“A Very Brooklyn Tena’im”: Rabbinical Student Addie Nix Reinvents a Ritual for Engaged Couples

"What's so beautiful about Hebrew Union College and our professors is that they really encourage us to grapple with Jewish tradition - neither to totally accept it unquestioningly or just throw any of it away - but to really make the traditions our own and to help other people do that as well," says third-year rabbinical student Addie Nix.

One example Nix cites is the Liturgy class she took with AJ Berkovitz, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Liturgy and Ancient Judaism. The course provides a historical overview of major Jewish life cycle rituals, while introducing students to academic theorists who examined how rituals work and have evolved over time. The final project involved "each student taking ownership of a certain ritual" says Nix, who adds that the professor "gave us a lot of creative freedom" about how to update the ritual and explain that adaptation through the critical frameworks of the theorists.

Nix ended up choosing a ritual connected to something that was very much on her mind: matrimony. "I had an idea when the semester started that my partner and I would be getting engaged on our upcoming trip France," where the couple was planning to visit the Jewish commentator Rashi's home in Troyes, she recalls. As it happened, the topic was in the air all around her. "Three of my HUC classes had a focus on engagement and marriage. So it really felt like a very happy accident, and it has given me a lot to mull over for my own wedding and how I'll help couples in the future," she says.

With all that in mind, Nix picked an Ashkenazi ritual known as tena'im - "conditions " -where a couple draws up a document and has witnesses sign it at their engagement party, to formalize logistical and financial commitments before marriage. Nix says the custom was "not something I had ever heard of or knew about before, but it used to be very common from the 12th through 19th centuries, when families were arranging marriages."

Nix says the ritual of tena'im "felt ripe for reinterpretation," and because it was a minhag - a custom - rather than halacha or a legal requirement, "it was really inspiring to think, wow, we can be creative with this. So that was really freeing and exciting to me."

She says she found the ritual particularly compelling because it presented an opportunity to step back from contemporary wedding planning culture. "I feel like with today's engagement, it can feel so logistical - like, Pinterest, and let's get the dress and the venue and the flowers. And to me, that felt like a real wasted opportunity from a Jewish perspective."

Tena'im, by contrast, gave the couple a process that made them "really sit down and work on our document together, and think about what we wanted," Nix says. "At HUC, we talk about liminal time a lot, so the two of us talked about what we want this time to look like, where we're not married, but we're not single. It's kind of beautiful to bring that intentionality into a relationship and recognize that, at times, though you love your partner, you might be a little bit at odds and not have that emotional feeling that brought you into the marriage. I think the tena'im agreement, along with the wedding contract of the ketubah, are great reminders that you need not only the love and the niceties and the flowery language, but the tachlis or logistic component as well. I think our Jewish tradition teaches us that you need both for a lasting marriage."

Nix says the tena'im process also established a place for the specific conditions of their families and communities. "I am a Jew-by-choice, and my fiancé, Daniel, comes from an interfaith background. So we have lots of Christian and non-Jewish folks who are important to us in our lives, and we wanted to recognize them as well," she says, to signal the assent not only of the Jewish community, but of the other circles in their lives. The couple chose one of Nix's HUC classmates to sign as a witness, embodying the assent and recognition of their engagement from their chosen Jewish community, and a family member - Nix's sister - to sign the document in English, representing their families and their roots.

When it came to planning the event, Nix says the couple found a church basement that "was like an experiential theatre venue. It was a raw space that was a little funky. There was this wall of old TV's, so we showed a video with scenes from our favorite movie Fiddler on the Roof," Nix remembers. "There was an old classroom, and we used that as a DIY space where folks could braid their own Havdalah candles. Folks mingled and we made our own batch cocktails and danced the horah. Some guests quipped that the scene was "very Brooklyn" - even though, as Nix points out, "we're Queens people; we're not cool enough to live in Brooklyn."

At the end, Nix says, "We gathered everyone together and stood in a big circle. And we had everybody sign our plate that we broke as part of the tradition. It was more beautiful and joyous than I could have expected."

"This tena'im ceremony is exactly what Hebrew Union College is all about," says Professor Berkovitz, whose course required students to advance rituals in ways that would connect them to modernity while maintaining the authentic link to tradition. "It's a great example of how its faculty educates rabbinical students to deeply and seriously engage with tradition as they transmit, reinvent, and reinvigorate it. Klal Yisroel (the Jewish People) need Klei kodesh, or holy vessels, who authentically link our rich past to our tumultuous present. We need leaders who inspire people and bring them together in effervescent joy. Addie's ritual does just that. I wish her and her partner a hearty mazal tov."

For Nix, the tena'im proved to be an ideal way to bring Jewish ritual to life in her life and share it with a larger group of people than will be able to attend the small wedding they are planning to have in France next summer.

"I feel like this year in particular, we need some Jewish joy."

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