Life Cycle: Weddings

Although it seems antiquated and patriarchal to modern eyes, it was progressive for its time in providing women with legal status and rights in marriage, and because it made divorce a more costly decision, it was credited with strengthening the Jewish family.

Anita Diamant

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, said that if a couple were fighting, they should read the ketubah aloud to remind each other of their wedding day, when they were surrounded with love and good wishes, and when God entered their relationship.

The ketubah is an ancient wedding document outlining the responsibilities which must be fulfulled in a marriage. As a sign of accepting its obligatrions, we ask the chatan and kallah to take hold of a handerkerchief in the presence of two witness. In this way, they symbollically affirm their devotion to values which our people have cherished most throughout our long history.

The bridal canopy is a multifaceted symbol: it is a home, a garment, and a bedcovering. Its openness recalls the tent of the biblical Abraham, a paragon of hospitality, who kept his tents open on all sides so that visitors would know they were welcome. The tabernacle built in the desert to house the presence of God is described as a bridal canopy. According to Midrash, God created ten splendid huppot for the marriage of Adam and Eve. The huppah is a symbol of God’s presence at a wedding and in the home being established under the canopy. It was said the divine Name hovers above it, sanctifying the space below.

The chupah is a symbol of the home the beloveds are creating together. It marks their separation from their family home, and yet it remains open on all sides to represent the couple's openness to family and friends.

With this act, the bride created a symbolic wall to protect the groom from evil spirits, from the glances of other women, and from the temptations of the world. It also signaled that the couple’s primary allegiance was shifting from their parents to each other. For the mystics, circling was a way for a bride to enter the groom’s sefirot—spheres of the human soul that correspond to the seven lower attributes of God.

The bride—sometimes led by both mothers—made either three or seven circuits around the groom. The preference for three was based on the threefold biblical phrase “I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving-kindness, and in compassion; and I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.” Also, husbands were required to fulfill three obligations to their wives: to provide food and clothing and conjugal relations.

The number seven has special resonance at a wedding: the world was created in seven days; seven wedding blessings are recited under the huppah; and marriage is a seven-days-a-week act of creation.

Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman

It taught that covenanting is a continuing process, that we do not just arrive at a deep relationship and that’s it! By showing that even a covenanting partnership can move from level to level, the double ceremony under the huppa may have served to remind the couple and the community that their new partnership would have to keep changing and deepening.

1. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן.Blessed are you, Adonai Our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine2. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהַכֹּל בָּרָא לִכְבוֹדוֹ.Blessed are you, Adonai Our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who created all for His glory.3. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, יוֹצֵר הָאָדָם.Blessed are you, Adonai Our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who fashions human beings4. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם דְּמוּת תַּבְנִיתוֹ, וְהִתְקִין לוֹ מִמֶּנּוּ בִּנְיַן עֲדֵי עַד: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ-יָ, יוֹצֵר הָאָדָם.Blessed are you, Adonai Our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has fashioned human beings in His image, patterning them in His likeness, establishing for them, from His own self, an everlasting structure. Blessed are you, Adonai, who fashions human beings.5. שׂוֹשׂ תָּשִׂישׂ וְתָגֵל הָעֲקָרָה, בְּקִבּוּץ בָּנֶיהָ לְתוֹכָהּ בְּשִׂמְחָה: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, מְשַׂמֵּחַ צִיּוֹן בְּבָנֶיהָ.May the barren one rejoice in the gladsome ingathering of her children. Blessed are you, Adonai, who causes Zion to rejoice with her children.6. שַׂמַּח תְּשַׂמַּח רֵעִים הָאֲהוּבִים, כְּשַׂמֵּחֲךָ יְצִירְךָ בְּגַן עֵֽדֶן מִקֶּֽדֶם: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, מְשַׂמֵּֽחַ חָתָן וְכַלָּה.Make joyful these loving companions, just as you once as You once gladdened Your creations in the Garden of Eden. Blessed are you Adonai who makes loved ones joufulבָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ-יָ אֱלֹהֵ-ינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר בָּרָא שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה, חָתָן וְכַלָּה, גִּילָה רִנָּה דִּיצָה וְחֶדְוָה, אַהֲבָה וְאַחֲוָה שָׁלוֹם וְרֵעוּת, מְהֵרָה יְ-יָ אֱלֹהֵ-ינוּ יִשָּׁמַע בְּעָרֵי יְהוּדָה וּבְחוּצוֹת יְרוּשָׁלָיִם, קוֹל שָׂשׂוֹן וְקוֹל שִׂמְחָה, קוֹל חָתָן וְקוֹל כַּלָּה, קוֹל מִצְהֲלוֹת חֲתָנִים מֵחֻפָּתָם, וּנְעָרִים מִמִּשְׁתֵּה נְגִינָתָם: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ-יָ, מְשַׂמֵּחַ חָתָן עִם הַכַּלָּה.Blessed are you, Adonai our God, who created joy and gladness, loved ones, merriment, song, dance and delight, love and harmony, peace and companionship. O Adonai Eloheinu, may there soon be heard in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride, jubilant voices of the married from their wedding canopies; and of the young from their feasts of song. Blessed are you Adonai who brings the groom and bride together to rejoice in each other.

The images of creation and the promise of future redemption anchor these blessings, enshrining the couple in mythic Jewish imagery. By evoking the paradise of the Garden of Eden as well as the future promise of redemption, the sheva b'rakhot speak of the unlimited potential of this couple. Images of Adam and Eve convey a couple's potential to create a whole world. Echoes of a future harmony and love, as well as the rejoicing of Jerusalem, inspire thoughts of this couple's capacity to change the world.

In addition to the imagery, what gives these blessings their power is their rhythmic flow, beginning with a simple blessing over wine and culminating in the exultant final blesssing over the beloveds.

The seven blessings invoke some of the great themes of Judaism, including creation, peoplehood, Jerusalem, and redemption. They make every wedding the fulcrum of time, the center point between creation and redemption, between the first days and the end of days. All three of these archetypal moments—the beginning, your wedding, and the end—share the qualities of wholeness, sweetness, and the presence of God.

The lesson is that even at the height of personal joy, we recall the pain and losses suffered by the Jewish people and remember a world in need of healing.

The fragility of glass suggests the frailty of human relationships. Since even the strongest love is subject to disintegration, the glass is broken as a kind of incantation: “As this glass shatters, so may our marriage never break.”

Loud noises are a time-honored method for frightening and appeasing demons that are attracted to beautiful and fortunate people, such as the happy couple beneath the huppah.

Marriage is a covenant, which in Judaism is made by breaking or cutting something. At Sinai, tablets were broken; at a wedding, broken glass “cuts” the covenant.

Breaking the glass also has sexual connotations, as it prefigures the release of sexual union, which is not only permitted to married couples but also required of them. For centuries breaking the glass implicitly symbolized breaking the hymen, which is why it was so important that the groom succeed.

The crash of glass ends the hush of mythic time under the huppah, and the world rushes in. Everyone exhales, claps, and shouts, “Mazel tov!” The celebration begins.