The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

The other reason I came up to Boston this weekend was that today my laptop-loaning friend got married. He and his wonderful former girlfriend tied the knot in a very nice backyard ceremony. I've been to a few friends' weddings before, but not many. And at most of them I felt a bit like an outsider - not in the immediate circle of friends and family. But this was different. I consider them some of my closest friends, and I was honored that they asked me to sign their ketubah.

A ketubah is the actual covenant document in a Jewish marriage, and it's signed by witnesses. Because traditional Judaism is patriarchal, witnesses must be men. But a lot of progressive Jews, my friends included, ask women to sign it as well, for the day "when they count too."

To do it, I had to sign my name in Hebrew: "Chaya bat Shalom" (roughly the equivalent of "Cathy, daughter of Steve," except using our Hebrew names). And I had to use actual Hebrew script to do it. The problem: I can't read or write Hebrew. But I got there early, and a relative who did wrote it out for me and I spent the next hour practicing. I got it down pretty good, although I was still nervous about writing it on such an important document. Turns out I needn't have worried - I actually did pretty well. (Although I did manage to screw up the English version of my name I also signed with, and you'd have thought I'd have had that one already mastered by now...)

When I looked at the ketubah later on, after it had been all framed, and saw my handwritten Hebrew I felt sort of amazed that it was my writing. "I did that!" I proudly exclaimed to myself. It was strange to me that I was able to produce letters like these, but it made me think that maybe someday I'd like to be able to write more of them.

(I've also decided that I would like a hora at my wedding. This may require marrying someone Jewish, because I'm not sure I've got enough Jewish relatives to manage hoisting the chairs on their own, but irrespective of the groom ... I want a hora.)