I was married three times, to the same person.
Our first wedding was almost everything I could have hoped for – spiritual, communal, religious, and deeply meaningful. The only problem was that legally, it was meaningless.
In 2004, Mara and I got married in front of 240 of our closest friends and family. It marked the beginning of our lives together – we used the religious language and symbolism of our upbringings, and which we hoped would be the basis of our home, the bayit ne’eman beyisrael that we hoped to build. Our wedding weekend felt like a magical island in time – we brought together a community that showed us love and acceptance in our religious lives. This bubble felt like an alternate universe, or a taste of the World to Come. It was refreshing and invigorating to experience this moment of acceptance, even though we eventually had to return to reality.
Our second marriage came 2 years later, when our first baby was born. We knew that living in the bubble of our religious wedding wasn’t enough. We needed legal protection for our new family, in the event that something happened to one of us. At the time, a civil union was the best option available to us. It could have been just another task to check off in the fog of new motherhood, but it was still a meaningful step for us. We relished the opportunity to stand before a judge and affirm our partnership. For the first time, the law, at least in the state of Connecticut, recognized us as a family.
Our third, and hopefully final wedding, was in the state of Minnesota after the Defense of Marriage Act was overruled unconstitutional in 2013 and marriage equality became the law of the land. Our last wedding echoed both our first and second weddings in surprising ways. In a minor miracle, we both still fit into our original wedding dresses after almost 10 years. We gathered our community of friends to celebrate with us at a local ice cream shop. We even had a Rabbi friend officiate and sign our legal documents. Like our second wedding, this wedding gave us recognition in the eyes of the law and even more protection for our family of four. Unlike our civil union, which was only recognized in Connecticut, we could go anywhere in the US and have our relationship recognized.
By the time we got to our third wedding, I thought some of the excitement might have worn off. I was wrong. I underestimated just how validated I felt as an American, to have the government affirm and protect my marriage after nine years. I didn’t think I needed this validation to know that my relationship mattered. But as Jews, we know how important and central the legal system is to our lives. As religious Jews, we commit ourselves to halacha. We are used to the major moments in our lives – growing up, getting married, etc, – being accompanied by changes in our legal status. But halacha also teaches us to respect secular law – dina d’malchuta dina. The law of the land is the law. And at our third wedding, I was overwhelmed with feelings of pride for my country, for how far we had come in providing equal recognition under the law for families like mine.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that guaranteed access to marriage equality in all 50 states. I am celebrating it this year with mixed emotions, as the protections that we fought so hard to gain are at risk. My three weddings remind me how crucial these legal protections are, but also that we have lived and loved without them. American law can recognize and affirm our love and our families, but it does not create them. The kedusha of our relationships and our families is up to us to create with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Miryam Kabakov
Executive Director