They Just Knew: Aden and Cara Friedman

holidays

Apr 23

Aden comes from an ultra-Orthodox background. One of the scariest things he ever had to do was to tell his family that he was interested in a girl—and she wasn’t Jewish!

Cara came from a Christian home, so her family was equally surprised when she introduced them to Aden. But despite their differences, she knew she had met him for a reason.

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Interview Transcript

Tuvya Zaretsky: Hi, everybody! This is Tuvya Zaretsky with “He Said…Then She Said”: conversations with Jewish-Gentile couples from around the world. And today I'm really excited to have Cara and Aden Friedman with me. They're both originally from South Africa, and they're both typical ... Well, no, there's nothing typical about them. They’re a lot of fun. You'll get to hear them. Aden is from a Jewish family, and Cara is from a Gentile Christian family, and we want to get into their story right away. Guys, that's a California way of saying “shalom” and hello. Welcome.

Cara Friedman: Thank you. Hi, good to be with you.

Aden Friedman: Thank you so much, Tuvya. Looking forward to this.

Tuvya: And you're both up in Toronto, Canada now. But Cara, you came from… you're born and raised in South Africa.

Cara: That's correct. Yes.

Tuvya: Tell me a little bit about your family.

Cara: My dad was a Portuguese South African, so he was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. My mom was an Afrikaans, South African, raised in the Methodist faith. But the two of them were introduced to one another by their pastor in a Pentecostal church. And so, I was raised in a Christian home, went to a Christian school. I lived a very typical South African Christian life. Until I met Aden.

Tuvya: Yes. Portuguese, Afrikaans, how many languages did your parents know?

Cara: My dad spoke Portuguese and English. My mom spoke English and Afrikaans.

Tuvya: Okay. And Aden, what's the thumbnail on your family?

Aden: So, grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home, Ashkenazi heritage from Lithuania, but in South Africa—typical orthodox family, and then expressed our Judaism later on through an ultra-orthodox route. We went the Chabad route, and we were all “black hatters” for a while.

Tuvya: Yeah.

Aden: And yeah, very traditional. Grandparents spoke Yiddish. My father could tell a Yiddish joke or two. And my mom was a convert to Judaism.

Tuvya: Okay! What was your mom's background like?

Aden: So, she had a Dutch Afrikaans background as well. Her parents were both Afrikaans, South African. And then she, I think it's a Yiddish word, magayed. I don't know if we use that in North America, but we say in South Africa, magayed. She converted from being Christian to being a Jew.

Tuvya: Was she a practicing Christian, or was she more of a cultural Christian?

Aden: She used to be a practicing Christian. In fact, she's the one who took her father to church for the first time and ended up becoming a very devout Christian. But then she kind of fell away, and then, when she met my father, she decided she wanted to take the Jewish route, and she wanted to raise the family as completely Jewish.

Tuvya: Fantastic. So, she really got immersed.

Aden: Yes.

Tuvya: Yeah. And, you were in your teens when you went to Khadera in Israel and went to a Yeshiva.

Aden: Yes, I was 16 years old.

Tuvya: Okay. And so, you were pretty immersed in Judaism.

Aden: Absolutely. I was actually kind of the point guy for Judaism in the religious school that I attended. So, I used to give the d’avr Torah every single week. I would give the official address at the end of every single year to the school. And I was kind of like the teacher's pet for the Jewish studies teacher as well, very immersed.

Tuvya: Cara, you were 19 when you met Aden?

Cara: I was 19 when I met Aden. Aden was 27 years old, not a Christian, a completely different walk of life than what I had known. And my parents were very concerned—I was interested in someone older than me, who was so different, who was not Christian. He's Jewish. They were quite shocked when I met Aden.

Tuvya: And he's such a shy guy. I mean, how did he ever approach you? Was he still a black hatter at that time? And when I say black hatter, for the audience, just so they know, we're talking about an Orthodox Jew wearing those black hats with payot, the curls coming down the sides of their head.

Cara: At that time, no, he wasn't. I think he had already kind of drifted away from that and entered a bit more of a rebellious stage. So as soon as he met me, he hit on me, and the rest is history.

Tuvya: So, your family looks at Aden. Did you have much contact with Jewish people growing up?

Cara: I went to a private Christian school, so I had known about Jewish people, but I had never met a Jewish person. I would say that Aden was the first Jewish person that I met.

Tuvya: Would that be the first Jewish person outside of somebody you read about in the Bible?

Cara: Exactly. Yeah. In the flesh.

Tuvya: In the flesh. So Aden, what was happening with you at that point?

Aden: Just as Cara has said to you, I was going through a rebellious phase. Absolutely. This was completely true. I decided I had a bunch of questions that I wanted rabbis to answer, and the more I couldn't get the answers I was looking for, the more I thought, okay, I'll do my own thing. So, I entered into a stage of restaurateuring, lots of late nights. And yeah, we don't need to go into details.

Tuvya: It's okay. That's okay. So, you two dated for about four years.

Cara: That's right.

Aden: Right.

Tuvya: Okay. Interesting question. So in the research that I did, there are lots of unique questions that come up with couples during that first phase. The next one is wedding. We'll get to that in a minute. Cara, your family was concerned at this point; Aden, he's been a good guy to you, right? I mean, you've been raised in a way that your antenna would go up if this guy was just being kind of sleazy. But obviously he's not. He's got some morality to him. What kind of questions, or what things happened where you guys had to have some conversations about what was going on?

Cara: You know it's so interesting, as rebellious or as cheeky as Aden was, the night that I met him, we spoke about the Bible a lot, and I thought that was strange that a Jewish person would know about a Christian Bible. And so he was telling me stories about Isaac and Abraham, and I was just so intrigued that this person knew so much about a Bible that I read. So I found that quite strange. And of all the guys that had, you know, shown an interest, or I had spent time with, none of them were as mature as Aden. And so, when I came home after meeting Aden that night, I said to my mom, “Mom, I feel like I've met him for a reason. I can't explain it.”

And my mom kind of looked at me, and she said, “There's a twinkle in your eye that I've never seen, and that's kind of raising a red flag. But if you think that you've met Aden for a reason, then I think that you should really ask God.”

And I remember telling Aden a few days after meeting him that it was going too fast and I wanted to pray about why I had met him. And he was like, “That's not how it works. We're supposed to go on dates, get to know each other. That's how it works. You don't avoid me while you're fasting; that's for Yom Kippur.”

And so, I fasted and prayed, and I kind of said to God, “You know what, I'm studying. I have my plan. I know what I want to do, and this guy just seems like a distraction, like everything about him seems wrong and dangerous, and I should stay away. So I'm praying, God, that you will give me an answer to stay away from him.” And quite obviously, God did the exact opposite, and every time I opened my Bible and read Scriptures, it just reinforced the fact that God has a plan for Jewish people, that he loves them, and it just, every single time I opened the Bible, that's just what I kept feeling. And so, I told my parents that I really did think that I'd met Aden for a reason, and my mom agreed that Aden and I could kind of pursue a relationship, and my parents agreed to meet him as well.

Tuvya: I'll come back to that in a minute. Aden, so were you in touch with your parents while you were dating Cara?

Aden: Yes.

Tuvya: Did you have any tension in the home with the idea that you were interested in somebody who's not Jewish?

Aden: So, it's an interesting question, because I'm 27 and emancipated. So, I'm now living on my own and not under, you know, under their roof, I had confidence that I was able to kind of make my own call and do things that I wanted to do. But at the same time, growing up in the home that I grew up in, the last thing you ever want to go home and tell your parents is, “Oh, I've met someone. I really like her. She's not Jewish.”

Tuvya: You’re talking about from the Jewish perspective, because not everybody else does that.

Aden: Yes. Yeah, of course. No, from a Jewish perspective, yes. And what's so interesting in hindsight is that my mom was not Jewish when my dad met her. And yet I was petrified to tell my mom that Cara wasn't Jewish.

Tuvya: Very interesting. Sure. Sure. This says a lot about the enculturation of your family and the viewpoint in life. Cara, I'm going to come back and ask you one more question on this one. I get the question all the time. If I'm talking to or working with a Christian, and they're thinking about getting married to somebody who's not a believer, there are some things in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testament, concerns about that because of the risk of damage to their faith. So, I wanted to ask you, would you have married Aden if he had never come to faith in Yeshua, faith in Jesus?

Cara: Well, that's a very interesting question, and I think if you had asked me at that time, maybe my answer would be different. When I met Aden, I was not thinking about marriage. Because I was only 19 years old, I just kind of looked at it step by step and took it day by day. But I really did feel like I had met him for a reason. And you know, looking back, hindsight is 20/20, and that reason unfolded into this wonderful life that we have. But now I would probably say no, I wouldn't have married him if he didn't find faith in Yeshua. But maybe then I would have said yes.

Tuvya: Okay, that's fair enough. I have so many of these conversations, and I want you to know that the Old Testament concern was God's caution. People think of it as a prohibition, but God’s caution to the Jewish people was, “Don't marry somebody who's not part of our people because they might take you away from loving me.” So, for a Christian, you know it's the same concern. Well, if I partner with somebody, whether they're Jewish or not, Jewish or Gentile, if I partner with somebody who's not a lover of the living God, could that injure my faith? And that's always the question back there. I have absolutely no doubt that God was working in your life as one of the instruments to bring this rowdy restaurateur, rebellious, wise guy to him. It was going to take somebody like you. And that's really wonderful that he did that. Four years later, Aden became a follower of Yeshua, a believer in Jesus. I take it your parents gave their blessing.

Cara: They did indeed. My parents had an uncanny fondness for Aden. They took him in as a third child. My dad absolutely loved Aden—they spent a lot of time together. From the moment she met Aden, my mom also felt like we had met Aden for a reason, and he had come into our lives for a reason.

Tuvya: He is an incredible individual, and I'm not going to make him blush here, but he's really lovable. Okay, so, the second phase we find where couples really encounter challenges is when they want to plan a wedding, and yours ended up being one of those typical situations. Aden, I'm gonna let you address this. So, you planned to have a wedding. Kind of sketch the picture and what was unusual about what happened. Where was it? How was it being done? And then what happened?

Aden: So, it was a very interesting time, and I also think, when looking back with hindsight, there was a little naivete on all parts because I think we all thought it could be the perfect picture, but it wasn't. What my parents thought I would do is, they thought I would have a completely non-religious wedding in a sense that it wouldn't be Christian. It wouldn’t be Jewish. It would be just some person standing there to sign a piece of paper. In my mind, what I wanted was, I wanted it to reflect who I was, which was a Jewish man who believed that Jesus is the Messiah. And so, it would have, for example, maybe a communion service. But there would be a chuppah. I would break the glass, but there would be a pastor present, and in my mind, it was like, this is who we are. This is who I am. And I thought it would be very nice for Cara’s family to see that Christian element at our wedding, and really nice for my parents to see the Jewish element at our wedding. But in their eyes…

Tuvya: Before you go to the “but” … Cara, what did your parents think of that kind of a program for your wedding?

Cara: They embraced it. They absolutely loved the idea of embracing Aden’s heritage and his faith, and we thought that it would be a good way to include his family and to show that heritage.

Tuvya: So, your family really loved the idea.

Cara: They did. They loved the idea, but they certainly wanted us to be married by a pastor.

Tuvya: Aden, you pivoted with a “but.” What happened?

Aden: So, the “but” is that from my parents’ perspective, they saw that as an absolute insult . They were very happy for the chuppah and the glass, but they were like, “No Jesus at this wedding. That's too much of an insult to us.” And so, one of the terms that was used by a family member is, they said to me, “Aden, you can't be half pregnant here. Either you're pregnant or you're not. Choose what you are and go with that.” So, what I did when I heard that, I said, “Well, okay, no problem. I am pregnant. And the pregnancy is that I'm a Christian. So, there is definitely going to be a pastor that's going to marry us. But culturally, I'm going to put up a chuppah, and I'm going to have the glass to break because I'm Jewish, and I feel confident with that.” So, I wanted to make sure that a pastor married us and that Jesus’ name was absolutely used throughout our ceremony because that's who we wanted to be the center of attention. So, my parents couldn't handle that. And that's when they said they’re not going to be there.

Tuvya: Yeah. Yeah. And I'll affirm in your situation, when I'm asked to do a wedding, often that question comes up when one partner's family is Jewish. And the question is, what are they going to do regarding the “J” word.

Aden: Yeah.

Tuvya: Yeah, and sometimes it's not enough to say for a Jewish partner who has become a follower of Yeshua that they're Messianic. It really doesn't matter. It really comes down to what our cultural perspectives are about the name and what's happened in that name, in Jewish history and heritage. There are some great conversations we can have about that, but it’s just part of a cultural tough spot in the road. We can get past it, but it pops up.

Cara: I also want to say, just to add to that, like you said, culturally, it might even be different for different couples in different situations. But for Aden, he had such a radical transformation when he became a believer that he really felt that God and Yeshua needed to be honored in that ceremony because he felt like that was the reason that we had been joined together. There were many reasons for Aden himself that he wanted the word Jesus used. He wanted a pastor to marry us. So, he felt very strong in that conviction himself.

Aden: You're right.

Tuvya: Your mom's premonition was, this was a good guy, and it was okay for you to date him. And her prayers certainly paid off. Jumping ahead a little bit, you two visited Israel in 2017? Something like that.

Cara: I think our first trip was 2015, Aden?

Aden: That's right. December of 2015.

Tuvya: And you had something happen at the airport you were telling me about that was kind of unique. I hadn't heard of this one before. So, you're traveling into Israel. You'd been there before, Aden. You'd studied there as a…

Aden: Yeshiva bocher.

Tuvya: Yeah. A yeshiva bocher, as a yeshiva student. Were you Haredi or Hasidic?

Aden: It was actually a bnei akiva yeshiva.

Tuvya: Okay. And now you're coming into the country, and your wife—well, tell everybody listening what happened when you arrived in the country.

Aden: So, a very interesting thing. We get to security, and we're expecting the common questions like, “Why are you coming into Israel? What are your plans to do here? When are you leaving? Who do you know here?”

Tuvya: This is at passport control.

Aden: Correct.

Tuvya: There’s a few security questions asked. “Are you with us or against us?”

Aden: Right. So, those were not the questions that we were asked at all. The guy interviewing us looked at Cara and said, “So, tell me. What do you know about Rosh Hashanah? What can you tell me about the shalosh regalim?” And it was very obvious in that moment that they knew she wasn't Jewish, and they were trying to figure out, “What is this Jewish guy doing being married to a non-Jewish person, and what does she know about being Jewish?” Which had absolutely nothing to do with why we were going to Israel in the first place!

Tuvya: You got in?

Aden: We got in. Cara knew what Rosh Hashanah was.

Tuvya: Way to go girl! Really sweet. Okay, that's interesting. I'd never heard of that before. So, very often, the third phase for couples to sort things out is, “Who are we? We're from two different cultures. We're putting this together.” Obviously, you'd been married a couple of years. Cara's already beginning to learn about Jewish culture and heritage from you. You're growing in your faith with her, and your family is growing together. So, during that period of time, by the way, did you ever go back to your parents’ home and celebrate holidays with them?

Aden: Great question. Cara, do you want to tell the story?

Cara: Sure. Aden and I got married in February of 2014, and after our wedding, when we came back from our honeymoon, and all was said and done, we were feeling very hurt, obviously, that his family chose not to come. (I naively, on the day, thought maybe they'll turn up, you know.) So, there was a lot of hurt, a lot of pain. But one day, just before Rosh Hashanah, Aden came to me and he said, “You know what, I think we need to be the peacemakers in this situation.” You know, he felt that was what God was calling us to do.

And so, he called his parents and said, “Look, Rosh Hashanah is coming up. You guys probably have plans. Can we be included in those plans?”

And they said, “Absolutely, you can come, but don't mention Jesus.”

And we said, “That's fine. You know, we want a relationship with you guys.” He wanted them to get to know me. We wanted to be involved in their lives. And so, we went to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with them, and it was a beautiful, beautiful time together.

Tuvya: That's wonderful! Oh, my goodness. Good for you.

Aden: Yeah. I would say that absolutely opened the door because then all of a sudden, we started to get weekly invitations to go to Shabbat. And to be fair, that really became a highlight, I know, for my dad, that we would come for Shabbat every single week. That really started to repair the relationship.

Tuvya: That's wonderful. That's a great lesson for everybody listening, to extend ourselves into a culture that may not be our own. Aden, you grew up in that. I'm not saying that wasn't your culture, but you certainly had an understanding of that.

Cara, to recognize the importance of that relational development and learning. You know we can experience and learn about other cultures without saying they're ours or the beliefs are ours. We can certainly be a part of what's important to somebody else and be who we are. And they know who we are. And we get a chance to share those differences in moments when they ask. I'm always trying to be careful not to answer a question that's not being asked yet.

Aden: Right.

Cara: That's so true. I think for us, that was a big step as well because before, we felt maybe a pressure or an obligation to always mention Jesus, and to always say, “This is what we believe.” You know, we felt like, “Oh, it's on us to share with them.” But actually, it was the opposite that became true, just them spending time with us, and the fact that we respected them enough to say, “We want a relationship with you.”

We can just get to know one another, so much so, that after a few years of Aden and I being married and spending every Shabbat with his family, and sharing the holidays with them, Aden's mom pulled him aside and said, “You know what, Aden, I might not believe what you believe, but there is no doubt in my mind that you are a better person for what you believe.” And that was great.

Tuvya: That’s beautiful.

Aden: I want to add to what Cara is saying. What ended up happening after we started going for Rosh Hashanah and for Shabbat and for the chagim, eventually Cara's parents were then also invited. And they actually spent a number of Shabbatot and chagim with my family, which actually drew everybody closer together, and that was really good all around.

Tuvya: So, you were celebrating Shabbat and the festivals with the family. That's wonderful.

Aden: Yes.

Tuvya: That's really wonderful.

Cara: My dad would wear a yarmulke. It was incredible. You know, I could have never imagined it being that way.

Aden: Yep.

Tuvya: That’s fantastic. Well, this has been wonderful. Aden, you have written a cookbook, My Yiddishe Mama?

Aden: That's right.

Tuvya: And people can find that story of Jewish cooking and stories, heritage and legacy. Where would they find that book?

Aden: You can find the digital version on Amazon, or if you got in touch with us, even if they contacted Jewish-Gentile couples, we've got copies of that book available here in Toronto, and we'd be happy to send that off. It's a very fun collection of Ashkenazi and Sephardic cooking, along with lots of family stories, a couple of Jewish-Gentile couples inside there as well which is fun to read. Last week Cara was in San Francisco for work, and while she was away, I got to make cholent, which was so good, because that's one thing that hasn't passed our spiritual harmony. Cara does not like cholent. I grew up on the stuff, and so I had two days of cholent, which was wonderful.

Tuvya: I'll just say, “Mazel tov.” It was never one of my favorites, either.

Cara: There are a few things you can get over. Some you just can't.

Tuvya: Yeah. Hey, before we go, I'm so touched by the way you reached out, Aden, to your parents, and gave them a chance to know your hearts and your faith. Your dad was very committed to his connection to Judaism, and yet he loved his son. I know that he passed away a couple years ago.

Aden: That's right.

Tuvya: How did he respond toward the end of his life to your faith?

Aden: So, yep. About seven, eight months before he passed away, I was moving to Canada. And a dear friend of mine had actually asked me before I left, could I do one more presentation of the Last Supper at a venue she had found, and she was going to invite a whole bunch of people. And she said to me, “And why don't you ask your dad to come and listen to his son speak before you leave?”

And I said, “Well, that's a good idea.” So, I phoned my dad, and our relationship was really good. And I said, “Dad, you’ve never really heard me speak or seen what I do. Why don't you come along, and it can be our last little get together before I go?”

He said, “Sure.” So, he picked me up. He came to hear me speak, and halfway through my speaking, I saw my dad stand up, his hands raised in the air, tears running down his face, his body was trembling, and I stopped speaking because I knew. And I walked up to him in front of the whole room, and I said, “Dad, you know, don't you?”

And he nodded his head, and he said, “Yes.”

I said, “Dad, who's Jesus?”

And he said, “He's the Messiah.”

And I got to take his hands, and I got to pray with him. And there wasn't a dry eye in the room. And Tuvya, I have to tell you, it was one of the greatest moments in my life, and I was so thrilled at this absolute reconciliation where it came full circle, and it just felt like father and son, kind of reconnected. What was so beautiful about what happened is, it's interesting what God can do in our hearts.

So, when he died seven months later, I went to his place to go and collect some of his things. And what I didn't know was in his house, on his mantelpiece, was a picture of Cara and me at our wedding. And it was me standing next to her, dressed in my suit and her in her gown, and he somehow, I still don't even know how, got ahold of this picture and had it printed and put in a frame, and he put it on his mantelpiece. I just felt like this was absolute restoration. And God is to be thanked for everything, because while it was hard, and it was very difficult initially, it had such a wonderful ending, which I think is always the story of God. He has the last say—always.

Tuvya: Always hope. There's always hope.

Cara: Mmhmm.

Aden: Yep.

Tuvya: Yeah. And these are stories of reconciliation and hope for finding a spiritual harmony and unity that has been so difficult for couples to find, and yet your story is one of holistic life and faith and love in the presence of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is really wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to do this. May God continue to bless your lives! Thanks so much.

Aden: Thank you, Tuvya.

Cara: Thanks, Tuvya.