We are approaching Tisha B’Av, a day of commemoration and mourning for the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. Six days later, we celebrate Tu B’av, known as a day of matchmaking and an auspicious day for weddings. The mourning and new beginnings go hand in hand in our calendar. Below, Rabbi Ezra Weinberg imagines a future in which new marriages discuss the possibility of divorce, mourning for a marriage ended contains within it the seeds of new beginnings, and Jews experiencing divorce are fully supported by their communities.
The year is 2075. The landscape around marriage and divorce is totally different than in 2025. Loved ones are far less injured by marriages that don’t last. Divorce is now widely understood and accepted, not as a personal tragedy, but as a necessary part of many people’s lives. We have internalized the belief that divorce, like the other sacred life passages, is a holy time deserving of incredible love and care from the community. This conviction is bolstered by the widespread recognition that divorce is one of the 613 commandments in the Torah. A divorce is no longer seen as a “failed marriage,” but rather as a significant milestone and a mitzvah.
Divorce rates are still high, but how people get divorced has changed substantially and for the good. The decrease in high-conflict divorce has been dramatic. The current ratio of amicable to high-conflict divorces is 8:1. The billion-dollar divorce litigation industry is a shell of its former self. It is hard to believe that most people thought “finding a lawyer” was the first step to ending a marriage. Only ten percent of divorce cases make it to the courtroom. Mediation and collaborative divorce are the norm now.
To make this new reality possible, we had to examine our collective perspective on divorce and look into the fear driving so much of the avoidance. We had to decouple the real experience of marriage from the fantasy version that has been so prevalent in popular culture. It was actually in your time, the early 21st century, that saw the rise of TV shows and movies showing evolving modern family structures. At the sociological level, there was an awakening afoot: it no longer served folks to ignore the risks inherent in pledging your entire life to someone without any thought to contingencies. Eventually the religious world caught up and understood the value of expanding our view of the modern family beyond Momma Bear, Poppa Bear and Baby Bear. We just have our heads on straighter now.
There is much less shame around divorce now. People talk about their divorce like they talk about their sexual orientation: it’s just part of who they are. And most people talk about it appropriately. In your time, people didn’t ask about divorce because they feared hearing too much personal information, but we’ve now discovered that when divorce support is readily available, most of us can modulate how we share need-to-know information in ways that do not vilify our ex, force people to choose sides, or create triangulation.
What does divorce support look like today in the context of a synagogue or a JCC? The overriding principle is: preventing isolation. This was a huge win, because we had to overcome the shame that comes with what people perceived as a “failed marriage,” which led to the desire to simply hide ourselves from the public. But just as it is forbidden for a mourner to be isolated in the pain of their loss, we extended that logic to the most acute periods of marital loss. Here are two specific examples of how isolation is now prevented:
- When people are going through divorce in Jewish community, they are now matched up with mentors who have gone through this life stage. Mentors do weekly check-ins and help community leadership assess the specific needs for both former spouses and their reintegration back into community space.
- There is a volunteer role in many synagogues known simply as “Shalom Bayit” (Peace in the Home), who helps give those going through divorce access to all kinds of resources and support. Divorce never stops being hard, but it’s now supported and manageable.
Another misconception from your time was an irrational fear from community leaders that a “divorce-positive culture” would cause people to not want to get married. That has been proven false. Most people love weddings and love the Jewish concept of getting married. People love to celebrate love and divorce doesn’t negate that. If anything, it helps to balance it.
One antidote to the collective fear and shame around divorce has been exposure. Clergy now talk about it regularly and all the ways it comes up in Jewish tradition. Divorce Torah and stories are shared from the pulpit. It is a source of validation that Jewish divorce seems to be as old as Jewish marriage, going as far back as the biblical period. But we also mark it in many ways. Just like a couple will mark a wedding anniversary, we also encourage people to mark their “divorceaversary.”
A major reason it was hard to talk about divorce communally were the cases of abuse and the fear around how to handle them. In the decade following 2025, there was a turning point on this critical issue and we saw a huge increase in the Jewish communal support for those experiencing domestic abuse. This has made a significant difference, both in people’s lives and our ability to discuss many related sensitive topics.
Possibly the most significant shift in our collective perspective around marriage and divorce occurred when we looked at how we talk to engaged couples right before their weddings. What were the conversations we were not having? In 2025, it was rare for engaged couples to seriously ponder divorce. Thankfully, that has changed. Standard practice for clergy today is that conditions and intentions for the possibility of divorce are written into the marriage contract and discussed heavily in advance. It has become normalized for engaged couples to both imagine and prepare for this possibility. Rabbis now ask these questions: “How far does your love for each other go? How will you love each other even if the marriage does not last?” No couple gets married without addressing this core issue, and their response is typically shared during the wedding ceremony so that all guests can bear witness not just to their love-based wedding vows, but to their love-based divorce vows.
Questions about divorce are no longer considered morbid or tempting fate. As a matter of fact, the possibility of divorce has become the topic most discussed in the build-up to the wedding ceremony. We can’t imagine a time when it was considered taboo to do so, and yet apparently it was back in 2025. It is now considered self-evident that being able to talk about divorce before marriage gives couples tools to have hard conversations and brings them closer. It seems obvious now that you might not want to marry someone with whom you cannot have a hard conversation, but it was not obvious fifty years ago.
It is hard to imagine a Jewish community that used to squirm around this basic truth: that marriage isn’t always forever, and that is not just okay, it’s more than okay. It is essential for healthy living. Marriages are much healthier now. There is also much less pressure to get married, as other forms of communal living and family creation have thrived.
I am thrilled to say that in 2075, the Jewish community is doing marriage and divorce much better now than ever.