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How can I tell my mother I can't attend her wedding??!!
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greenfire




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:26 am
it's amazing how many people want to play god ... well god wants people to be decent human beings and I cannot fathom how you can ignore your mother on her special day & consider yourself a mentch

not only will you make a huge chillul hashem in not attending cause she will certainly wonder why you became a ger if this is what jews are about - but you will hurt the woman who birthed you aka your mother !!!
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:31 am
Yes, indeed, greenie.

OP, you will seriously make frum Jews look like asholes if you're like, "Mom, I'm not coming. You're not a Jew. He's not allowed to marry you. In fact, he shouldn't be with you at all." Your mom will wonder what kind of psycho cult her daughter is part of.
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morah




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:39 am
I just want to say, separate from the intermarriage issue, I think people should understand why a child might not want to attend a parent's wedding. There's a reason the minhag exists, and if you've never experienced a parent's remarriage, well, I can tell you that it can be very hard on the child. I love my mother, I love my stepfather, I have a great relationship with them today, but I still have bad feelings and resentment about having been forced to attend their chuppah when I didn't want to (I was a child at the time). If the OP chooses not to go, I already said she should make it about the minhag of children not attending. I don't think it's wrong at all for a child not to attend a parent's wedding, there is a compelling case to be made for not going in general.
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vintagebknyc




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:41 am
op, I think the for the rav is this: "how can I find a way to go to my mother's wedding?"

I've seen incidents like these rip families apart, and I don't want that to happen to you.
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fmt4




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:45 am
morah wrote:
I just want to say, separate from the intermarriage issue, I think people should understand why a child might not want to attend a parent's wedding. There's a reason the minhag exists, and if you've never experienced a parent's remarriage, well, I can tell you that it can be very hard on the child. I love my mother, I love my stepfather, I have a great relationship with them today, but I still have bad feelings and resentment about having been forced to attend their chuppah when I didn't want to (I was a child at the time). If the OP chooses not to go, I already said she should make it about the minhag of children not attending. I don't think it's wrong at all for a child not to attend a parent's wedding, there is a compelling case to be made for not going in general.


I think the fact that they have been together for 18 years makes this case a little different.
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MagentaYenta




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:46 am
fmt4 wrote:
I think the fact that they have been together for 18 years makes this case a little different.


This^. It's quite obvious they are in a committed relationship and not just shacking up.
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morah




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 7:56 am
I hear that.
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miami85




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 8:07 am
We had a similar situation, FIL thinks he's Jewish but conversion wasn't orthodox, and he remarried a Jewish woman. I don't think my DH asked the shaila (as not going wasnt an option) but we figured a few things 1)FIL would be incredibly insulted 2)Would be a non-orthdox ceremony which doesn't really count 3) no children will come from this union 4)Perhaps we could be mekarev step MIL.
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mille




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 8:07 am
vintagebknyc wrote:
op, I think the for the rav is this: "how can I find a way to go to my mother's wedding?"

I've seen incidents like these rip families apart, and I don't want that to happen to you.


Yes, I totally agree that you need to phrase it in such a way. The obvious easy answer for a rabbi is "no, you can't go", because that's the safest answer. No worries about any technicalities, just don't deal with it. But this wording is more open, it's less of a yes or no, it's asking more about the grey area in between.
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sweetpotato




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Feb 27 2015, 8:35 am
Not going to your mother's wedding/celebration is completely illogical. Unless I'm misunderstanding something:

1. Your mom and her partner have already been legally married for years, under common law marriage. This ceremony is just a celebration/acknowledgement of that.

2. Your mom isn't doing anything wrong--she's not Jewish. You can't tell a non-Jew they aren't allowed to marry a Jew because the logic is completely circular--you have to be Jewish to buy into the idea that Jews should only marry Jews.

3. I'm assuming your mom and her partner aren't planning to have children, and have already been together for 18 years, so there's no argument that her partner is missing out on having Jewish children because he wasn't going to have any children anyway. It's not like he might have otherwise

4. The only person who is doing anything possibly wrong is your mom's partner--and we can probably assume that he counts as a tinok shenishba. (Just throwing this out there, but can't you just have a sofek that he's even Jewish in the first place, unless you've seen his grandmother's ketuba? Why not just assuage whatever misplaced guilt you might have by telling yourself he may not even be halachically Jewish in the first place? Unless you have irrefutable proof...)

5. I'm also assuming that your mother's partner is a good person and they are a compatible couple, in which case, gezunterheit-- after 18 years committed together, it's a good thing that they each have each to take care of one another as they age.

6. They've been together for 18 years! If you were going to take a "stand" against the relationship (which would be inappropriate anyway), certainly you should have done it LONG ago. That ship has sailed.

7. Kibud av v'eim is one of the 10 commandments. I don't see any way that whatever *possible* maris ayin could be construed through your attending the wedding could possibly trump your obligation of kibud eim, especially since any argument against your mom's "wedding" are so feeble.

This is such a different situation from, say, a 20-something off-the-derech cousin who is planning to marry a non-Jewish woman in an interfaith ceremony with a priest and a chuppah and crosses everywhere.
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amother


 

Post Sun, Mar 01 2015, 11:31 pm
I have dealt with a similar situation but with a sibling rather than a parent. I am also a convert. Sibling married a Jew. We were a little more 'black and white' back then and knew we would not be attending. They put it on holiday Monday instead of Saturday specifically so that we could attend. We got an out - it ended up being Yom Kippur instead!

So we had a reason for not being able to attend the ceremony but we DID attend the meal afterwards (they organised kosher for us). My sibling was doing nothing wrong and there was no reason why we couldn't be happy for said sibling. We had to be careful about how we worded things but we were able to say "Congratulations, we are so happy for you" to the non-Jewish partner but not the Jewish one directly. If they interpreted you as being both that was not an issue.

A parent is a little trickier but being that it's a secular ceremony I'd be trying if possible to be there but not involved, stand at the back on her side etc but definitely look into it, we didn't get that far because of the Yom Kippur issue.
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BrachaBatya




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Mar 02 2015, 7:27 am
Go. It's your mother.
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