Transcript
Speaker: When they were first dating, she would make him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all the time because they were in school. And I was like, well, why don't you guys make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the ceremony? And they were like,
Speaker: That's amazing. And so they had the white bread and a jar of jelly and a jar of peanut butter on there, and they built their little sandwich together. And my favorite thing about that wasn't just the idea. It was that they were so hungry by the time they had to do the ceremony, that they actually took the time to eat the peanut butter and sandalie sandwich all the way through.
Speaker: And they were kind of embarrassed. So they turned away from their guests. So I had the full front view of them like chowing down on their sandwich.
Speaker: And they were both looking at me so happy with their sandwiches. Who doesn't love a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Well, if you're that couple, I adore you. Are you planning a Jewish or interfaith wedding? Are you lost on where to even begin planning the ceremony, let alone finding a rabbi to help you?
Speaker: Well, it doesn't matter whether one of you is Jewish or you're both Jewish. You deserve a guide. So take a deep breath. I promise it will all be okay. Welcome to Your Jewish Wedding with Rabbi Lian. Here, I can be everyone's rabbi. Yours too. My guests and I will share everything we know to help make your Jewish or interfaith wedding full of tradition and perfectly yours.
Speaker: Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to have you here with me today on Your Jewish Wedding podcast. But I have to be honest, not that all of you are chopped liver, but I have someone very special live on the podcast right now. And I think you're going to absolutely adore hearing from her. Reverend Mercy, welcome to Your Jewish Wedding podcast. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker: Reverend Mercy creates and officiates all kinds of lifecycle ceremonies, from baby blessings to celebrations of life, and especially weddings. And they honor your spirituality while respecting your family's traditions. She's a certified inclusivity professional, and she's also bilingual. If you don't want a ceremony with the church, but you also don't want to face mom or abuela's judgmental stare, Reverend Mercy is your woman. And she's based in Los Angeles, but she travels anywhere. Is that right? Yeah, I will travel anywhere yet.
Speaker: Really? Where have you traveled? What are your favorite places to go? Actually, my first wedding ever was in South Carolina.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. A friend of mine, a Dominican friend who couldn't find someone that was bilingual in South Carolina who wasn't super religious, like evangelical Christian. So you found out I was ordained. He asked me to
Speaker: officiate is what all the all the way from California. Yeah. Did that work out? Do you have to register in
Speaker: In Ohio, you have to especially register. You have to go through lots of hoops to register to officiate in Ohio. Yeah, it depends state by state with Hilton Head. I had just graduated from One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and with their title, I could officiate in South Carolina, but it really just depends on state by state.
Speaker: I've seen like in Colorado, I think like your dog can sign your marriage license or something. And it seems kind of silly, like we scoff at it, right? And I've heard a lot of professional officiants make fun of the whole like, oh, anybody can become like universal life ordained online and whatever. But then I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: This is the land of the free, the home of the, we have like separation of church and state, thank God. Freedom of religion, if you say that your religion is your dog's paw print, you know what I mean? That's like Yiddish for like, suit yourself, but also like do what you want, but also like that would be really stupid if you tried it, but sure, whatever. It just depends on like the inflection.
Speaker: You know, like, like, you know, if my daughter's like wearing a sweatshirt or something, and I don't care what she wears, I'm like, Oh, nice. I guess that like, it could be good. But it could also be like, you want to go bungee jumping?
Speaker: whatever. Does Spanish have a phrase like that? Yeah, I mean, my mom will say to me, como te dar la gana, like, whatever your will is. Same. And you know exactly what she means by the way she says it. Yes, exactly. It's all about the inflection.
Speaker: We should invite your mom on here, oh my God. Well, I met Reverend Mercy on Instagram, or maybe she met me. I think you were definitely there first. Thank goodness for Instagram, because I have met so many incredible wedding professionals on there. And you are one of the first officiants that I met that I followed, that you actually followed me back, so thank you. Yeah, I only started up on it like a year ago, like really trying for Instagram, which is a whole other topic.
Speaker: But this interview has been a long time in the making, so I'm just really thrilled you're here. So now I'll let you talk. Can you please introduce yourself? Introduce us to you. Yeah, so my name is Rev. Mercy. My actual name is Mercedes Ibarra, so Mercedes in an American exit.
Speaker: And I'm named after my grandmother, Mercedis. And then because she was Mercedis, I was Mercy in the family. And so I just kind of added that to my ministerial name because it seems perfect. That answers my question I was going to ask about because, you know, Ashkenazi Jews, we have a custom that you only name after people who have died.
Speaker: Really? Yes, because there's like this superstition about if the angel of death comes for like your grandma, you don't want her to like take the baby instead. Oh, wow. But Sephardic Jews, which are like Jews from like Spanish speaking areas, like also like Morocco, Africa and like Syria, Iraq, they have a custom to name after living people.
Speaker: interesting yeah so yeah so it can kind of freak us out when we hear like you're like i was named after my grandmother i'm like oh you know it's funny being latina i don't know if you know this but most latinos have like this really itty bitty percentage of ashkenazi jew in our dna profiles
Speaker: I didn't even know that at all. It's like a running joke. Like, well, of course you're Ashkenazi. Stop, really? Yeah, it's something like a 0 .1 % or something like that. You know, Jews had a really nice cushy life in Spain around the 1100s. Yeah, they did. They did.
Speaker: So like we really got along. Yeah, like really got a lot until we didn't, you know, but but maybe that's it. That that could be part of it. There is always rumors that there was somebody Jewish in the background on this grandmother's side, actually, because her last name is Aymerich. Mercy, is it your mom?
Speaker: I OK. On this podcast, we go off on lots of tangents, so my listeners won't won't mind. But I was sitting with one of my friends, Christine, she knows who she is. She lives a block away from me. This was like 10 years ago. She's sitting in my living room. We were like all hanging out. You know, the kids were little. And so we could like ignore them and chat together. And she was like, oh, so interesting. I've always wanted to learn more about Judaism because one of my grandmother's is Jewish. And I'm like, which grandmother?
Speaker: It's her mother's mother. This woman is like Jewish. She's like hanging out a block away from her. I didn't know, you know, technically. So which grandmother? It's my mother's mother was Mercedes and I'm rich. Yeah, which I also know is a Catalan name, but there's also somebody whose last name is Abreu in that family, which is Hebrew in Portuguese. So
Speaker: You could be a member of the tribe. Yeah, it's possible. That's cool. You could. I hope you have that conversation when you when you have like a couple with a Jewish person. Do you tell them that? I tell them that sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Who's the guy? Who is the politician that got in trouble for lying that he was like his family was Jewish or something? Oh, it's so recent. Yes. What is his name?
Speaker: Uh, it's the Brazilian guy. Yeah. So anyway, not coming to me right now. Well, all the news outlets are like.
Speaker: Well, there's no evidence that his family was Jewish. I'm like, OK, but like Converso is like, there's no evidence they're not Jewish. And that town is known for having like, you can't just like say like, well, we don't have a Wikipedia entry. That's not how things worked until like 20 years ago. Yes. I mean, not that I'm like simping for the guy or anything, but you never you never know. You never know. It's a possibility. And that's the thing. And that's why they'll never get all of us. That's what I like to say. Yeah.
Speaker: All right. Well, yeah. So the new thing is like it's funny because we have like names in Ashkenazi Jewish culture. They like recycle like every 80 years. So like my youngest daughter has an old lady name. Is your grandma still alive? No, she died in 2012. Oh, Alayha Hashem. May her memory be a blessing. I'm sure it is. Well, in your years, that's that's how it is. OK. Well, so you are a professional wedding officiant.
Speaker: Yes. It's the majority of what you do. Yes. So what do you do? Like you can tell us more broadly or you can tell us like the whole process, whatever you like better. Yeah. So I write custom ceremonies for couples, usually based around their particular love story. But for most of my couples, because I'm bilingual and surprisingly in Southern California, there's only really a handful of us who are.
Speaker: um oh yeah it's it surprises me but couples will often tell me they had a hard time finding a bilingual in California yeah and then like depending usually my couples they are fairly spiritual but not religious
Speaker: So that's also a thing for them. And their families are usually fairly religious, like Catholic or Christian mostly. And what I try to do for them is
Speaker: create a custom ceremony that honors their own sense of spirituality while at the same time making the family feel welcome or welcome in a way where they recognize that it's a ceremony. Because usually the parents, if it's not going to be in the church, they don't think it feels like a wedding. So I try to design a wedding with the couple that actually feels sacred, that looks like something the parents are familiar with.
Speaker: isn't religious in their sense, but more spiritual in the couples sense, if that makes sense. Yeah. So do you, so I hear a lot and I still lie on your side about like Catholic stuff. Do you grow up in the Catholic church? I did grow up in the Catholic church. So then
Speaker: Yeah, like, you know, people who grew up, grow up in like a liturgical environment. So that would be like the Catholic Church, Jews, obviously. There's something about hearing a prayer and your body goes into like a mode of like, okay, this is, you know, like we have
Speaker: different tunes for different holidays and stuff. But even, you know, there are certain prayers in the Jewish prayer service where as soon as you hear it, you stand up, or when you hear it, you sit down, or you know it's the end of the service, or you can go to the bathroom or something like that. But a lot of times I'll see families, I try to do kind of the same thing, but you can sort of sometimes see families like visibly relax into the setting just from a prayer or a reading or something that you've done.
Speaker: Yep. And that definitely happens in the Catholic Church. It's very ritualistic, so we know exactly what's coming. And if you hear exactly certain hymns, then you know how to respond and you know when to stand up, when to sit down. Yeah. So is that something that you incorporate with the couples? Like, do you go down like the
Speaker: I assume that you know the traditional wedding liturgy for different religions and stuff, and do you bounce that off them to see? Yeah, I bounce that off them. Usually, we don't get too specifically into the traditional ceremony in terms of following it verbatim, unless a couple ask for that, which I've only really had maybe once or twice.
Speaker: But I do kind of capture the tone of what they're looking for and the structure. So like I welcome the families. I usually follow that up with some kind of in memoriam for someone who's passed away if the couple wants that. They often do.
Speaker: and some type of reading at that point. If they want scripture, we will do scripture. If not, we might pick some kind of love poem or even song lyrics if they have a song that's really meaningful to them.
Speaker: And then I follow it up with what the Catholics would recognize as the homily, which is me, I tell their love story, but then I talk about marriage in the greater context and then bring it back to the couple again. But so that's the part where I really see like when I'm seeing the parents sitting there, they like kind of like
Speaker: they always appreciate that part where I talk about marriage itself. Like they want to hear that, that the kids are getting that, you know, like, cause they, I think they almost feel like when their kids are getting married, uh, outside of the church, that they're not taking it seriously. So when they see that I take it seriously, then, then they get that impression, okay, the kids did take it seriously. You know,
Speaker: It's really it's really important. And I think that that's something that I talk about with couples a lot like. If there's something that you can do that will I don't want to say throw your parents a bone, but like, you know, just sort of help them to see a symbol or to hear some words that help them relax into the idea that like this is going to be OK for you. Yeah. Because ultimately what they want is the best for their children. Right. Exactly.
Speaker: As a clergy person, it's really interesting to me that you are basically you're doing the exact same thing like a clergy person for a particular like religion. A lot of people think that like if you're a rabbi or if you're a Catholic priest or whatever, you're just like only going to talk about God. And I get a lot of couples being like really nervous. But a good priest, like if you've been to a really good like Catholic funeral,
Speaker: That homily was like 3 % about Jesus and 97 % about the person. Exactly. Exactly. Right. And so like that's what any any good person like leading a life cycle event like hopefully will do. So you said that you you talk about all this with the couples. Now I saw on your website if I want like a super deluxe rev mercy experience, I can meet with you like five times. Yes.
Speaker: And that I would feel very lucky. So what would, how many of those meetings would be the ceremony planning?
Speaker: So the five times that package is actually all five are premarital counseling. So you would get a sixth meeting with me. That's the planning meeting. The rest of it is premarital counseling based on the major topics that you want to like talk about in terms of marriage. So I let the couples choose, but I also have like a little quiz for them.
Speaker: at the beginning to kind of see, gauge if they're on the same page on certain subjects and if something's differing. That's so smart. When did you develop that?
Speaker: Um, so I took, uh, I still have to finish it, but I got trained through prepare and rich. Okay. I see. I've seen that. Yeah. And so I got the idea from them, but then I tweaked it to add a little more of like the inter -spiritual stuff, like talking more about, um, interfaith religions. Cause most of my couples are trying to blend, um,
Speaker: their two phase or their two cultures. So I try to make it a little more focused around that. Like even topics that like money, for example, sometimes culturally that topic is interesting when it comes when you bring in how you were raised and what the culture thinks about money and what they expect married couples to do. So I try to bring that into it as well.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, so if, if it looks like one person's thinking one way about money, for example, and another person's looking another way about money, then I bring that up and we might make that the topic of one of those whole conversations. And those are like 90 minute sessions. I found that like just an hour is too short. Like, so
Speaker: How often does one inform the other? Because like sometimes when I'm planning a ceremony, like, for example, if you're if you're using Catholic liturgy in a wedding ceremony in some churches, there's a requirement as part of it's not part of the it's not part of the nuptial blessing. It's part of the consent where you where you vow to raise your children as Catholics.
Speaker: And I think people who have grown up in a Catholic church, they're so used to hearing that. They're like, yeah, that's fine. And then their non -Catholic partner will be like, I'm sorry, what? I'm promising to do what? And so a lot of times, I say I don't do premarital counseling, but I think I end up inevitably doing a little bit of it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think you inevitably do, even if you aren't doing official sessions, like that comes up when you're planning a ceremony. And so yeah, the ceremony planning might inform those sessions, but those sessions do inform the ceremony planning. I actually think that
Speaker: My favorite is when we've done the sessions first and then we go into the ceremony planning because they've already like had a lot of conversations and it kind of really
Speaker: colors when it starts coming up for the ceremony. But even if it's the other way around, if we've done the planning first and then we do the counseling, then it kind of informs me in a way of like, oh, let me add this element to their script. And then when they see the script, they're like, oh, amazing. So it's like I've gotten to know them more.
Speaker: So like the more sessions they've had with me, the more personalized that ceremony starts to become. And of course, I'm not going to include anything that they wouldn't want mentioned in the ceremony, but I do try to use what they are learning about each other and themselves as a little element that goes through the story of their ceremony. Yeah.
Speaker: It's so important. It's such a craft. You know, I think that it can be it can almost be more difficult for people who don't come from a religious background to think about a wedding ceremony because when you come from a religious background or you you've been to like a lot of religious weddings, at least there's like what to do. You know, you're like it has like there's like a structure for you and whatever. And I think
Speaker: There are, I just read the Pew survey from 2020, like about religion in America, and it was 22 % nuns, meaning none religious affiliation. Exactly. It keeps growing. Yeah. And that's, and especially like if there's an interfaith couple, a lot of times their wedding ceremony will just default to no religion.
Speaker: You know, and it can I think it can be difficult. You know how you feel about one another. You know what you love about each other. But without somebody who has a real like finesse and way with the structure and how you are as a couple can inform that. You're just sort of like I really I worry about people who just like have their cousin do it or whatever, that what will happen is they'll end up googling like interfaith wedding script.
Speaker: Yeah. And, you know, whatever. That's fine. It's fine. You're still going to be married. But I think that it's such a it's such a craft to make a ceremony that like really fits a couple like a glove. And it obviously you know the same thing. You said that it's about making their their families feel comfortable. So how do you figure that out?
Speaker: Um, so when I meet with them, I ask them a lot about like, okay, what religion did you grow up in? How do you feel about that religion now? Um, how do you see your own spirituality now?
Speaker: And I asked them too, are there any like customs, either culturally or religious wedding customs that you want? A lot of my couples who came up Latino Catholic, they want the lasso ceremony, they want the arras, which is the coins. I do a bit of a modernized version of that because it's very,
Speaker: It's very old school. It's like the husband presents coins to the wife to be like, I'm going to provide for you. So I find a way to balance that out. Stop. Wait, I didn't know anything about this. Yeah, I just see this. Whatever I need to call. But I just did like three podcast episodes on katubas, which is kind of the same vibe as like the coins like this is how I'm going to provide for you.
Speaker: No, I need to do a whole other episode. But I think it's interesting because a lot of, you know, like our our memory sort of gets activated by tactile things or like sense, you know, like smells, sounds like whatever. And I will work with a couple who are like.
Speaker: You know, my mom wants a Jewish wedding, but we really don't. And it ends up that you you plan a ceremony that's like largely secular, but maybe there's like one blessing in Hebrew and somebody stomps on the glass at the end. Yeah. And the feedback from Bubby or from mom at the end will be like, yeah, it was a Jewish wedding and everything. They stomped on the glass. Yeah.
Speaker: So you find out what it means to mom versus what you think it means to mom. Sometimes too late. So I'm actually starting to think about questions to ask my couples about their parents. What kind of wedding did your parents have?
Speaker: things like that, which I actually got that idea from my DJ friend who says that he, one of the questions he asks when he's working with couples is how old are your parents? Because if you want the grandparents and parents on the dance floor, they need to love the songs. Yeah.
Speaker: And I feel like it's like analogous to the wedding ceremony, like what will just like grab your bubby like by the heart and make her feel like, oh, this is it. And sometimes it's something kind of unfamiliar and strange, like putting the wedding ring on the index finger instead, which is a Jewish traditional thing. And just that one site can just transform it for your relatives. So but it does seem kind of tricky because you don't want to do a wedding ceremony for a couple of families. Right.
Speaker: Exactly. No, you definitely want to do it mainly for them, which is why like the love story, I make sure it really tells their story. If I create, I usually create a prayer for the couple. The prayer isn't so Catholic sounding. It's more about them than about love itself, like almost like love as the higher power.
Speaker: It's like a blessing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But then those little traditions are the things that do grab the abuela or mom. Oh, OK, they're doing the lasso. They're doing that. It's like, oh, and like oftentimes, you know, mom or someone older in the family gets to buy the lasso for them and they bring it to them.
Speaker: And so that that's where it definitely like looks familiar to them. And I when we do the last so I do a blessing over the couple that is very much about uniting the two families, looking to each other's family for support and knowing that you're with your best friend till the end of time is usually what I say. And the the older ladies in the family and and the men, too. They love it. Like I love it.
Speaker: That sounds like, okay, they get that this is a forever situation that it's like. Oh, I love that. Looking to each other's families for support. That's beautiful. I'm going to steal that from you. I'll credit you. That's wonderful. Yeah, we have some. See, we have something like that, too. We have like the. Maybe I'll bring you on for my for my episode about the whole like prayer shawl thing, because it sounds like the same. Like I'm just I'm not even asking you. I'm just telling you like.
Speaker: You're expected to be. So this is wonderful. So you're doing weddings that are what the couple wants, but, you know, Abuela is looking at it and she's telling her friends like, no, it wasn't in the church. No, there wasn't a priest, but it was very religious, you know, and everybody's happy and it's and it's beautiful. So how do couples find you?
Speaker: So most of my couples have found me on the not and wedding wire. Some find me through a Google search. And I want to ask them it's often they're looking for a bilingual officiant. And if they come through and call me, it's because they also saw themselves in that story of like, oh, my God, I'm not Catholic, but my family is. And this person knows how to bridge what they want and what I want.
Speaker: So being Catholic is kind of like being Jewish too, as far as my understanding. It's like, even if you don't believe, there's so much you still do.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, and even for Jews, I always say, like, we don't honestly, we don't involve ourselves with what each other believes to. We don't sit and have theological conversations with each other. We're just like, well, it's Passover, so no bread. And everybody's like, cool, you know. So it's very much like, and I always say that Catholics make the best Jewish converts.
Speaker: Because most Christians you tell them, you're like, so there's this whole week where we just don't eat bread. And most non -Catholic Christians are like, but why? And what does that do? And what happens to you if you don't? And that's so weird. And you tell Catholics then, they're like, yeah, all right, cool. What else? Because Catholics are like, they don't eat meat on Fridays for some time and nobody asks. They just don't do it. And everybody bonds over it.
Speaker: So I think that that's cool to be able to have that space. That's something that I try to provide. Also, it's like it can be Jewish without being God, God, religion, religion, like, you know, Hebrew, whatever, like we it's a it's a.
Speaker: a culture that developed around people, not around like particular beliefs, otherwise it wouldn't have survived. And so you guys standing here like doing this Rev Mercy ceremony are an example of that. And the fact that your Abuela is here with the lasso like has nothing to do with God, but it's so important, you know? So that's cool. Do you have clergy friends?
Speaker: Like, do you have a priest friend who, like, if people met with them and they were like, well, we we kind of want a Catholic wedding, but no, we're not going to do the pre -Cana. No, we don't want to be in the church. Like, do you have people who are just like, just call Mercy? Yeah, I do have people that that refer them to me when it's not super traditional. Yeah. Yeah. That's so nice. Yeah. Yeah. Because then you can tell that like that priest does want to in some way, like retain a relationship with those people, too. So that's cool.
Speaker: So I talk a lot about interfaith and intercultural couples on the podcast. Is there anything that is particular to working with them that you want to share with us? Yeah, so with them, definitely usually they want to bring in elements of both to their ceremony. And I've had two different styles. I've had ones who
Speaker: are just like, yeah, we want you to create this totally unique ceremony for us that brings both things in. So for example, I had a same sex couple, a lesbian couple where one was Jewish and the other was pagan.
Speaker: And they wanted both Jewish and pagan rituals in their ceremony. And so we did a meditation at the beginning instead of a prayer focused on the moon and the moon bathing them in light and blessing their ceremony because they actually scheduled their wedding to be on the last full moon of the year in December.
Speaker: cool and then we but we also did the like seven blessings and we had the guests participate in that as well so they had to like
Speaker: repeat after me like the different blessings they wanted to do. And instead of having one of them walk around the other one seven times, what they did is one walked around the other three times, the other walked around her three times, and then they did one circle together at the end. They did the dosey dov.
Speaker: Yeah, I have a lot of couples do that actually like anybody who wants egalitarian. But I just did I literally this morning just recorded the first episode on circling and Jewish weddings. And I found that also in pagan weddings when there's a hand fasting, that the guests traditionally will stand in a circle around the couple.
Speaker: Yeah, they can do that, yeah. Which is so cool because to me that's almost like the imagery of like the hoopa and like it's also the circles. And it's, I feel like the more I learn about different wedding traditions, the more I just see like echoes and ripples, you know, from one to the other. And like, well, we do that too, except it's completely different, but it's exactly the same. And I do think that it's,
Speaker: a lot of interfaith couples imagine it to be this big insurmountable thing. And I think they can talk themselves out of having an officiant with Reverend or Rabbi in front of her name just through an anxiety spinning of like, but if I wanna have this thing, but that's not Christian and then we're gonna fight and it's gonna be awful and we're just gonna have Cousin Trevor.
Speaker: Yeah, whatever. So do you work with couples who who do not want you to officiate? I have couple I have had couples, not necessarily that they didn't want me to officiate, but they did decide to have a separate clergy person for a specific religion. So this year I had to like that. I had a couple who was
Speaker: The bride was Mexican Catholic and the groom was Hindu. So they had an entire Hindu ceremony earlier in the day. Then everybody had lunch and took a break. And then we came back and I did the more Catholic inspired ceremony.
Speaker: Oh, that's cool. And then just this last weekend, I had one that was a mix of Catholic and Muslim. So then when my ceremony went first, we did the Catholic one. And the cool thing about that one is her parents had taken the lasso and the coins to El Salvador so that her childhood priest would bless them.
Speaker: Wow. So that was another lovely thing they could do. They were like, OK, they're not getting married in the church, but we can have the family priest bless the ritual objects. And then after my ceremony was done, they took pictures. The bride went to change, and she came back dressed more in a Palestinian attire. And they had any mom there that
Speaker: recited the Quran and the wedding blessing. And so that was beautiful, too. Yeah. Muslim weddings. I need to have any mom on here. From my understanding, it's mostly just like signing something. Yeah, it is. It was really quick. Like it probably was 15 minutes max.
Speaker: So like American couples are having like this like challenge of like, but we want something that's like, you know, bigger and more whatever. So so yeah, most of what I know about Muslim weddings comes from watching Miss Marvel. Yeah. Because her brother got married in the first season. But you know, that's that's it was a beautiful wedding. OK, cool. Well.
Speaker: In that vein, can you tell us about some of the most memorable wedding moments you've had, like the memories you love to share with everyone for whatever reason?
Speaker: So they're around these rituals. I really love symbolizing things through ritual. And I love when couples come up with a new way to do it. One of my favorite stories to tell is I had this couple who wanted to do some kind of unity ritual, but they didn't want the traditional lasso or the sand ceremony or anything. They're like, we want to come up with something new.
Speaker: And so I was like, OK, well, let's talk about the rest of the ceremony and see if the new thing pops up. And somewhere along the conversation, they brought up that when they were first dating, she would make him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all the time because they were in school. And I was like, well, why don't you guys make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the ceremony? And they were like,
Speaker: That's amazing. And so they had the white bread and a jar of jelly and a jar of peanut butter on there, and they built their little sandwich together. And my favorite thing about that wasn't just the idea. It was that they were so hungry by the time they had to do the ceremony, that they actually took the time to eat the peanut butter and Sandley sandwich all the way through.
Speaker: And they were kind of embarrassed, so they turned away from their guests. So I had the full front view of them like chowing down on their sandwiches.
Speaker: And they were both looking at me so happy with their sandwiches. Who doesn't love a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Well, if you're that couple, I adore you. And I'm so pleased. You know, I think a lot of people can be, when they contact a reverend or a rabbi, they can go into this forced solemnity mode. And I just want to encourage couples, if there's literally anything that's important to you,
Speaker: bring it to the table with your officiant. Even if you feel like she might be serious or she's super religious or whatever, no matter how religious your clergy person is or your officiant is, if she is the right officiant for you, she's going to want to center you. And even if you don't know how you're going to use some, I had this couple
Speaker: She we had our first call and she was like, I don't know what I'm going to do with these things, but I asked all of our guests to RSVP and write down their life mantra on the back of their RSVP. But I have no idea why I did that. Now I feel silly and I don't know what we're going to do. And what we ended up doing is like sorting each mantra into one of the seven wedding blessings.
Speaker: Because like thematically and then During the seven wedding blessings we read them aloud and they became like part of that couples like new household So even if even if you don't know how it will fit in Bring it up to your officiant because I promise you if she's a pro She will figure out what to do it. Even if it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Speaker: Yeah, I love that idea. By the way, that sounds like it was beautifully. She is so cool. This this woman, I just love her so much. She's one of my she's in one of my interfaith couples, and she's not Jewish. And she has always just been so
Speaker: excited to figure out how she can embrace the Jewish stuff. And has always like gone out of her way to say like, I don't know if just any Jewish person would be so open armed about it, but like you have been. And I just think it's so important, especially with interfaith couples, that I always try to make a point. And I think I would do this if I was like Catholic too. I'd be like, we're so glad to have you.
Speaker: Like, what an asset to our people. Like, I'm so glad that a Catholic person's marrying you, this Hindu person, because you bring such richness to whatever it is, you know? And it's, thank God, it's only possible in 2023. We complain about technology and we complain about all these things, but like, think of how much richness is being brought to the world because so many different people are interacting. Well, I know, something to it. All right, Reverend Mercy.
Speaker: I'm not sure if you know, possibly being Jewish yourself, if you know about the custom of the four questions at the Passover Seder. I don't. I actually haven't been to a Passover Seder and I've been wanting to go to one. I should find you an invite this year.
Speaker: I would love to go to one. I should send you to a Chabad house. By the way, that's how I feel about Iftar during Ramadan. I have literally never been invited to anybody's house for Ramadan dinner. And I know all y 'all have 30 big dinners and nobody's invited me to a single one. So if you are Muslim and listening to this, and I've also never been to a seven fishes meal.
Speaker: Oh yeah, I would love to go to one of those. That's like an Italian thing, I feel like. Yeah. There's a time, anyway. All right, so it is time for the four questions with Rabbi Lian. It's a lightning round. According to Jewish tradition, you may not know the questions or even the answers. All you know is you're in the hot seat, everyone's listening, but we all know one thing for sure. It's only four questions, so it'll be over soon. Are you ready? Yes. Okay. Reverend Marzine. Books, TV, or movies?
Speaker: Um, I'll go. Oh man. It's hard to choose because I'm a big connoisseur of all three. I am. I'm constantly either reading or watching movies or watching some kind of TV. What do you, what do you read?
Speaker: So right now I'm reading literally like it's either audiobooks or reading several things. So I'm reading a book called Bury Me Standing, which is a history of the Romani people.
Speaker: Cool. Yeah. But I'm also listening to an audio book called Tom Lake, read by Meryl Streep. It's a fiction book about a middle -aged woman who's telling the story of her youth to her three daughters because they're begging her to tell her because I guess she dated a celebrity, someone who became a celebrity. Tom Lake. You want to know all about it. Yes. Tom Lake.
Speaker: And Meryl Streep, of course, is amazing. Amazing. Yeah. I just, I just wrote it down. Let me tell you something. I am a romance reader. Oh, nice. I read almost exclusively romance. Really? Yes. And I also, I have theories about why, but it basically boils down to you always know how it will end.
Speaker: And I find that comforting. Like, you know, you just don't know how it's going to get there, but you know, it'll be OK. And I love that. But I also write romance novels. Oh, nice. Yeah, it was a little bit of a career detour I took. I was like, I was reading so much and then I wrote a bunch and I have like a bunch of published ones. And I was like, I always felt kind of silly about it until I started writing these love stories for wedding speeches.
Speaker: Oh, nice. I'm like, this is great. This is like the best thing. This is so much fun. So anyway. All right. Next question. Two out of four. Pick one. Invisibility or super speed? Oh, I think invisibility. Oh, that's what I would always pick too. But I think that's not common.
Speaker: Really? Yeah. I'm an introvert. Like I'm a super introverted person. Yeah. Same here. Are you? Yeah. Yeah. And we, we're having a wonderful conversation right now and I don't even know if I would be able to guess if you were an introvert or an extrovert. Yeah. Same here with you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to be like, I'm going to shut down tonight. Mm -hmm. You know, not, not like you need to shut down. Yeah. And that like, that's fine. My husband learned not to ask me about work until like the next day.
Speaker: because you just wouldn't get anything from it. All right. Quick, who's your favorite Jewish celebrity? Sarah Silverman. Whoa. That was so quick. I think even I would be like, wait, why? I just I've always thought she was hilarious. And but I also love how she's been
Speaker: Like that recent show she did on Hulu, I forget the name of it, but she was trying to talk to people who were opposite of her politically, just to kind of see if she could find common ground. And I think that that's really lovely that she's been trying to do that.
Speaker: That is really lovely, especially because I do remember Sarah Silverman. Do you remember? She was like she had about a whole jokey jokey spotlight. Call your bubby and tell her to vote. Who were people supposed to vote for? The Democrat in some election, but I can't remember which one because because Florida was the big swing state. And she was like, you remember what happened in two tests.
Speaker: And that's like the last thing I remember, she's like, your bubby could save the world. And that was like her whole shtick was like, you have to get your Jewish grandparents to vote. That's so funny. Cool. Cool. All right. Last one of four. Don't be too sad. Okay. Pick one and you can have infinite amounts of one, but the other one that you don't pick, you only get to have once a year. Okay. Okay. Matzah balls or sports ball?
Speaker: Whoa, you're picking matzah balls? Yes. Do you get good matzah balls there in California? There's a deli called Cantor's here. And actually, I haven't tried the matzah balls at Langer's, but Langer's is a very good deli as well. You have two options. Do you have a lot of juice there?
Speaker: Oh, yeah. In L .A.? Yeah. Cantor's is in the middle of the Fairfax district. Like in the area of L .A. you are? Yeah. Yeah. Like nearby. Quite nearby. There's Chasid in there. You can definitely get a cedar invite. Yeah. Find someone that's like, oh, you haven't been here. Come over. You need to find the Chabad house. That's the thing. Chabad will take care of you.
Speaker: I should have taken up, I think you'll find this story funny. In college, this is another reason why I'm like, yeah, there's probably some hidden Jewish ancestry. When I was at UCLA, the Hillel rabbi would constantly stop me.
Speaker: Like it was like a regular thing. Are you Jewish? And I would say, no, I'm not. And he would always ask me, are you sure? Why? Your name is Mercedes. Yeah. And that's what I tell him. And he kept being like, are you sure? Are you sure you're not Jewish? And I would tell him, I'm pretty sure. And then finally, one day I gave up and I said, you know, I have Spanish ancestry. It's possible. I knew it. I knew it. Wait, what's your maiden name?
Speaker: My maiden name is Ibarra, which is a boss. Oh, it is Ibarra. OK. Yeah. Yeah. We had I used to work on campus as a campus rabbi. And we had a student named, if you're listening to this, his name was Lionel Oliveros Rosen.
Speaker: Ah, because he had like a and there was the whole. Do you remember Phineas and Ferb the TV show? Yes. Do you remember the Garcia Shapiro's? Yes. That was like the joke and they had a Mexican Jewish cultural festival. Yes. There's like a lot of there's a lot of Jews married to like Hispanics. It's like a thing, you know.
Speaker: Do you have curly hair? Is that it? My hair is kind of wavy. And I don't know. I don't know. He was like racially profiling you. I totally was. It was weird. It was like a constant thing. But it was wrong because you don't like, you know, some people.
Speaker: look Jewish if they're Greek or Italian. You know what I mean? I have two daughters and one of them looks very Jewish. She will get racially profiled. And the other one looks Polish, like me.
Speaker: Like with the light eyes and everything. It's like you never, you know, whatever. Anyway, all right. Well, that was, you know, of course we were going to draw out four questions with Rabbi Leanne. Thank you very much, Reverend Mercy. All right. Well, we are getting to the end. I'm going to ask you like the big questions now, like big, big with a capital B, questions with a capital Q. What's the greatest lesson you've learned from one or all of your couples? Ooh. Um.
Speaker: You know, there was a couple recently that told me that they had heard some advice and it was such lovely advice that I had never really, it made perfect sense to me, but I hadn't thought about it. And they told me that someone advised them that they should always be dating their spouse. No matter how long you've been married, like you should always be dating your spouse.
Speaker: And coming from this couple, it was particularly like it really got me here because one of them got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis while they were dating and got really sick during that time. And so
Speaker: and it was just interesting to me that they had to be buried in that you know chronic illness situation which I identify with because I have lupus and so my husband's constantly having to care for me um but it's like you can end up being so inundated by the illness that you forget to like
Speaker: date your spouse. So if you're hearing that, I was like, oh, yes, that's actually a really important lesson to try and keep in mind. That is. And it's so easy to forget because we're all so busy and everything costs so much and the dog is whatever. And, you know, I've been married almost 20 years and we were never such daters, but we we have always done little nice things for each other all the time. And I think, thank God, we still do that. Yeah.
Speaker: That's great. I saw your husband's cute. I saw your husband. How are you guys doing? Thank you. We're doing good. Yeah. Yeah, he is out to a doctor's appointment right now, but cheers.
Speaker: Get him to Seder too. He'll have a great time. Yeah, I know. He is a lovely man. I am constantly reminding myself how lucky I am to have found him. Just has always been very much into seeing me for who I am, which is not something I grew up with. Oh, gosh. For him not something I found in a partner. So once I found him, like it was just like, okay.
Speaker: I always tell David I'm like nobody else and it's not even like a sentimental thing. It's just like I can't imagine like doing this with like anybody else like
Speaker: I don't know, everybody, I don't like anybody else, like nearly as much as I, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know. And at least like the stuff that annoys me, like I already know about it. Exactly. It's not like, like I can anticipate it, you know? Yeah. So yeah, I think that like, there's a lot, I think that we kind of almost lose stuff in sentimentality. Yeah.
Speaker: When really like the the true beauty of like a lasting relationship is like the everyday, you know, so so that that's cool that that they that you learned that from your couple that that was like that balance. Well, before we wrap up, because as you know, we always wrap up with everybody's just still here because they want to find out how they can work with you. But before that, tell us. What is it? That makes you keep doing what you do?
Speaker: Oh, wow. I think I just like what's your why? That's what they say. Yeah. For me, my why with weddings, but even with just other like funerals, baby blessings, everything, my why is I think that
Speaker: People need ritual and ceremony in their lives. I think we've got into a place where everyone, like you said, everyone's so busy, everyone's rushing. You get caught up in the day -to -day and there are really special moments in life where we're asked to take a pause and really reflect on that moment.
Speaker: And I think to like be able to do that and to be able to do it in a way that's very personal to the client that I'm working with or clients is something really special. I feel like it is an act of love for them and amongst them, but also for me to share like
Speaker: my love in a way, just for life itself and love of humanity and as part of the human family. I honestly, I say this every time, but I fall in love with all my couples. I love being able to give them that celebration of that moment in their life and helping create that memory for them.
Speaker: and grounding their love in a ceremony that really makes them reflect on, okay, this is a life milestone we're going through. Let's honor it to our best capacity. So. Yeah. Well, and I think we're so like, it's such a consumerist culture. And I think especially with like the wedding industry, like there's a lot of focus on like the,
Speaker: you know, the accoutrements like the party and the flowers and the bling and the whatever. And when you get down to it, like the ceremony is the thing that takes you out of all that. Exactly. You know, it takes you away from all and nothing else matters except like the people you're standing there with. And I think it's like the same with babies, you know, it's like it's so easy, not not in such a fun way, but it's so easy to like,
Speaker: gosh you're so tired and you're just worried that she's eating and gaining weight and you know your mom wants you to put socks on her and your mother -in -law wants you to take them off and everything's so stressful but you know I think you it's easy to miss a lot of that too and so
Speaker: You know, I think some cultures like have an incentive around the baby thing. You know, like there's like baptism, which is a big incentive. And the Jewish thing is like naming, like what's the child's name because she needs a Hebrew name for like ritual purposes and stuff and whatever. But I think it's sometimes I feel kind of sad that baby things aren't more common in American culture.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really true. Like I've done a few baby blessings, but nowhere near as much as I would like, you know? Right. I often feel like people don't even realize that you could have some kind of a baby ceremony if you're not doing it in a religious setting.
Speaker: um and like I don't think there's enough uh it's like you said I just don't think we do enough milestones or rituals uh for people at different points in life like everybody's accustomed to the wedding
Speaker: People are accustomed to the funeral. But outside of that, like there's other things like, you know, we could have a rite of passage into womanhood. I did a blessing for a friend of mine who's another wedding professional. She was my my marketing mentor when I did a fellowship. Alayah Harris, if you're listening. Hi, Alayah. But she asked me for her baby shower to do more of a
Speaker: made into mother ceremony. Oh, that's cool. Made in mother crone. I'm about to enter my crone era. I'm so excited. Yeah. Oh, totally. Let's go. Let's go. That's the best one. Yes. But no, I think that's one of the reasons I think that it's important to have people like you and me who still have that connection to the old way because even
Speaker: I live in an area where our religious minorities are Jews and Catholics. We've got a lot of Jews, we've got a lot of Catholics. So everybody in the second grade, everybody's going to communion parties, first communion parties. And in the sixth grade, everyone's going to bar and bar mitzvahs. And like, it is kind of cool like every year, well, for communion time, every year you're like looking for the pictures and like, oh, congratulations, like blessings for the, you know, they're so sweet. And like, it does give you a moment to pause and be like, oh, it's that time, it's that time in our lives.
Speaker: You know, so anyway, well, I'm sure that everybody is just taken with you. And I know that there that you are endlessly creative. And so even if somebody in Ohio wanted to work with you to like maybe translate part of their ceremony or whatever, I'm sure that there are so many ways that you could figure out to help couples wherever they are listening. So how can people get more rev mercy? How can they find you?
Speaker: Well, definitely very active on Instagram and that is at Rev .Mercy .Ceremonies. So Rev. Mercy Ceremonies on Instagram. You can find me at my website RevMercy .com. My email is RevMercy at RevMercy .com. I am also on Facebook. I believe my name is Rev. Mercy Ibarra, like my last name, I -V -A -R -R -A on Facebook.
Speaker: But yeah, so Instagram, my website, my email, those are the best places. All right. Will you take us out by giving all of our listeners a blessing? Oh, yeah, I'd love to do that. So let's get centered. For all listeners listening to us at this moment, whenever this moment may be for you,
Speaker: May you be happy.
Speaker: May you be healthy. May you be at ease, meaning comfortable in your skin and in your place in the world. May you always know that you are loved and held. And may you always feel that love guiding you to share your own love and to share your best self with this world because the world needs
Speaker: that special thing that you were born with, that you have developed, know that that gift is necessary for our entire human family and you're a crucial part of it. And so bless you.
Speaker: Oh, man. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I've had so much fun. Okay, we'll talk again soon, right? Okay, yes. Okay. Hello, everyone. I have had the best time being your rabbi for this episode. I'm so glad you joined me for another little bit of insight into planning your perfect Jewish or interfaith wedding. Until you can smash that glass on your big day, you might as well smash that subscribe button for this podcast. I don't want you to miss a single thing.
Speaker: Remember, you can always find me, Rabbi Leanne, on Instagram, at, at, Your Ohio Rabbi. All one word for even more tips, tricks, recommendations, and wisdom on Jewish weddings.
Speaker: If you want to work with me on your wedding, you'll find all the info you need at YourOhioRabbi .com. Until next time, remember, you deserve the perfect wedding for you. Don't settle for anything less.
