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WEDDINGS
Having just recently been blessed to attend and officiate at a wedding ceremony for one of my grandchildren, I spent some time thinking about the origins and customs of Jewish weddings as they are celebrated in the Jewish world today. The basic structure of the wedding is outlined in the Talmud in the tractates of Ketubot and Kiddushin.
There is a formal, legalistic requirement of the husband “acquiring” his wife by placing a ring on her finger and stating that she is now sanctified unto him according to the faith and ritual of Moshe and Israel. In reality any item of monetary value can be used for this “acquisition” though a ring has been the preferred choice for the ceremony and its use dates back millennia.
The Talmud does discuss ceremonies where other items of monetary value were used and accepted. This ring part of the ceremony is from ancient times and has been the standard for thousands of years. This part of the ceremony creates a relationship called eirusin
- a status that binds the couple together but does not yet allow for intimacy.
The full solemnization of the marriage itself is the physical chupah - when the bride joins the groom under his private domain, so to speak, and the seven blessings of joy are recited. This final legal ceremony is called nisuin and is the official culmination of the bonding of the couple to each other, physically and emotionally.
In Second Temple times and even later there was a hiatus of one year between the two ceremonies of eirusin and nisuin. Now, as has been for more than the last millennia, both ceremonies take place almost simultaneously, as one complete wedding. Over the centuries, many customs and nuances have been developed which in turn have added drama, color and tradition to the ceremony.
There is a custom that the parents or close relatives of the groom and the bride accompany them and stand together with the couple under the chupah.. This was traditional in Eastern European society and is pretty much the norm in all Ashkenazic wedding ceremonies. In today’s Israel, in many circles, the groom is danced to the chupah by a multitude of his friends and the bride likewise receives such accompaniment by her friends.
In many of the countries of the Diaspora – particularly America and England – there is a wedding procession of undetermined length consisting of chosen family members and friends. Whether this type of procession is a product of acculturation from the general non-Jewish society or of Jewish origin is a matter of debate.
In Ashkenazic circles there is also a custom of the bride accompanied by her mother and the groom’s mother circling the groom seven times as he stands under the chupah. This custom is thought to be of kabbalistic origin and is only a few centuries old. In Ashkenazic society there also is a custom that before the ceremony actually begins the groom lowers the veil over the face of the bride. This is in keeping with the Talmudic dictum that one is not allowed to marry a woman unless one first sees her and can recognize her.
Jewish weddings were quite simple in past times due to economic realities and social strictures. Over the past decades they have become more ornate, elaborate and expensive, certainly in America but even in Israel as well. This is certainly due to the greater affluence of the Jewish communities world-wide and of heightened social pressures and expectations. Because of the cost involved many people now invite the young couple’s friends to dessert and dancing after the main meal is over.
Again, the rabbis of the Talmud warned us that a certain amount of aggravation and contentiousness arises with all wedding plans and negotiations. Nevertheless a wedding is a joyous milestone of achievement in Jewish family life and the ceremony and its accompanying customs reflect all the happiness of the occasion.
Shabat shalom.
Berel Wein
