The Grover Ketubah

My friend Tightrope T-bird* and I have been tossing around this notion of the "other" ketubah. A ketubah is the Jewish marriage contract, signed by both parties and their witnesses during the wedding ceremony.

We discovered in class last week that there are - get this - two different kinds of ketubah, depending on whether the bride is a virgin or not.

Not the groom, mind you. Just the bride.

Naturally this led to a) a complete uproar in the classroom and b) me and Tightrope T-bird having absolutely the time of our lives.

We've been going around identifying "other ketubah" situations wherever we find them. A four-year-old dropped his drawers in front of you? Other ketubah. Your boyfriend is a mamzer (child of an adulterous woman)? Other ketubah. You've - gasp! - dated non-Jewish men? Serious other-ketubah issues, sister.

We decided today to color-code the ketubahs according to the Terror Threat Level system employed by the Pentagon. KETUBAH CODE RED! Mamzer Divorcee in Strapless Dress Marries Pork-Eating Cohen!

I remember that my dear friend Andy used to update his website daily with the Terror Threat Level color as expressed in Sesame Street characters. As in "Today's Terror Level is Bert." The ketubah described above would be an Elmo, and good luck getting an Orthodox rabbi to sign it. Or as T-bird put it, "Don't tickle me, Elmo!"

The lowest threat level is green, which we decided would be an Oscar Ketubah. This is your gold-standard, hit-every-wicket, 100% Jewish-virgin-bride-marries-halachically-observant- 100% Jewish-groom wedding contract.

And since it is green, we might as well call it the Leprechaun Ketubah, which should indicate the likelihood of you ever seeing one.

A last word from T-bird:

"I have very simple dreams. I just want to meet a nice Jewish boy, get a Grover Ketubah, and settle down..."

*not her real name