This afternoon one of my Bar Mitzvah/Confirmation students is getting married, virtually of course. It is a traditional wedding with all the trimmings such a Jewish wedding entails. He is studying to be a rabbi in a Conservadox yeshiva to the great surprise of his parents and extended family…to everybody but his rabbi.

The father of another student of mine informed me about a decade ago that his son had been accepted into the seminary. Of course, I was very excited. His father said, “I just have to tell you one thing and I hesitate doing so but you’ll find out anyway.” Pretty sure of what he was going to say, I nonetheless played dumb. “What’s that?” With an “um” and an “uh” he said, “He was accepted into the Jewish Theological Seminary,” the Conservative movement’s school. I responded, “And?” There was silence. “‘And??’” he said, “Aren’t you upset?”

I had to tell him that not only was I not upset but I didn’t expect anything else…a shock to the father who himself was one of our more small “c” conservative congregants when it came to our tradition. In Torah study class for years and years, dad had been our almost- fundamentalist. But aside from that, I and my Associate knew that his son would a) become a rabbi, and b) do so through the auspices of a non-Reform branch. His father was dumbfounded.

Why would one think a Reform rabbi would be so upset about two wonderful people choosing a non-Reform direction?! They were following their spiritual inclination. While it wasn’t in the tradition of their own rabbi, there is, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, “nothing wrong with that.”

Next week I’ll be writing and speaking about my concern that Reform’s liturgy is trending more traditional. But these guys aren’t taking “tradition” and stuffing it into a Reform rabbinate. Indeed, they are being kosher in their choice as well as kosher in their lifestyle. I’m proud as can be and so are their parents.