Tag: Jewish Wedding

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Books CCAR Press

Why Do We Get Married Under a Chuppah?

Rabbi Nancy Wiener, DMin, is the author of Beyond Breaking the Glass: A Spiritual Guide to Your Jewish Wedding from CCAR Press. In this excerpt, Rabbi Wiener explores the history and symbolism of the chuppah in Jewish wedding ceremonies.

At a Jewish ceremony, it is under the chuppah, the nuptial canopy, that the extraordinary transformation marked by kiddushin traditionally occurs. Originally, a bride’s arrival under the chuppah symbolized her entrance into her husband’s domain and becoming a member of her husband’s household. In the grand scheme of Jewish history, the central place of the portable chuppah at a Jewish wedding is fairly recent, dating only from sometime in the sixteenth century. Nonetheless, today in America, most Jews and many non-Jews recognize the chuppah as one of the most distinctive and enduring ritual objects and symbols of a Jewish wedding. As we explore some of the meanings that the chuppah has had and some of the forms that it has taken, perhaps you will be inspired to look at the chuppah in new and meaningful ways.

Chuppah literally means “covering.” This covering demarcates the holy space in which a Jewish couple affirms the sanctity of their relationship. In earlier times, when Jews often held weddings on market days, the chuppah was a physical means of distinguishing the special area in which the wedding ceremony occurred from the surrounding hubbub. In a very real sense, no matter where your wedding takes place, there will be inherent distractions for all who are present; the chuppah continues to focus attention upon you and the holy space in which your lives together will be transformed.

Chuppot (the plural) have taken a wide variety of forms, from the canopied couches for brides and grooms of medieval Central Europe, to an embroidered parochet, or ark cover, to simple but luxurious cloths, such as silks and velvets suspended on poles or draped over a couple’s shoulders. In some Jewish communities in Asia, a tallit was placed over the heads of the couple until after the Sheva B’rachot, when it was removed. In other communities, the bride’s family bought the groom a new tallit, which both sets of parents placed on their children’s heads at the start of the ceremony. Standing under a bower of flowers also has a long history. Unlike the case for many other Jewish ritual objects, there are no requirements for chuppot.

Today, from an egalitarian perspective, the chuppah is most commonly understood as a symbol of the new home that you are establishing together through your kiddushin. As such, your chuppah can convey some of the qualities you hope to enjoy in your future life together.

A large chuppah is reminiscent of the nomadic tents used long ago by our Jewish ancestors. Such a tent roof with no walls might seem to lack form and strength, much like the new family and the new home you are establishing. However, such a tent is also flexible; it can adapt to variable circumstances and withstand harsh, abrupt changes that a more rigid structure might not. Your new home can be filled with acts of love and kindness, a place in which guests are always welcome, as they were in the tents of our ancestors Abraham and Sarah.

Like the chuppah, your new home will be inhabited by you, surrounded by your family and friends, honored by representatives of the many communities to which you belong, and protected by the sheltering presence of God. Your chuppah may be of any size, so it is up to you to decide whether it will cover only you, you and the rabbi, you and your immediate families, or you and your entire wedding party. The options are numerous, as are the meanings you are choosing to convey. To help figure out the right size for you, ask yourselves: what is the relationship between you and your new home, you and your family, you and your community? Agreeing on answers to these questions can serve as a practical guide to your decision regarding the size of your chuppah.

In some communities it is customary for the chuppah to be freestanding; in others, it is hand-held by members of the wedding party. In either case, it is considered an honor to be a chuppah holder, whether the task is real or symbolic. Some communities own chuppot that members can rent or borrow. In areas with sizeable Jewish communities, florists have chuppot that they use or make.

Alternatively, many couples choose to make or buy their own, or they ask family or friends to join in creating one for (or with) them. As a ceremonial object, it is intended to heighten the beauty of your. marriage ceremony, to be a reflection of the enduring Jewish custom of hidur mitzvah, the embellishing of a holy act. Therefore, your chuppah can reflect your aesthetic sense; you can choose the design, the material, the decoration, and the poles. In ancient Jewish communities the poles were made from trees, a cedar for a boy and an acacia for a girl, which parents had planted when their children were born. There are many artists who design and make chuppot, either for or with the couple.

Rabbi Nancy Wiener, DMin, is the founding director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling at Hebrew Union College in New York. She is the author of Beyond Breaking the Glass: A Spiritual Guide to Your Jewish Wedding from CCAR Press.

Categories
Inclusion Rabbinic Reflections

Evolving My Position on Jewish Interfaith Marriage

I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 1987. The place was a classroom at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, and we were having a critical discussion about the question of intermarriage, whether we would officiate and why. My position was adamant. I would only officiate at unions between two Jews. 

I felt that my role as m’sader kiddushin was to create Jewish families. And for the first eight years of my rabbinate, that was my steadfast policy. 

Then, in 1995, a dear friend shared his recent adoption of a new policy regarding intermarriage. If the non-Jewish partner was not actively practicing the religion of their birth, if the couple agreed to spend a year studying Judaism, and they agreed to have Judaism be the only religion in their home, and to rear Jewish children, he would marry them. 

By that time, I had noticed intermarried families in my congregation who were creating amazingly wonderful Jewish homes and whose kids were solid and secure in their Jewish identity and, more often than not, were among the most active teens in my religious school and youth group. 

It was a seminal moment for me. I was all in. My temple leadership, which had only hired me one year earlier, was concerned about my “flip flop,” but I assured them this represented a seachange for me in how I viewed the path to achieving the very same mission I had signed onto years earlier, namely creating Jewish families. The evidence was demonstrating that there was more than one way to achieve that. 

For the next twenty-seven years, I officiated at weddings between two Jews or one Jew and one non-practicing non-Jew who studied and promised to make a Jewish home. As the years went by, I watched with great satisfaction as these families grew and enriched Jewish life for themselves and for our community. Often, the non-Jewish partner became active in temple leadership, and in more than a few cases, eventually formally chose Judaism for themselves. Their kids were incredibly Jewish models for their younger peers, and I no longer heard self-disparaging comments about feeling like “a half-Jew.” 

Then the sea changed again. 

In 2022, a temple kid reached out to me to say she was engaged to be married and wanted her old childhood rabbi to officiate. The kicker? Her fiancé was Hindu and loved being so. 

By the policy I’d held for so many years, I should have said no. In fact, I did say no. But something about this didn’t sit well with me. It had little to do with the couple itself, except that I liked them and probably wanted to make sure this was really what I wanted to tell them, and that the family they would be creating would not fit the model to which I had long ago subscribed. They would have two religions at home and their children would be reared in both. Everything I had learned about such marriages waved the red flag. 

Except for one major, and as it turned out, decisive difference: the world of 2022 had changed greatly from that of 1995. 

Nowadays, there are so many pronounced, ugly divisions across our country, with so much anger and outright hatred flooding our daily lives. Politics have become personal vendettas, and the internet has offered anyone and everyone a nearly uncensored, unhampered platform to amplify and disperse every distorted, uncaring, and even unhinged remark that people “care” to put out there. 

As I thought about the mess we’re all living through, with so much discord pushing people further and further apart, I couldn’t have been more surprised to find myself thinking, “How can I tell this couple, who only want to love each other and share their love with others, that I won’t marry them?” In a world that knows far more callousness and hostility than I can remember, I reached back out to them and said, “Yes, I’ll marry you.” 

And just recently, that’s what I did, with immense gratitude to them for reminding me of the preciousness and virtue of love, that it outshines whatever else we may think is important in our lives. 

Will this couple make a Jewish home? Will they raise Jewish children? Will they secure the future of Jewish life? 

I don’t know. Maybe not. 

But they’ll make a loving home, one in which their children benefit from watching two adults who care about the spiritual paths they’ve chosen for themselves. And while yes, they’ll be raised in two religions, and they’ll have to sort out which religion to choose for themselves, or they’ll create some amalgamation of the two, or they’ll choose no religion at all, I believe with all my heart that something beautiful is going to happen inside that home that is profoundly needed in a world gone crazy. Where it’s become commonplace to see national leaders rip one another apart for the basest of reasons, this home will serve as an incubator for the values of two religions that teach us what is perhaps life’s most important instruction: Be good to one another. 

How can that be a bad thing? 

As I recently observed Elul, which propels us toward the High Holy Days, I found myself thinking about the symbols and rituals of my own religion and the symbols and rituals of other religions. When they do their jobs, their purpose is to prepare us, like Elul, for our upcoming lives. 

These symbols all speak to Judaism’s big plans for them, its grand hopes for their happiness, and its loving reminder of the role they have yet to play in bettering the world around them. Just as Hinduism’s symbols do. And Islam’s symbols. And Christianity’s too. 

And while they may look very different from one religion to the next, their underlying messages are remarkably similar. For this wedding couple, their chuppah symbolizes the protection from life’s storms that they will give to one another. Their kiddush cup symbolizes the bounty of sweetness that they will share with each other. Their rings symbolize the unending promise that they will care for one another. And the glass that they broke symbolizes their leaving behind what has been, and their forging together a new future. 

I love Judaism. And I want it to continue to exist. The world needs it to continue to exist. But in this time of schism and toxic dissent, I love love even more so. And while I will always celebrate when two Jews marry, I won’t ever again stand in the way of two human beings promising to love and care for each other forever. In fact, I will respond to their request for officiation with a wholehearted and grateful, “Yes!” 

Billy Dreskin is Rabbi Emeritus of Woodlands Community Temple in White Plains, New York. These days, he spends most of his time making music, which you can check out at jonahmac.org/billys-music. 

Categories
Books Rabbis

A Wedding Gift

Like the haggadah’s four children, wedding couples enter my office asking questions in different ways.  Some bring lists and show me photographs of the dress, the venue, the chuppah.  They are organized and take notes furiously.  A few are completely passive, deferring to their partners’ wishes.  Some have a general sense of what they want, and we talk it through together.  Others don’t know what’s possible, and need to be led.

I walk them through the steps of the Jewish wedding, explaining what’s required, what can be added or subtracted, and what can be adapted.  I strive to represent the Jewish tradition authentically.  I answer their questions dutifully.  I listen and make suggestions, anticipating complications.  (“It’ll hard to break the glass on sand.  Let’s make sure we have a thick board available.”  “How might your step-mother feel about that?”)

My job, in planning the ceremony, is to help the couple articulate and experience the ceremony that will turn two individuals into a family.

To do this more effectively, I run a quick assessment of each bride and each groom.  Following Myers-Briggs, I ask myself whether they are predominantly thinkers or feelers, and how structured they are.  Employing the Kolbe Index, I consider whether they’re most comfortable dreaming, organizing, researching, or visualizing.  We are most successful when I can speak their language, when I can anticipate and respond to their needs in ways that will land for them.

View More: https://brashlerphoto.pass.us/jesse-eric
Rabbi Dean Shapiro officiates Eric and Jesse’s wedding.

Researched and spontaneous.  Structured and free-flowing.  Oral and written.  Thinking and feeling. Couples bring to their weddings the tools they use in life.  They use the systems that are successful for them.

For all of these ways of processing, I find it helpful to present couples with a copy of Beyond Breaking The Glass, edited by Rabbi Nancy H. Weiner, at the end of our first session together.  In my Practical Rabbinics course at HUC-JIR, Rabbi Don Goor suggested we do this.  It’s been sound advice.bbtg5_sm

The couples who thrive on research use the book to look up the questions that occur to them between sessions.  The visual learners can read in black and white the very answers I’ve given them in person.  The dreamers have a foundation from which to consider options.  Couples with different styles can come together over the book’s pages, and make decisions together.  Brides and grooms can give curious or skeptical parents an authoritative answer, and everyone is reassured.

Most especially, I notice, the book helps the couple decide which words of commitment to speak.  Even though I’ve spoken and translated the options for them, it helps to read and discuss and practice such holy syllables.  They leave my office, after the first meeting, with a jumble of impressions and fears about which words to choose.  Having read and discussed them, they return clear and satisfied in their choice.

Perhaps most importantly, the book is a symbol of the care I’m showing them.  They know I’m on their side.  They feel special and looked after. With Beyond Breaking The Glass, every couple has truly been given a gift.

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Rabbi Dean Shapiro serves Temple Emanuel of Tempe, Arizona.  

Beyond Breaking the Glass is available for purchase from CCAR Press.

Categories
Books

Creating the Perfect Day

Whether a glitzy, large wedding which requires two wedding planners, or a fully DIY eco- friendly affair, no two weddings, and no two couples, are alike. But when you strip away the crafts, bling, and creativity, all couples are the same: they are seeking a mythical day, and a personalized meaningful ceremony that speaks to who they are.

The Jewish wedding ceremony is beautiful, timeless, and can speak to our hearts and souls. If we understand it.

I operate on the assumption that most couples grew up with the wedding ceremony of Fiddler on the Roof and have learned little more, except perhaps what they Googled after they got engaged, or what they have seen when attending weddings themselves. Enter Beyond Breaking the Glass: A Spiritual Guide to Your Jewish Wedding, by Rabbi Nancy H. Wiener.  Every couple with whom I work receives a copy, as a gift, of this book.bbtg5_sm

Now, equipped with an accessible resource, they can ask the questions: “What is a chuppah? Why do we have one?”, or “How can I personalize the ceremony?”, and more.  The answers, in the Reform tradition, are offered options in a non-judgmental tone.

Each couple has embraced this book differently. Some take the checklist found beginning on page 115 quite seriously, copying it and handing me a copy at our last meeting with each ritual item carefully marked and why. Others have read about rituals, and learned about circling for example, for the first time, and found it to be a poignant celebration of their love for each other. Some have even found this book as an opportunity to explore Jewish life more fully, finding the symbols and prayers so beautiful that they are left wanting more.

The book Beyond Breaking the Glass: A Spiritual Guide to Your Jewish Wedding is a step in empowering couples to rely on an ages old, magnificent Jewish tradition to fulfill their desires to create the perfect wedding day. It isn’t filled with bling, but it is filled with something much deeper: the ring of a ceremony filled with deep and relevant experiences.

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Rabbi Allison Vann serves Suburban Temple – Kol Ami in Beachwood, Ohio.