An Avoidable Tragedy

Esti Weinstein (Times of Israel)

Her marriage, she explained, was deeply influenced by the “Takanot” — a set of strict guidelines that define how Gur married couples should conduct themselves, from the mundane to the intimate.

Before their marriage… (h)er prospective groom raised the subject of the Takanot and his expectation that she abide by the rules…

Once, when she asked her husband to make love to her more than the twice a month permitted in the Takanot, he left their home to call a counselor for advice and only came back two hours later.

“He paused for a moment in the entrance to the living room, didn’t even look at me, and threw into the space of the room the sentence that would hound me for many years afterwards and until today: ‘The rabbi said one shouldn’t add days except what the rebbe [head of the sect] from Gur defined, which is twice a month, and we already did this twice this month!

Therefore, the rabbi said, this month we should not do it again, and added and instructed, that if you accept my pronouncement, that is great! And if not — that I should sleep in the living room, and if that also doesn’t help and you continue to insist, then the rabbi ruled that I should sleep in the [synagogue]! Good night!’

“He finished like a father instructing his children to go straight to bed because it is late. He went to the bedroom and immediately fell asleep, and I spent the night in tears and wailing terribly.”

(She) was found dead in her car on Sunday after apparently taking her own life days earlier, had written a short autobiography describing the rigors of living within the Gur Hasidic sect and the pain she felt when her daughters cut ties with her over her choice to give up religion… 

Weinstein reportedly ended the book (a short autobiography she wrote shortly before her death) by writing of her life divided between being the independent woman she chose to be by leaving the sect, and “my life of motherhood, the painful, that is smashed to pieces, sick and wounded. 

In the car with her body police discovered a short note. “In this city I gave birth to my daughters, in this city I die because of my daughters,”