Sons Really Do Get Married, and Their Parents Really Do Love It, (and Nobody Cried)

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There we are, our sweet sweet family with it's newly married eldest and his lovely brand-new wife.   It's an out-of-body experience to watch your son get married, and this was a wonderful one.  I'd been very nervous:  would it go well after the two of them had worked so hard on every detail, would they have fun, would we cry, would I look ok (well, after all, those photos last forever.)

It all did go well.  The groom (in the middle) was so joyous and ready, his speech so sure and calm; his wife so lovely and pleased, his brother (on the right)offering the loveliest, funniest, just-rightest toast ever.  There were only 80 of us so over the weekend we became a kind of tribe, tables shifting as people moved around enjoying the event, and one another. 

It was a great joy to me to see how much the boys feel for each other.  I have, today, two of my dearest wishes: that my children be good friends and that each son find a partner who is wonderful, honorable and loving.  So far so good.

I'd been thinking for months about the power of time, of change.  One of my friends commented on my Facebook page that "I remember when Josh was xeroxing his little hands in the office!" I do too.  And I thought I'd be consumed by those kinds of thoughts.  But this just felt right, timely and good for everyone.  No nostalgia, not "where are you going my little one, little one"  "sunrise, sunset" thoughts at all.  Just gratitude at the happiness and love that surrounded the bride, the groom and the rest of us.  May it always be so.

WEDDINGS, WITCHES AND JEWISH LIFE

Cropped_chuppa_bride_and_groomWeddings are life markers – milestones on a singular journey.  Every time, just like today, the two whose lives are joined know that their wedding is the most meaningful, the most special, of all.  Every time, just like today, their family and friends smile and sigh, nod knowingly or watch in wonder.  Most times, just like today, there is feasting and dancing, laughing and crying,  present and past.

The couple in this picture are grownups with jobs, a just-completed dissertation and a real sense of wonder that they found one another and managed to make their way to this day.  They planned the wedding, designed the exquisite chuppah (wedding canopy) that has been part of Jewish marriage for centuries, and worked to make the day special in every way (they succeeded.) 

This is the third wedding I’ve attended this year and the third traditional observant Jewish wedding ever.  That’s very unusual for someone my age but we’re blessed with friends who have made us part of their extended family and asked us to share these blessed days with them.  Today, for the third time in a year I watched a groom led to his bride by a swarm of singing, dancing men; I’ve watched him lower the veil over the face of the woman he now knew for sure was his beloved.  (Jacob was duped and married the wrong sister; at least 600 years old, this tradition evokes that story and acknowledges its power.)  When I first learned of it it sounded barbaric to me.  Men taking possession of property, I thought.  Check out the goods.

Somehow though, in the years I’ve spent moving toward an observant life, it’s come to mean something quite different: a reverent bow to the centrality of a sound life partnership – not for everyone but certainly  for those who choose to marry.  Marriage is not just the economic and legal partnership so often described in political conversation, it’s an ancient entity with real resonance and a gigantic role in the preservation of a humane, loving and sometimes sacred society. It requires tradition carried on; it requires the presence of ceremony and ritual to link it to the couples of past generations. 

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On my favorite guilty pleasure, Charmed, rituals of birth and marriage are attended not only by those who share the lives and loves of the Halliwell sisters (yeah they’re witches and their story spent 8 TV seasons enchanting us all) but also by those who came before.  They summon, "through space and time"  all members of "the Halliwell line."  Surrounded by these transluscent figures of past generations, today’s Halliwells celebrate marriages and new arrivals.  Those fully and those ephemerally present conclude together "blessed be."

What does this have to do with Jewish weddings — or any other terrestrial weddings for that matter?  A lot.  Eight years on the air, the longest running show with female leads, it dealt often with travel through time and space and dominions never imagined.  But when really important events arose, all the magic was supplanted by a single, simple spell that basically –well — brought the family together.  For them it was across ghostly generations…it was a show about witches after all.  But that really is what weddings do, and in my limited experience, the weddings of observant Jews are events with special power because they consider a wedding the "creation of a home" where Jewish life will be lived and celebrated.  "Home" is represented by the wedding canopy, or "chuppah" under which the bride and groom marry, surrounded by loved ones of prior and subsequent generation:  grandparents and parents, aunts and brothers, sisters and nephews. 

This particular chuppah was built from branches rescued from a clearing near Boston and covered by a tablecloth that had belonged to the bride’s grandmother, who had died the year before.   My husband’s and mine was covered by the prayer shawls of our grandfathers – mine near death and too frail to attend, his gone just a couple of years before.  Again, instinctively, we, like this bride, sought connections over time. 

I"m not saying this well but what I think is that we’re hardwired to want to be part of something "larger than ourselves" and faith and family are that something.  For observant Jews, these connections are manifested throughout the ceremony and the traditions surrounding it.  That timeless ritual and all that surrounds it bring the gift of place and meaning – the reminder that as we celebrate a marriage we join the circle once more, honoring all that has been given us and accepting the responsibility to pass it on.