Sharon and I attended a wedding last week.
It’s funny – I remember at our wedding, and many years before that at my Bar Mitzvah – meeting many guests, technically guests from “my” side of the occasion, who were friends or colleagues of my parents, that I had never met. It was very nice that they had come to honor my parents and to participate in our family’s joyous occasion, but it struck me as a little bit odd that they were celebrating with/for a person they didn’t really know (i.e. l’il old me).
Now it was our turn. We are very friendly with the parents of the bride – we live about a block away from one another, attend the same synagogue and occasionally walk to or from services together, the father and I often see each other on the train to or from Tel Aviv where we both work in the morning and we have been to each other’s homes for meals on Shabbat or holidays before.
But I have met the bride herself, not more than once or twice, and even then barely spoken with her (it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that we have never met the groom or anyone in his family).
So now that I was the “other side” of the picture, it seemed less odd than it did when I was younger.
All in all, it was a very lovely evening, and as there were several other couples from our synagogue and neighborhood, we had several friends with whom to socialize. The venue was absolutely gorgeous, and we had a wonderful time.
And it made me feel very very old.
Not just because now we were the friends of the parents attending a celebration of people that we don’t know. I could deal with that part. No – what made me feel old was paradoxically one of the most appealing aspects of the entire evening. It was watching the friends of the bride and groom – all in the late-teens / early 20’s dancing throughout.
In a traditional religious Jewish wedding, there is a lot of dancing. One of the things incumbent upon guests, families and friends is to “make the bride and groom happy”, So when the groom is signing the marriage contract (the Ketubah), there is a lot of singing and dancing around him. Then the men dance him (i.e. escort him by dancing in front of him while moving themselves backwards) to where the bride is waiting. In the meantime, many of the bride’s friends and family have been singing and dancing around her.
When the groom arrives at the bride’s chair, there is what is called the Bedeken – which is the part of the ceremony where the groom sees the face of his bride for the first time in (my most traditions) a week, and he lowers the veil over her face (the root of this is the Biblical story of our forefather Jacob, who had arranged to marry the love of his life, the beautiful Rachel, only to have her father “switch” her on the wedding night with her sister Leah, so now we men get the chance to make sure that we’re getting what we’re paying for).
After the Bedeken, the men once again escort the groom – this time with his parents (or sometimes – as in this particular wedding last week – with the 2 fathers) dancing him to the Chuppah (the wedding canopy). All the while the women are singing and dancing around the bride, until the men have finished bringing the groom to his place, and they return to dance the bride to the Chuppah.
{Side note – this is not the case in every wedding. In many traditional weddings the bride and groom are not danced to the Chuppah, but in a much quieter and low-key ceremony simply escorted by their respective parents. This was definitely not one of those “low-key” weddings}
So, back to what made me feel so old, while also making this wedding a thoroughly enjoyable time for someone who doesn’t really know either the bride or the groom.
All these young whippersnappers had spent the last half an hour or so dancing almost non-stop, and it was finally time for the actual wedding ceremony. The Chuppah itself was on a little island in a man-made pond (complete with real fish swimming in it) and one needed to cross a small bridge to get to the Chuppah.
Once they had danced the groom to his rightful, then escorted the bride by dance, they all settled on and near the bridge. The first thing that happens when the bride arrives at the Chuppah is that she circles the groom 7 times, all the while with music playing. I looked over and saw a couple of dozen young adults all hoppin’ and boppin’ to the music, seemingly with no end to their energy.
As the ceremony goes on, after the Rabbi speaks for a little while (he spoke very beautiful and did not drag it out at all), then is the time for the 7 blessings said under the Chuppah, by friends and family members whom the bride and groom wish to honor. After each blessing, it is announced who will recite the next blessing, and while that person is making his way through the throng over the bridge and to the Chuppah, the band is playing, these young adults were up and dancing again. It was absolutely amazing!
Once the ceremony was over, it was time to (what else?) dance the newly married couple to the Yichud Room, which is where the bride and groom are able to enjoy a short amount of time together alone for the first time as husband and wife (usually the time is spent eating and drinking something because a) the bride and groom have been fasting the day of their wedding until after the ceremony and b) almost no couples that I know ever actually get to eat during the wedding meal itself). Once the friends all finish dancing them to the Yichud room and dancing their way back – they take a short break, until the bride and groom come out at which time the dancing starts all over again.
Now is when the serious dancing gets under way. In traditional Jewish weddings the men and women dance separately from one another, so I couldn’t really see the women (although if what I saw earlier was any indication they were going every bit as strong as the men), but on the men’s side it was an unbelievably high level of energy. They were going without resting, without slowing seemingly forever.
It made me feel old because I doubt that even when I was that age, and in much better physical shape, that I could have kept up with these kids. Now, I know that I would last a few minutes at their pace – no more than that.
The beauty of it was this – the bride and groom are very young, and undoubtedly among the first (if not the first) of their circle of friends to get married. As is very common in the religious circles, over the next 3 or 4 years, this same group of friends will gather together for several more weddings – each time involving one (or two) of the kids that were celebrating this wedding last week.
The joy and the love that these kids have for one another, and the absolute pleasure that they all take in celebrating the happiness of their friends is one of the most moving things I could ever hope to witness.
Last week, I posted a blog about the double Bar Mitzvah that we recently attended at the kibbutz of very close friends, and I described (in probably too-much detail) the friendship of this whole circle of friends that I am very blessed to have all living in Israel.
Watching the love, the joy, and the boundless energy and happiness of these young adults at the wedding last week allowed me to see that they have this same blessing of amazing friends that I have been fortunate enough to have.
May the happy couple merit building a faithful house in Israel.
No comments:
Post a Comment