Tradition! It's the glue that ties us to our pasts and helps us to stick with it as we tread into unfamiliar territory. Tevye explains it best in Fiddler on the Roof. It's how we keep our balance. It's how we know who we are, and who God expects us to be.
Back in the day, when it was difficult to find a rabbi who would officiate at a mixed marriage, my Irish Catholic fiance and I settled on a self righteous flamingly gay pseudo intellectual who had turned tying the interfaith knot into a bit of a cottage industry. For an hour each week in the months leading up to our marriage, we attended meetings with the entrepreneurial rabbi and other wayward couples, learning not so much about what it means to be married (leave that to the priests) but rather what it means to be married to a Jew. We were as cynical about those meetings as we were about our Lamaze classes, where we giggled incessantly, knowing full well I would last about two contractions without narcotics. Still, our birthing instructor reluctantly allowed us to go forward with parenthood, and the rabbi showed up at our wedding (for a small fee, of course).
Our self righteous flamingly gay pseudo intellectual rabbi may have been no better than your average street hustler, but he was determined not to be a hypocrite. There would be no chupah, although we were welcome to get married under some unnamed lattice structure that sort of looked like one. There would be no Katubah, although we were certainly welcome to draw up our own contract with our own set of rules, on our own time. And, most disappointing to me, there would be no breaking of the glass by the groom. These were all distinctly Jewish traditions, and to incorporate them into our ceremony -- even though we had just spent months learning how to create a Jewish marriage with only fifty per cent Jew -- would just be wrong. Where was Tevye when I needed him? I was, indeed, feeling as shaky as a fiddler on the roof about the whole thing. How would I keep my balance? How would I know who I was and who God expected me to be?
I attended a Jewish wedding last weekend, and I could not help but wonder whether the trappings of tradition might have put us, way back when, on more solid ground. Even if, as I realized as I watched the traditions unfold before me, I have no idea why they exist and what they mean. So I did some research, just to see what I've been missing, and I realized that nobody really knows where these traditions came from or what they are supposed to mean. I have my own theories though.
First, there was the circling of the bride around the groom, then the groom around the bride. Three times each. Some say the three circles symbolize the three hallmarks of marriage: righteousness, justice, and loving kindness. Maybe so, but even with the bride's face covered by her veil (another tradition, which I believe arose out of the need to protect the five hundred dollar make-up job for pictures) I could see her expression. I have my eye on you, buddy is what she appeared to be saying. You stray once, you even so much as look cross-eyed at some tall blond shiksa with skinny hips, you won't know what hit you. And the groom's circles? I imagine he gets his turn so nobody can tell how badly he's shaking.
Then, there the yichud, the seclusion of the bride and groom (after the public exchange of vows) in a private room so they can, um, conclude the ceremony. You know, consummate the marriage. In the old days, they'd come out waving the bloody sheet as proof that the act was done, done for the first time ever, at least by the bride. She's no shiksa whore, after all. I couldn't tell you for sure what goes on in that room, but I am certain, after all the money the bride's family has spent on make-up, manicures, pedicures, and skin treatments, not to mention the dress, the last thing that bride is doing is having sex. More likely, the newly minted wife is laying down the law, reading her groom the riot act, showing him who's the boss. Let's just say the blood on the sheet does not belong to her.
Finally, well into the evening, the wedding guests encircle the bride and groom and their families to dance the hora. Eventually, if they can find enough strong goyim (usually hotel staffers), the bride and groom are raised up in separate chairs, where they each grab on to the corner of a napkin as they rock precariously up and down in mid air. A nice festive ritual you might think. To me, though, the symbolism is all too clear. Hangin' on by a thread, is what I see. Hangin' on by a thread, as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.
And yes, naturally, there was the breaking of the glass, or, more accurately, the light bulb. Some say it symbolizes the destruction of some ancient temple. Yeah, right. You and I know it's the one and only time in the marriage when the Jewish groom gets to put his foot down.
No comments:
Post a Comment