Marriage

Without even telling us he was dating, our son who is away at college recently got engaged to a young woman he met on his own on the campus outside the auspices of a shadchan or anyone who could give him proper guidance. We were concerned about this and we really wanted to meet her. We invited her to spend a weekend with us and she came dressed in a miniskirt. We soon learned she wears miniskirts every day and that she will not cover her hair after she gets married. She apparently follows a brand of Orthodox Judaism that is permissive of many things our family and community and local rebbeim consider unacceptable. And it appears our son has viewed his relationship with her as a license to adopt that lifestyle which she exposed him to and engage in activities we taught him were forbidden. We are utterly embarrassed and devastated! They are evidently moving forward quickly with plans to wed because she wants her grandparents to be at her wedding and she does not know how much longer they have to live. They might even marry during the semester break less than a month away! We are unprepared emotionally for this. He only recently broke this news to us. We have not even met her parents in person. They live far away. We met them a few times on video. They are nice people, but their Jewish values seem to different from our. Our son has been over their house more than once and says they are nice warm people. They like him a lot and are happy to have him as a son-in-law. This young woman is not bad. She seems like a very nice girl who is warm and caring and very intelligent and wholesome. Our concerns are that he is rushing this relationship when they only met at the beginning of the semester, and she is detracting from his religious observance that he was always so scrupulous to follow in the past. All might seem well early on, but they are both very young and naive.

I have always understood that marriage is so holy that it is forbidden to interfere with another couple’s marriage in a way that might trigger its downfall, even if you perceive the marriage is bad. I know a woman who is a victim of domestic violence. Her husband is terribly mistreating her and denying her access to any resources necessary to get out. She does not have a car because he will not provide her with one and she cannot afford one, and anywhere she goes, she depends on either him or a friend for transportation. And because she does not have a car, she cannot get a job to have the money to live on her own. She refuses to tell anyone she knows, including me, that she wants to leave him. But I sense that she does. I have asked her if I can help her in any way, and besides the rides I give her sometimes, she won’t ask for help. I know that if she had the money and a car, she would be out in no time. She just doesn’t have the courage to ask others for money. If I raised money for her to buy a car and start a life on her own, would I be violating the prohibition against interfering with another couple’s marriage?

If there is a marriage between a Sephardic woman and an ashkenazi man, what are the children?

My wife and I have been married for 37 years. We have been very happy with our own relationship and had a lot of love for each other and a lot of career and monetary success and rich social lives. But we struggled and could not have any children and never did, which has always made us very sad. The other day, while cleaning the glass frame that houses it, I looked at our ketubah and noticed my Hebrew middle name is misspelled by one letter. The misspelling changes it to another common Hebrew name. The rabbi who officiated and one of the two witnesses who signed it are long deceased, and I have lost touch with and don’t know the whereabouts of the other witness. What should I do about this? And could this be the reason we could never have children?

Dear Rabbi, My husband is a convert to Judaism. He went through the process of conversion according to Halacha many years ago because he wanted to marry me. Since then, he has half-heartedly observed Judaism. He wears a kippah and follows the rituals and guidelines, but he only does so because these are rules he was taught and doesn’t seem to feel anything in his heart. This never bothered me until recently. After what happened in Israel, he has taken the side of the Palestinians. He talks constantly among his relatives and mostly non-Jewish friends about the ‘atrocities’ of Israel. When anyone tries to talk to or argue with him, he is the better, more powerful arguer. He thinks any sources showing the real facts are fake. I find this so embarrassing. I don’t want to divorce him. My marriage to him is otherwise good and we have children and want to keep to our family stable, but I have trouble putting up with this and can’t take it anymore.

My wife and I are both secular Jews living in the USA. We never cared about Judaism and always kept it a secret, but we were so touched by the events in Israel that it has made us think about who we are. We have been reading and watching YouTube videos about religion and we really want to be with our people and observe. We don’t live in a Jewish community, but we want to put our house on the market and move into one. We are civilly married to each other for many years and we have grown children, but we never had a religious ceremony and we have no ketubah. Are we required to undergo a religious ceremony at some point? Are we required to live separately until we do so?

Hello - My sister's wedding is in a week and she would like me to lead a prayer for peace (in regards to Israel and the world) during the ceremony. Would Oseh Shalom be appropriate for this? Thank you!