Q & A with… Rabbi Andrew Hechtman
The work is incredibly pastoral – walking with people in their journey, salving their wounds, pursuing peace, encouraging them that they can own their decisions and helping them get through the situation they’re in with their neshama intact. He urged me to pursue the training, which I did a year ago. After the ADR training, I was so fascinated by the whole thing that I then did Collaborative Divorce training with attorney Woody Mosten from California. Then I did High-Conflict Parent Coordination training at the University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Families and Children. The training included participation by members of the American Psychological Association (APA) ethics committee. In some states, you function on behalf of the court to work with people who have gone through the divorce process and are so antagonistic that they can’t co-parent their children. In Connecticut, this is a very new practice area but, I believe, tremendously important. A “PC” works with both parents on learning to raise their children together. There’s specialized software you can use to help people screen their emails and share access to the family calendar online because there’s so much distrust between the divorced parents that you have to find ways of rebuilding trust. The APA just issued guidelines for this hybrid role. Rabbis are interestingly positioned to wear all these hats and help in all aspects of this process with training.
This past spring, I took part in the state judicial system’s Family Matters Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) training program. The GAL is a court-appointed child advocate who works with divorcing or divorced parents and their attorneys and acts as the eyes and ears of the court, to help the court in those situations where people are really going down an adversarial road. The GAL can often help in reaching agreements during the process. In Connecticut, beginning this fall, you can’t do GAL work unless you’ve had the specialized training. I also do volunteer work in these areas at the Children’s Law Center of Connecticut in Hartford.
In other states, there are statutes specific to these hybrid roles. In Connecticut, though these roles are not guided by statute, we are blessed with judges in the family court who are really focused on children, and on how we can help divorced couples understand that, while they’re no longer husband and wife, they’re still a family and always will be. In a job situation, you don’t always like the people you work with, but you still have to work with them. In this case, how much the more so when you’re dealing with children.
How is ADR related to rabbinic work?
A: When I did the training, I was absolutely astonished at how pastoral it really is. There’s a wonderful book, “Divorce is a Mitzvah: A Practical Guide to Finding Wholeness and Holiness When Your Marriage Dies,” by Perry Netter, who is now involved as a rabbi doing this kind of work in California. There are rabbis here and there who do so – New York, Chicago, California – but very few. There was a time in our society when people had these kinds of problems, they would go to their rabbi, and in some traditional communities, they still do. But in general, we’ve yielded to “experts,” and it’s not to say that there aren’t times when the circumstances require that. ADR is not for everybody.
For most people, working this through with somebody who approaches divorce from a pastoral perspective, and who has the potential to get you through it so as to minimize long-term emotional injury, can help bring some healing, particularly when kids are involved.
In “mediation,” it’s the trained neutral and the two parties and each one hires a lawyer to review specific questions and the final agreement. In “collaborative divorce”, each party comes to the table with an attorney and the trained neutral and everybody agrees to work together, put everything on the table and have full disclosure. Five people are working as a team to help the couple get through the process. You’ll get a very different result that way.
How does Judaism deal with divorce?
A: Our tradition recognizes that divorce is a part of life. Deuteronomy [24] talks about when a man chooses to divorce his wife. The Mishnah talks about breaking an engagement and getting divorced. The Talmud has very specific requirements. Our Jewish tradition recognizes that divorce is a part of life. Our tradition has to be a safe place for people to go, just as we talk about synagogues as being safe places to express our spirituality, and for the same reasons we rely on spirituality and spiritual guidance in times of onus.
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