Reflections on a Wedding
Left to right: Ken, Mara, Miryam, David
Reflections on a Wedding
[Kenneth Alan Collins – July 2004]
From 5:30 p.m. on Friday, June 25, 2004, until approximately the same time two days later, Sunday, June 27, I participated in and experienced one of the most special events in my entire life. These three days were a public celebration of the love and commitment between my daughter, Mara Hillary Benjamin, and her partner, Miryam Kabakov. We call such public celebrations of commitment a wedding and those who are so wed are married. In short, I was at a wedding. And while this one had no official state sanction, in every other respect – religious, familial, personal, emotional, traditional – it was the real McCoy.
Parents always think that the doings of their children are unique, unprecedented and without compare, simply because we think our children are very special, which they are. And yet, in this case, I believe that everyone who was present felt touched in an ineffable way, felt that they, too, had undergone a transforming experience. So, despite being a parent at this event, I am positive that this unqualified view was unbiased and had nothing to do with my being a parent of one of the brides.
This wedding was something different for many, many reasons, and it is my hope that before the afterglow fades away to just a cherished memory, I can try to capture, for myself, if for no one else, how it affected me (and I believe most others present).
There is no particular priority in which to go over all the aspects that were memorable. I will simply begin. I will only say, before touching on specifics, that almost every aspect of these three days had elements of tradition, ritual, community, that many of us rarely experience in contemporary America. The weekend managed to re-create in a fully up-to-date manner the essence of ritual and ceremony and spirituality that we miss so much (even if we are not at all aware of how much we are missing). And yet, the elements constituting these days did not do this through artificially constructed rituals. In a very deep way, they went back to the roots of timeless verities that have been present in most places and times, but seem sadly lacking for most of us in our lives today.
The experience of over 100 people (many more on the actual wedding day, Sunday, June 27) coming together to spend time at an isolated hideaway in a beautiful natural place, had a great deal to do with setting the stage for a great time. The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center is located in the far northwestern corner of Connecticut, where the Berkshires begin. It was founded earlier in the last century as a refuge (if only for a few weeks) for poor Jewish workers who spent most of their time in crowded, unhealthy cities. It had both a socialist and Jewish commitment that reflects a certain period in our history. It continues to be a simple, basic sort of a place, but its lack of glitz made the weekend’s experience that much more special. Lodgings were in the form of small, low buildings spread around a lake. The chapel was the most modern building – simple lines with one whole side glass, the side that faced the lake.
With its backdrop of lush, green mountains networked with trails, the retreat center had the ambiance needed to allow us all to get away from our everyday world with few interruptions – I felt that this coming together of so many strangers for a common celebration in this midsummer night sort of a festivity had the wonderful aspect of an Ingmar Bergman film before it turns dark. Strangely, it had elements of the pagan. There was a sense of expectancy that this would be a different sort of experience, one to anticipate with great excitement.
Friday evening began with dark clouds and intermittent rain, but that had the welcome effect of bringing everyone together, sheltered by the simple rustic structures. I immediately sensed that though I knew almost none of my daughter's friends, and had not seen many relatives from my ex-wife's side for decades, that I would like everyone I talked to, came to know, even just rubbed shoulders with. And this proved to be the case. In large functions I am quite a shy person, with a tendency to find one individual I can talk to and glom onto for the whole time. It was quite different this time – there was electricity in the air that was palpable and I simply knew I could approach anyone and begin talking and that it would be stimulating, comfortable, and would open up new insights into who my daughter was.
I suppose one small aspect of the affair, for which I can take no credit, but which was, all the same, incredibly meaningful for me, was that many of Mara's friends (with one exception, none had ever met me) knew who I was before I even introduced myself. Each one, separately, said the same thing – something to the effect of "You don't even have to tell us who you are – we knew right away that you had to be Mara's Dad because you look just like her!" I've always thought that Mara looked mainly like Judith, my ex-wife, so to have this spontaneous experience multiple times was a very gentle, but startling revelation. Also, many mentioned how curious they had been to meet me and get to know a little about me, that I had been the absent, invisible "mystery man" for so many years.
What struck me at the beginning, and deepened throughout the weekend, was how many people had come from all over the country (and some from abroad) to give witness to what my daughter (and correspondingly, with Miryam's friends) has meant to them – I cannot recall personally a situation in which it was obvious that no one was at the wedding out of a sense of obligation, but rather, there simply was no question that they had to be there – Mara had been such a unique presence in their life, had been an abiding influence, that not only did they want to be there, but they just knew – they absolutely just knew – that this wedding would be the culmination of everything wonderful that Mara meant to them. (I should say here that because of how this wedding deepened my appreciation of Mara, I am tending to focus on her. I am wild about Miryam and feel very fortunate that she has now become a significant part of my life).
I am definitely a lapsed Jew in terms of following tradition, going to synagogue, or fulfilling religious obligations. And Mara's path has been a very different one, at least outwardly. She is deeply involved in her religion, and has made it the centerpiece of her studies and presumably of her future career. Some of the things I had sensed over the years about Mara's experience of religion came to a kind of full flowering at the wedding. Many specific aspects of the weekend were religiously based, but here was the difference. First, I had never been exposed to the intense joyousness, enthusiasm, and energy that imbued the various services – Friday evening, the actual wedding ceremony, the post-ceremony luncheon, etc. There is obviously a whole world of people out there with a similar outlook who are not exclusionary in their experience of religion. With such people, one is never made to feel inadequate for not being observant, for not knowing the prayers, or how to sing the songs. It is open and inviting and wins you over by the sheer energy that draws you in. This, for me, was a key element in what made the weekend special. While I am completely unobservant, my heritage and culture, at some level, still reside in me and I found myself open to this opportunity to experience it in a refreshing, reinvigorated way. There was no set of beliefs I had to buy into as the price of admission. The only requirement was to leave myself open to letting it seep into me, which it did very quickly.
Friday evening services began while it was still light out so one could look through the big glass windows of the chapel onto the lake and the velvety green mountains, under a threatening, stormy sky. A rabbi-in-the-making, a woman (as almost all the rabbis present were) gave a talk on the meaning of a passage in the Torah that had implications not only for Mara and Miryam, about to embark in this formal way on their life together, but for any of us who have been or are in a serious, intimate relationship. That a young woman could speak so well, so intelligently, and most of all, with such deep emotional perception about the underpinnings of an enduring relationship was almost beyond imagining – when I wasn't being overwhelmed, I was simply seized by the rightness of the point she was making. The key point she focused on – and it is so absolutely true – is that each of us must allow the person we love to change, to surprise us, to be different. We must not put that person in a box, we must not see them in only one way. So, early on, the weekend was off to a great start.
In fact, Mara and Miryam and their friends managed to infuse ancient traditions with fresh life in a setting never literally imagined for it, namely the union of two women, following the essential, time-honored components of a Jewish wedding ceremony. That they managed to do it in a way that felt authentic and did not unduly focus on their same-sex relationship was an important part of what made the experience so memorable. That so many people accepted its authenticity despite the unusualness of what was going on, was all the more impressive.
I could not help reflecting on my own wedding in February 1965 – my wife to be and I had virtually no say in how the wedding celebration would unfold. It followed a well-developed script that had its share of the elements lampooned in Goodbye Columbus. It was a social event, a family "payback" to an extended social circle for that circle's own lavish series of weddings following the identical script. How, in less than 40 years things had changed! Mara and Miryam, with help from others, created a celebration that was not only utterly real but linked with generations of others in a way that gave the entire concept new meaning. While they fretted about many specific elements, they in fact were thoughtful, creative, methodical, and deeply steeped in their culture, resulting in the end in a whole that was stupendously greater than its many parts. But in the last analysis, it was the people who were there and honored them that made it so unlike anything else any of us had paid witness to.
I also could not fail to think, a lot, about this being a same-sex wedding, and what my own fate was when, married, I finally faced up to the fact that I was, fundamentally and ineradicably gay, and nothing was ever going to change that. For the world, I would not have wished (at the time) for that to be my fate, but I also realized it was and I knew I had to be true to who I was. The cost was immense – abandoning my ex-wife and my child (Mara), deeply hurting my parents and many others who knew me and liked me. Tolerance was almost always the most I could hope for – acceptance was rare. I was on my own in a mostly unfriendly world.
And now, here I was, at my own daughter's same-sex wedding, with a huge turn-out of people there to celebrate, with all their hearts and all their loves one person's deep abiding love for another person of the same sex. And some people were there who had read me out of their world (at the time) – how the pathways of life had circled around! I felt no bitterness, no gloating – it was simply a warm, bittersweet reflection. After all, I did manage to make a decent life for myself, despite it all, and all I could feel was happiness that my daughter had a chance to work out her true nature in a much more positive setting. (I also felt a sense of closure on all the years of estrangement between us – somehow this wedding closed one long chapter of my life and began a new one, although Mara and I have been working up to it for a number of years now).
Back to the weekend. All the meals were immensely enjoyable. The food was organic, healthy, and mostly vegetarian. Conversation at the tables was lively and inclusive. Meals were simply another form of celebration, of bringing people together, of strangers getting to know and value one another. We all knew Mara or Miryam from some phase of their life, and we all, in our own way, got to join more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to get a more complete picture of the people we had come to know in our own individual ways.
I had intended to be at Saturday morning services, but I began talking to one of Mara's oldest friends from Seattle – they met during Mara's high school years and got to know each other on two trips to the former Soviet Union, including parts of Central Asia. What began as a casual, brief conversation turned into a dialogue lasting almost three hours and I just could not pull myself away because I was getting such wonderful new insights about various aspects of who Mara was and is.
The finest example of how we shared, collectively, our insights about who Mara and Miryam are was the "Roast and Toast" that followed the Saturday evening meal. This was one of the most delightful evenings of gentle spoofing. It was enjoyable not simply for the mild pokes taken at Mara and Miryam's foibles – ones we had all become familiar with from whatever part of their lives we had known them during – it was most enjoyable because for most of us, performing before others is scary business, so this was such a powerful statement of how important Mara and Miryam had been to so many of those present. I was truly awed by the depth of admiration, respect, and caring that they have engendered in others. For me, perhaps, it was what I took away most with me – that my daughter is a rare individual who has had an impact on such a diverse set of wonderful people.
The "Roast and Toast" was then followed by a lovely bonfire on the shores of the lake, with singing, marshmallow toasting and general good sprits under a star-studded dark sky. I began talking to the same high school friend of Mara’s with whom I had had a long conversation with that morning and again, it was another delightful yet intense exchange.
Sunday was the day of the actual wedding ceremony. The two brides remained separate until brought together for the actual ceremony, each one having their own morning events for participants to attend. Then shortly before noon, came the signing of the Katubah, the wedding contract, which took place in a small, screened gazebo down close to the lake. Saturday afternoon the weather had begun to clear, and by Sunday, it was an absolutely perfect, sparkling, cloudless day.
The Katubah was mounted on a board, and had been magnificently prepared on various kinds of handmade paper, beautifully lettered in Hebrew and English by a master calligrapher out in Seattle, where Mara grew up. We in the wedding party (which included David) were inside the gazebo, and all the other guests surrounded the gazebo in the bright sun, peering inside to share with the participants in the universality of the event. It was reminiscent of nothing so much as an African village ceremony when the entire village surrounds the celebrants as a kind of Greek chorus (if I may mix many metaphors). (Shall we paraphrase and say "It takes a village to make a wedding?")
Then there was the actual wedding – the members of the wedding party, including David and me, walking up to the chupah, the covered "tent" (in this case, an heirloom tablecloth held aloft on rough birch saplings) and then stepping aside. Everywhere, simple but beautiful flower arrangements.
Several (women) rabbis led various stages of the wedding ceremony, and inevitably, each one was impressive in her genuineness and depth of insight into the meaning of what we all, in common, were participating in.
When the ceremony was over, we repaired to a huge outdoor tent where luncheon tables and full bar had been set up. The highlight for me was that a top-ranked Klezmer band had been engaged to make music. And they started up with an energy and fury that raged for at least 45 minutes without a break. At a point in the dancing Mara and Miryam sat down and received simple "queenly" tiaras. A circle formed around them, and various guests performed different wild celebrations to honor the "royalty" – juggling, scarf waving, little jigs, etc. Again, this was reminiscent of ancient ritual and held deep meaning. It also reminded me of that wonderful scene in The Nutcracker when Clara and the Prince (the Nutcracker turned into a man) are regaled by dancers of all different ethnicities, presenting their best to Clara and the Prince's wondrous eyes. It was utterly dazzling and I was entranced.
Needless to say, the meal was stupendously good, and in the middle, there was a set of toasts, one of which was made by me (included at the end of this file). To top everything off, Mara and Miryam's submission of their wedding announcement to the Sunday New York Times was printed that day in the "Celebrations" section where weddings of all kinds appear. Competition is keen for the few available places, so that was an added little delight. (I've included a copy of the announcement at the end as well, taken from the electronic version of the New York Times).
Eventually, various people had to leave to catch flights, take the chartered bus back to New York City, and so by 6:00 p.m., things were winding down. But it was very clear that for each person who had been present, they had participated in an event not likely to be repeated very soon, one that each and every one of us, in our own way, would cherish for a long, long time.
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Postscript
I should add, as a postscript, that as one listens to ideological politicians who say that gay marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage and we must amend the Constitution to ban it, one wishes somehow one could break through the narrow blinders of those who simply have to have someone to hate, to see the love and intense positive emotions felt by everyone present at Mara's and Miryam's affair – a diverse spectrum of individuals with a variety of political viewpoints – to realize that no one saw in this pledging of two people's commitment to each other anything that could possibly threaten the foundations of our personal relationships or the viability of our civilization. It is difficult to hold back the fury at people who gratuitously choose to behave this way and in so doing, hurt so many others. But fury will not resolve this issue. Finding a way to get such individuals to open up their hearts and minds to what one can so clearly see and experience is the only answer, in my humble opinion.
New York Times
June 27, 2004
Mara Benjamin, Miryam Kabakov
June 27, 2004
Mara Hillary Benjamin and Miryam Kabakov will affirm their partnership today at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Conn. Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg will officiate.
Ms. Benjamin, 31, is a candidate for a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford University. In the fall she is scheduled to be the Hazel D. Cole fellow in Jewish Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She graduated from Hampshire College and received a diploma in Jewish studies from Oxford University.
Ms. Benjamin is the daughter of Judith Benjamin of Seattle, and the stepdaughter of Dr. Mark Benjamin, whose name she took. Her father is Dr. Kenneth Collins of Santa Fe, N.M. Her mother teaches English as a second language at North Seattle Community College. Her stepfather is a professor of environmental engineering and science at the University of Washington. Her father retired as a senior security adviser at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Ms. Kabakov, 40, is the associate director of Avodah, a service corps for recent Jewish college graduates dedicated to Jewish study and to fighting urban poverty. She graduated from San Francisco State University and received a master's degree in social work from Yeshiva University in New York.
Ms. Kabakov, who uses her grandfather's spelling of her surname, is a daughter of Celia Kabakow and Dr. Bernard Kabakow of New York. Her father is an oncologist with a private practice in New York and clinical professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her mother is the president of the Manhattan Guild, a nonprofit organization that raises money for health causes in Israel.