Last week, I stepped out of services during the Torah service for a few minutes following my son into the synagogue lounge. When I came back, the Torah reading had concluded and the Haftarah was about to start. To my great disappointment, I realized quickly that I had missed the final two aliyot. Not only that, but they were the final sentences of the entire book of Genesis. I missed my chance to hear the congregation stand up for the final sentence of Bereshit and cry out, in unison, “Chazak Chazak V’nitchazek” – “Be strong, be strong, and we will strengthen one another.” After chanting the last verse of each book of the Torah in synagogue, the reader and then the congregation chant this line as a way of transition. For most people, I doubt this moment is must-see TV, but I have a special relationship to this phrase. Let me explain.
Nearly six years ago, my marriage, in its thirteenth year, ended. The day after my wife and I separated, I had another lifecycle event to attend in another city, the Bat Mitzvah of my niece. I had a dilemma. Dozens of people I knew from my family and extended community would be in attendance, many of them unaware that my marriage had ended. As much as I did not want to make this weekend about me, I couldn’t escape the reality that some relatives and friends would notice that I had my children with me but not my wife. I feared a plethora of awkward moments coming my way:
Them: So great to see you. Mazal tov on your niece’s Bat Mitzvah. Your kids look so big. Where is your wife?
Me: She’s not here. We actually separated recently.
Them: I’m so sorry to hear that. How are the kids doing?
To my relief, the conversation only happened a handful of times at the Bat Mitzvah. But that same conversation would happen many more times over the next few months. And sometimes the response, instead of “I’m sorry to hear that,” would be, “Mazal tov.” Both responses, in my case, were completely inadequate and severed the possibility for real connection in that moment.
Those accidentally tone-deaf responses made me flustered, even angry, in ways I couldn’t politely express to others. I often found myself frozen, not knowing what to think and certainly not safe to express it. “Why are you sorry to hear that?” I would think to myself. “Are you sorry that my marriage is over? Or are you sorry that I told you?” Or, as Rabbi Steven Philip says in a Rosh Hashana sermon on the same topic, “Are you sorry that I failed to fix my marriage?” I know the “I’m sorry” was meant to comfort, but it filled me with rage. Although not equivalent, it felt as inept as telling someone with cancer, “It was G-d’s plan. It’ll make you stronger.”
But my grievance had no address. The insensitive response weren’t anyone’s fault. We live in a culture where we are programmed to avert our eyes upon hearing news of divorce. So most of us say whatever we can to move on as quickly as possible. Not a bad instinct. But I needed more. Probably the best response I received in the early days was actually a question: “What would be a helpful thing to say right now?” To which I replied after some thought, “Wow – thank you for sharing that. That is big. What a moment to be living through.” It’s all I needed in that moment. No judgment. No assumptions. Just acknowledgment. But it wasn’t something easily replicated.
It wasn’t until nearly two years into my separation that my journey for a better response to sharing the news of my divorce would manifest. One perk of getting divorced, I discovered, was that it unlocked a new superpower: I could connect with others going through divorce very easily. Not surprisingly, most folks I met were equally turned off by the typical “I’m sorry” and other avoidance gestures masquerading as sympathy. I met a rabbinic colleague at a conference, and one late night we were talking, and he described how his marriage ended. We talked about the challenges of coming out to our communities as divorced rabbis, lamenting the lack of suitable shared language on the topic.
He said, “Surely the Jewish people must have language for such moments of sharing the bittersweet news of a marriage ending! What about chazak chazak v’nitchazek?” A deep burden lifted off me almost immediately. I said, “You mean because, like when we say it in shul, we’re ending one chapter of our lives and beginning a new chapter?” Because we’re fully acknowledging the realness of what is happening without assuming feelings or projecting an experience onto someone? Yes! Our tradition does have language.
When life circumstances require a massive rebuild and demand a level of resilience we are not used to, knowing what to say isn’t simple. Thankfully, the Jewish people know a thing or two about resilience and big pivots. We have the memory muscle to weather big storms, and some of that muscle has been stored in our liturgy, and in this case, in our communal blessings.
Chazak Chazak V’nitchazek – this is a prayer for resilience. Who doesn’t need some of that, especially when one’s marriage is ending? I had found the words I was looking for. So now, whenever I meet someone who tells me they are going through divorce, these are the words I say to them. And then I say, “From one life chapter to the next, may you find strength.”
When my divorce became final four years after my separation, in my own ritual of closure, I had it lined up with the week that we read the final chapter of Vayikra (Leviticus). This gave me the opportunity to chant Torah on that Shabbat. I requested the final aliyah, so that I could hear the entire congregation sing to me and the community those same three words before I repeated it back to them. All so we could, together, begin Bamidbar (Numbers), the next book of the Torah, and head together into the wilderness.
Ezra Weinberg is a rabbi, ritual musician, and educator dedicated to facilitating and supporting transformative Jewish rituals. He founded “Jews Get Divorce,” a network of resources for Jews going through divorce, which aims to redefine the communal response to this life stage. He is a native Philadelphian and holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Transformation.