them, but it’s certainly not the norm.
As with any question about Judaism, you’re likely to get a different answer for each Jew you ask. Certainly it will vary widely between orthodox, conservative, and reform Jews, and between Jews married to Jews and interfaith couples. Our Ketubah is the one the Rabbi brought to the wedding with him. We hadn’t seen it prior to signing it, but were very happy with it and think it’s beautiful. Since my wife is not Jewish, ours is not completely traditional. It’s in both English and Hebrew, I’m sure the wording is slightly changed from the traditional version, and it’s witnessed by our best man and maid of honor, who are also non-Jews. Yes, the original intent of the Ketubah is a formal and financial document, but I’d be surprised if it held any weight as such in secular court. For my wife and I, it is a semi-public display of our love, devotion, and commitment to each other. I say semi-public because it hangs on the wall over our bed. Not out in the living room for all to see, but not hidden away by any means. Since that’s the way my parents had theirs (until it was lost in a fire), it feels right to me. Having it there gives me a sense of “officialness” about our marriage. As in, “Look! we’re married, yay!” I also see it as a symbol that we can be an interfaith family and not lose our own traditions and religious identities.
I am also not aware of any ceremony involving the ketubah on Shabbat (or any other time for that matter.)
No question about it, you’re right. There are many artistic and beautiful ones, and there are many that their owners proudly display. I merely commented in my post that I am personally perplexed by an attitude that allows the Ketubah to be displayed and easily found - and stolen. It certainly could be seen as a hiddur mitzvah, I suppose, but given its function, I think it’s a badly chosen outlet for hiddur.
I certainly am male, and I suppose it might be a more female attitude to want to display an artifact of the marriage ceremony as a beautiful romantic token. On the other hand, it might be that that’s all it is to the women and, not being learned in Talmud, they take too lightly its true significance as a legal (in halacha, at least) claim document - at their own peril (may G-d spare the couple such an occurrence).
Perhaps there is a Sephardic or Hasidic tradition in this regard that I am unfamiliar with, but at least in my experience as a non-Hasidic Ashkenazy Jew, there is no customary usage of the Ketubah as such.
Humm - this seems to be the much more dominant theme in all the literature I’ve consulted so far. Additionally, I’ve got pictures of samples as recent as the late '90’s that appear to be very elaborately constructed - multiple layers of parchment, flower petals attached in a pattern, etc.
Almost all of them I’ve seen have been more “traditional” in that they’re only in Aramaic, however a couple of the more recent ones have English on them as well.
Hopefully a Jewish lady will stop by and offer her opinion - not that I don’t appreciate the input from you fellas - I certainly do! However, one of the themes of my course is how religiosity is experienced differently by men and women. It would be interesting to me to see if Jewish women feel the same way as most of you guys.
Thanks again for everyone’s input! It’s very helpful, and will prevent me from looking like a total ass when I’m presenting this to the class.
Ah - I understand now. At first blush I thought you were suggesting that the attitude was a completely uncommon one, which made me wonder who the heck was buying all of these elaborate Ketubot I see all over the place.
Now, if I understand you, you’re suggesting that it’s not an attitude that you or your wife personally ascribe to, but that other Jewish people do, correct? I really want to try to get this correct. Or at least as correct as possible, appreciating that different people experience their religion in different ways.
I’ll go you one better - even my wife thought it would be a beautiful thing to have, until I reminded her in stark terms of what a Ketubah really says.
Many Jewish people, Orthodox or not, do see a Ketubah as a “marriage document” and ascribe to it the romantic and suitable-for-display qualities that those two words would, in English, imply. Perhaps you will, in the course of your continued research, hear from a well-learned Jew who can explain why he/she feels that the Ketubah is a wise thing to display, even given full knowledge of what its legal (in halacha) significance is, and I will be happy to hear that point of view myself. I, personally, have yet to hear such an explanation from such a source.
Well, I don’t think anyone is saying it’s bad to have an elaborate or pretty ketubah, but like cmkeller said, if her husband wants to divorce her and he destroys the ketubah, because he’s an evil bastard, she’s screwed, under Jewish law, because the ketubah is the only thing that lays out her rights under the law, and if she can’t present it, she’s not entitled to support or legal consideration.
so, while, yeah, it’s fine if it looks nice, and there have certainly been some really attractive ones over the years, it’s more important for what it says and what it does.
I don’t believe they are. Additionally, many Conservative Ketubah include the Lieberman Clause which requires the divorce to be adjudicated by a modern rabbinic court which sort of prevents the scenario that Captain Amazing has described (at least according to my reading of the situation).
As I understand it, most Ketuboth specify the amount of money, to be paid by the husband in case of divorce, in some ancient currency – Zuzim, Selaim, you get the picture… the thought behind this, as I understnd, is that even if it is an enforceable legal contract, the monetary terms are “unclear,” and so it has to be looked at by a court. Once a contract is taken to court, of course, all of it is open to (re-)interpretation…
So, while perhaps borderline binding (and cases have been brought in Israel based on the terms written in a Ketubah, effectively it would still have to go to court.
It seems from googling that maybe it’s evolved over time to be less than tradition dictates? The text on the ones offered for sale didn’t mention any money or “rights”–just that they enter the holy covenant of marriage, etc. etc. set me as a seal upon your heart, etc. etc. Which certainly fulfills more of the idea Alice had than what the rest of the posters have been describing. Very curious.
My parents’ ketubah is of a standard appearance, no ornateness at all. It’s kept in the safe deposit box. Its only noteworthy point is that on the Hebrew page (it’s written in both languages), one of the witnesses signed on the line marked “Bride.”
Some people I knew back in Philly had their ketubah on display in their living room (and their huppah, wedding canopy, on display in the stair well). They were both artists, and the husband had written the ketubah himself – and bordered it with the full text of Song of Songs, in the Rashi script. (The wife had made the canopy as her contribution to the ceremony.)
My parents’ ketubah hangs in our hallway, next to a certificate I recieved during my Bat Mitzvah and a portrait of some old, presumably jewish relative. It’s like the wall of judaism over there.
I’m not sure how they picked it. I have a feeling it’s just whatever the rabbi gave them when they were married. But it is very pretty and so makes a nice wall decoration. The only problem is that they never got around to signing it! :smack:
The Lieberman clause says that if the couple gets a civil divorce, but the man won’t give the wife a Jewish divorce, they give the right for a rabbinic court (a bet din) to declare them divorced under Jewish law.
This was Saul Lieberman’s attempt to solve the agunah problem. “Agunah” means chained up, and it’s used to refer to cases where a woman’s husband disappears or abandons her, or refuses to grant her a divorce. In a case like that, the poor woman is unable to remarry under Jewish law, and if she remarries civilly, any children she has with her new husband are illegitimate. By requiring that a religious divorce follow a civil divorce, this avoids most of the agunah cases.
Unfortunately, the Lieberman Clause doesn’t prevent the scenario I had laid out earlier (of the evil husband destroying the ketubah). If the ketubah is destroyed, than the wife doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on…she’s got no way to get the terms of the destroyed ketubah enforced if her husband disagrees with them.
More to the point – from my experience with other couples, including some religious ones, I don’t think we are outliers in our attitude, no.
Certainly it will vary widely between orthodox, conservative, and reform Jews, and between Jews married to Jews and interfaith couples. Our Ketubah is the one the Rabbi brought to the wedding with him. We hadn’t seen it prior to signing it, but were very happy with it and think it’s beautiful. Since my wife is not Jewish, ours is not completely traditional. It’s in both English and Hebrew, I’m sure the wording is slightly changed from the traditional version, and it’s witnessed by our best man and maid of honor, who are also non-Jews. Yes, the original intent of the Ketubah is a formal and financial document, but I’d be surprised if it held any weight as such in secular court. For my wife and I, it is a semi-public display of our love, devotion, and commitment to each other. I say semi-public because it hangs on the wall over our bed. Not out in the living room for all to see, but not hidden away by any means. Since that’s the way my parents had theirs (until it was lost in a fire), it feels right to me. Having it there gives me a sense of “officialness” about our marriage. As in, “Look! we’re married, yay!” I also see it as a symbol that we can be an interfaith family and not lose our own traditions and religious identities.