Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly

Preparing for your Life Together with Ancient and Modern Wisdom

By Haviva Ner-David
Projected Publication Date: May, 2021

Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly: Preparing for your Life Together with Ancient and Modern Wisdom is a guidebook to help engaged couples prepare for both their wedding and their marriage.

Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly: Preparing for your Life Together with Ancient and Modern Wisdom is a guidebook to help engaged couples prepare for both their wedding and their marriage. This book — which contains chapters on couplehood, the wedding ceremony, managing finances as a couple, sex in marriage, and more — is a must for any engaged couple connected to Judaism – whether they are both Jewish or only one partner is Jewish, whether they are straight or LGBTQ+, traditional or progressive, secular or religious, or any mix imaginable. The book is especially helpful for couples who do not both match up completely along all lines (as few couples do) and want to deepen their relationship through exploring their differences and creating a shared vision for their life together. With fun and useful exercises, text study, guiding questions and more, this book is an ideal engagement gift and a perfect way for couples to spend quality time together preparing for their shared future.

“’It is not good for humans to be alone’ So says the Book of Genesis, which then offers no immediate wisdom regarding how to find a partner, let alone how to stay in relationship once you find them! Enter Haviva Ner-David’s, Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly . This boldly honest, deeply sensitive and genuinely compassionate book, combines classical Jewish teachings, contemporary psychological insight and deeply authentic spirituality in a wise workbook for anyone looking to “make it work” with their chosen partner. Offering a map, a compass, and even your own personal guide, this book is a gift to those seeking their own journey toward meaningful, loving and lasting relationships.”

“Getting (and Staying) Married Jewishly is the essential guidebook for couples on their way to the altar. It offers an inclusive, spiritual framework for essential conversations around shared values, points of conflict, intimacy, money, planning the wedding ritual and creating a home together. This is the real internal prep that every couple should do."

Haviva Ner-David has written a beautiful, interactive book that will not only help couples prepare for their wedding day--but will also help them prepare for a sustainable, sacred marriage. She weaves ancient wisdom into a very contemporary feeling book.

“We have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book together – it is not just a book, but a beautifully written, heartfelt and inspiring collection of extracts from Jewish teachings, different conversational exercises, and fun games. The idea behind it is simple yet wonderful: it opens a door to those more difficult and challenging conversations that perhaps you wouldn’t have with your partner, when in the midst of premarital bliss. But it’s exactly these dialogues that are necessary when building a life together. Despite being a slightly older couple, with lots of relationship experience, we have found this book to be a fount of knowledge, humorous at times but also full of precious teachings and ways we can learn and grow together before our marriage. We would recommend this book to all couples, both young and old, who are preparing for their wedding and beyond.”

“My partner and I wanted to attend to some of the more challenging aspects of our relationship before our wedding and turned to Haviva to help facilitate our pre-marital counseling. Rabbi Haviva’s book helped us both order and frame some of the hardest conversations we’ve yet to have, while the activities/exercises often allowed us to surprise each other. We especially appreciated that the chapters and content was through a Jewish lens, addressing many of the issues that couples who have different religious background/practices face. Meeting with Haviva after each chapter allowed us to move forward from the tough conversations and stalemates to a more productive collaborative place. More than anything, Rabbi Haviva’s mirroring provided a different set of eyes through which we saw each other, and our relationship, anew. This was truly a blessing.”

"Haviva Ner David is a scholar and she uses her extensive knowledge of Jewish wedding ritual to bring us this amazing book. Filled with everything a Jewish couple (or even an interfaith couple) needs to plan their wedding, and also their marriage, this book serves as a guide taking each couple skillfully across the threshold of this life transforming event. Explaining each ritual, offering ideas that begin with the traditional and evolve from there, this book is a manual for getting married Jewishly."

About the Author

Haviva Ner-David is a writer and rabbi. In 2006 she became the first woman to publicly receive Orthodox rabbinic ordination, only to leave Orthodoxy and call herself a post-denominational rabbi. Ten years later, she received interfaith ordination from the One Spirit Interfaith-Interspiritual Seminary and now goes by post-denominational inter-spiritual rabbi.

She writes both fiction and non-fiction and is the author of three spiritual journey memoirs, a novel, short stories, essays, a blog on Times of Israel, scholarly articles and a guidebook for engaged couples. Her short story, “Blame,” won the 2016 Lilith Magazine short fiction contest.
Link to short story.

Her rabbinic specialties are spiritual companionship, water immersion rituals, wedding and marriage preparation, coming of age ceremonies and other ritual and ceremony creation and innovation. Founding rabbi of Shmaya: A Mikveh for Mind, Body and Soul on Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee, she officiates and helps create on-site personalized immersion ritual ceremonies and facilitates group mikveh workshops. As a spiritual companion, she works with individuals and couples and specializes in dreamwork, inner child work and nature soul work, as well as general sacred listening.