If you want to date or marry a congregational rabbi, you will find it difficult to go out alone with her. So say several husbands of Wisconsin rabbis interviewed recently about the joys and challenges of being what one of them called a “rebbetz-man.”
Though attorney Brad Backer, Dr. Corey Shamah, both of Milwaukee, and Bob Dick of Green Bay, who works as a manager of instructional technology, saw some of the challenges differently, each agreed that sharing so much of his spouse with her congregation was one of the difficult aspects of being married to a rabbi.
When his then-girlfriend Reform Rabbi Dena Feingold worked as an assistant rabbi at Fox Point’s Congregation Shalom, “we could seldom go out in public without becoming a minyan,” Backer said, in a telephone interview last Friday.
But since she became the spiritual leader of Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha in 1986, that hasn’t been much of a problem for Backer and Feingold who live far away in the Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay.
Besides “living in a fish bowl,” the number of nights and weekends that Reform Rabbi Shari Shamah had to work when she too served as assistant rabbi at Congregation Shalom, was a strain on the family, her husband said.
“It was not just the dedication of time, but the emotional aspects” that could “be consuming,” he said. Two years ago, Rabbi Shamah, who has small children ages 2 and 5, left the pulpit to become the Jewish Family Specialist at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center’s Gan Ami Beginnings, Preschool and Kindergarten.
Bob Dick, husband of Conservative Rabbi Shaina Bachrach of Congregation Cnesses Israel, said, “I don’t think I had a grasp of how many hours in the day she would have to work and I would have to share her. Sometimes it’s a wait until late into the evening because people are sick and dying and that takes precedence.”
Despite those drawbacks, each of these rabbis’ spouses takes pride in his wife’s accomplishments, skills and learning. And each accepts his supporting role with charm and humor.
None of the three said he would advise a man asking whether he should marry a rabbi not to do so. Backer would say, “Make sure you’re marrying the right woman and don’t worry about the rabbi part.”
Shamah agreed, “All jobs have their pros and cons and if you love her, I wouldn’t let a job stand in the way.” But Dick would include the warning, “Get ready to share and that’s not an easy thing to do.”
Religious enough?
Backer and Shamah met their future spouses after they were already working as congregational rabbis and Dick met Bachrach during one of her summer vacations while she was a seminary student.
One challenge that everyone married to a clerical person faces is being as religious as one’s spouse, the three men agreed.
Backer and Shamah both said they had not been particularly drawn to religious observance prior to meeting and marrying their rabbi wives.
“I never would have envisioned, in a million years, that I would marry a rabbi,” said Shamah, in a telephone interview last week.
Backer remembers comments to the effect that his falling in love with a rabbi was evidence of God’s mystical sense of humor.
But on a more serious note, he confessed that a small fear in the back of his mind had been that Feingold would “stand in judgment of him as a Jew,” and by implication, find him lacking. “But she never has,” he said.
Previously married, Dick met Bachrach in Oklahoma City while searching for a Hebrew tutor for himself, when his son was preparing to become a bar mitzvah.
Involved in synagogue life then, Dick is even more so now, he said in a telephone interview last Thursday. He is expected “to be part of and be present at every single event” including all services.
And being “expected to be at the head of the pack” rather than just one of the crowd, is something he’s “not always comfortable with,” he said.
At Cnesses Israel, “where the Men’s Club does a lot of cooking,” Dick spends a lot of time in the kitchen. And he teaches high school students in the religious school.
Backer too has a special self-assigned role. He writes an occasional column in the synagogue newsletter called “Ask the Rabbi’s Spouse.” He both asks and answers questions that might read something like this:
“Dear Mr. Backer, I was looking across the congregation the other Shabbat and it almost appeared to me that you were asleep. Could this be true? Is this a good example for our youth?”
“Dear (name of person posing the question), The line between sleep and mystical meditation is a fine one.”
Not rebbetzins
Shamah said this is true partly because in the past spouses of rabbis may not have worked outside of the home and partly because societal expectations of men are different than those of women.
“I never had to explain where I was if I wasn’t at services. People assumed I was at work,” he said.
Backer agreed, saying, “I do think that I am the beneficiary of sexism in that the congregants are more likely to excuse my absences than they would be if I were a woman.”
All said their spouses’ congregations welcomed them warmly and accepted them as individuals separate from their rabbi wives. “I believe that I am extremely fortunate to be a member of a congregation that accepts me for who I am rather than for who I am married to,” Backer said.
Another role that each said he played was that of sermon critic. For Backer this is usually a job for the High Holy Days. “The principal service I offer is to make them shorter,” he quipped.
Dick, who majored in theater, said he makes suggestions about delivery but “as for the content, I can’t tell you she cares what I think.”
Shamah and Dick, who said they do most of the cooking for the family, and Backer, who is the “Shabbat chef,” expressed appreciation that their wives are doing work that they enjoy and for which they possess talent.
Backer described Feingold’s recent Purim schtick as Vashti/Sarah Palin and said how proud and how entertained he was by her wit and the enthusiasm she generates among her congregants.
The best of being a rabbi, Shamah said, is “being married to someone who loves what she does and is able to touch a lot of people in a lot of different ways.”
And Dick said he “stands in awe of her ability to deal with” being in the spotlight and of her compassionate nature.
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