Love and marriage
Forty years ago, as a 20-something bride-to-be planning a wedding with my then and now Prince Charming, I recall our rabbi counseling us to choose a date either before or after a three-week period when Jewish weddings traditionally did not take place. Without questioning the practice, we chose August 2, just after the prohibited time. No comments yet. You can be the first!
Years later -- and light years ahead on the Jewish learning curve -- we learned that the mid-summer chuppah hiatus had little to do with wedding planning and more to do with understanding the arc of Jewish history and the cycle of the Jewish year. Weddings don’t take place from the 17th of Tammuz until the 9th of Av, a period of mourning for the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem which occurred on Tisha B’Av.
Nearly another decade or so later in our happily ever after -- wishing for our children to find their own besherts and embark on happily married lives -- did we learn of Tu B’Av, the Jewish Valentine’s Day. It comes just six days after Tisha B’Av -- this year on Aug. 5 -- and trades the destruction and despair of that holiday with the promise of new love and new life. In ancient times, unmarried daughters dressed in white and cavorted in the fields at midnight. In more recent times, romance is in the air, and I imagine matchmakers spinning their rolodexes with abandon and Jewish wedding sites deluged with millions of hits.
From bitter to sweet, from sadness to joy.
How innately Jewish is that?
07 Aug, 2009 >