SEPTEMBER 26 • 2024 | 85
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to if the parents are getting along
and communicative. Even so, the
concept behind the holidays for
families is the same, she says. “I
think the message is really, how do
you create a meaningful experience
while also recognizing it’s a new
experience for your kids.”
Having a united front for the
kids can be very challenging, but if
parents are aligned in their parenting
and can get information to their
kids, it can go a long way in helping
kids feel comfortable with the
changes happening, she says. “We’re
asking kids overnight, especially
older kids, to just suddenly be OK
with this new normal,” she says,
adding it’s helpful if parents can
bring understanding and empathy to
the table as it relates to the changes
happening for their kids. “New
experiences can feel special even
though they’re different, changed or
apart.”
Erica Adell Cahn’s parents both
showed up for holidays and other
celebrations, even though they
were divorced, says Cahn of West
Bloomfield. “When I was growing up
and my dad had us, my mom would
say ‘come over and we’ll celebrate
together,’” she says. “It was always an
open invitation.”
With her own divorce, says Cahn,
who practiced family law for a
decade, she further saw just what
a priority protecting the kids and
getting along when possible could
be. As her ex-husband is not Jewish,
respecting each other’s religion was
also very important, she adds.
And since getting married to
her current husband, Michael,
Cahn says, she’s always had both
sets of her parents — her mother
and stepfather, and father and
stepmother, over to join them and
their kids for holiday festivities.
“Everybody always comes over for
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,”
she explains. “Because at the end of
the day, you’re still family.”
JUGGLING SCHEDULES
The idea is to help the kids
experience the holiday with their
parents, and parents get to be a
part of it with their children, she
explains. “Whether you’re together
with your children or have a dinner
together where you’re able to talk
about the holiday even for 10
minutes, or whether you’re able to
share your children so they can have
the new traditions that are starting
at both of their parents’ new homes,”
she says. “It’s going to help your kids
tremendously, because they never
asked for this.”
Meanwhile, people heading to
High Holiday services amid divorce
shouldn’t worry about what other
synagogue-goers might think, or be
self-conscious about celebrating the
holidays, she explains. “I feel like
a lot of people worry about what
other people are thinking or saying.
Eventually it becomes old news, it’s
not like everybody sits there and
says, ‘Oh, she’s divorced,’” she says.
“Don’t ever let somebody keep you
from practicing your religion and
sharing that with your children. You
can’t care what people think, you
really can’t.”
Modern families can be complex,
says Lauren Willens of Bloomfield
Hills, especially around
the holidays, when
invitations roll in and
everyone’s got different
ideas about where to
be. Her ex-husband and
son, 12, from her prior
marriage, her kids from
her second marriage, and family on
both sides all factor into the High
Holiday celebration equation, she
explains.
“The reality is, when people get
divorced, and I’m saying this as a
lawyer, you put a proposed schedule
out there, but the reality is there’s no
perfect way to consider this, because
the needs of your second marriage
families, your existing families
and your kids — ultimately, the
people at the center of all this, their
needs, wants, desires and schedules
change.”
With a number of doctors in the
family, scheduling is especially key
to being able to gather, but without
her ex-husband’s sign-off, she can’t
really plan for when she might be
hosting, where she’s going or who
she’s going with, she says. He’s likely
in a similar boat, she surmises, and
further, her son has preferences,
too, whether it’s not missing a
cousin’s dinner on one side or a
grandparents’ dinner on the other.
“The High Holidays are such a
beautiful family time of the year,
and it’s just really challenging for
ex-spouses, their families and the
kid that’s a product of the divorce
to really have to juggle all of these
moving targets.”
The High Holidays, she says,
are intended to be a period of
reflection, kindness and growth,
and these kinds of circumstances
can and should be approached the
same way. In this case, there are no
societal norms for how to handle
the holidays, and often no easy
answer, she adds. That means that
something beautiful and wonderful
sometimes winds up being just
complex, whether that’s because of
additional layers of other family
plans, divorce or priority demands
on people’s time.
“I don’t think it’s about what
night you sit down for the family
meal; I think it’s about showing
love, kindness and compassion, and
figuring out how to make it work
in your family in line with those
values,” she says. “If my son’s not
with me at services the day I go to
services, it doesn’t make it any less
of a holiday.”
Rabbi Michael Moskowitz,
of Temple Shir Shalom in West
Bloomfield, reiterates
that open-mindedness,
creativity and
preparation are key.
“There’s no set way
to get this done and
make it work, because
everyone’s different,” he
says. “Every situation
is unique, and the most important
thing when I’ve met with families,
is how can we be open-minded and
creative to understand how can we
make this work, knowing that it’s
different than it was two or three
years ago when they were married.”
Rabbis can also be a resource for
families trying to navigate these
kinds of challenging moments,
he says. Meanwhile, he points
out that all relationships demand
compromise and families across
the board have some figuring to do
when it comes to the holidays.
And while divorce is painful, the
idea when it comes to the holidays
is to try and make it so families can
still have something meaningful on
the holiday, rather than something
to dread, he says.
“The blessing that we have around
Rosh Hashanah is not that we begin,
but we begin again,” he says. “There
are always opportunities for new, for
beginnings again.”
Rabbi
Michael
Moskowitz
Lauren
Willens