To the Chuppah

some thoughts on Jewish weddings

Hi, everyone! I’ve just been made aware of some interesting news in the world of Jewish publishing. One of my all-time favorite books, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, has been retold from an Orthodox Jewish perspective. Instead of five sisters hoping for marriage in Regency-era England, it’s about five sisters going through the Jewish matchmaking system called shidduchim. I learned about it from the Substack called I Read This Over Shabbos, which reviews books of Jewish interest. If you’re a frum Jew who loves to read, I recommend subscribing.

To be frank, I’m jealous of the author of this new book, Pride and Preference. I started a fanfic with the same idea in 2005, but I never followed through with it. I’m still quite proud of my opening line. The original starts with, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” I gave it a yeshivish spin with: “It is a truth acknowledged in every kehillah of the Jewish world that a bochur who has spent a few years in bais medrash must be in search of his bashert.”

Well, someone else’s story was published instead of mine, but there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Apparently, the author appealed to the Orthodox publishers more than I ever could. I’m too out of the box for that. But it was kind of ironic to get this news just now. I attended a wedding last week, and as has become my habit, I was mulling over how to turn the experience into a new Substack post.

“What should I title the piece?” I wondered to myself. “Should I use the same title as my Jewish P&P story or would it better to stick with English and say, ‘wedding canopy’? And what about the preposition? ‘Under’ will be clearer to people than ‘to.’”

Fussing over a preposition gives you a sense of my writing process. It’s the reason I’m so slow. But the preposition is relevant. You see, “to” makes sense in the fiction story because the girls are looking forward to the chuppah. Under would imply they’re already there. On the other hand, under fits better for my Substack post because I describe a chuppah ceremony in action.

So I settled on “Under the Wedding Canopy,” and my writing goal of the day was to finish and post it. Then I read about the upcoming Pride and Preference, and everything changed. I just had to publicize my old fanfic after that, and my opening deviated from plan, too. Originally, I thought I’d begin with the most famous chuppah ever: the wedding scene in “Fiddler on the Roof,” played to the song “Sunrise, Sunset.”

Actually, that picture is inaccurate. The movie shows everyone in town holding braided havdala candles to escort the couple to the chuppah. In reality, only the parents of the bride and groom do that - or the close relatives or friends who stand in for the parents, as happens in some families (ie when there’s been a divorce). The depiction in “Unorthodox” was more accurate:

In that movie, Esty (the protagonist) reprises the traditional chuppah song when she auditions to get into music school. It’s an act of defiance on her part, which I’ve explained elsewhere, but my main point now is to show how prayerful a chuppah ceremony actually is.

It’s not surprising that the bride and groom would be praying fervently on their wedding day. It’s their personal Yom Kippur. They fast before the chuppah, and they say the same confessional prayer (Vidui) that we will soon be saying in shul.

Naturally, their parents or loved ones are praying almost as hard. I sure did when my son got married. I found a pre-written prayer for the occasion, and I’m grateful to the wedding-runner who took responsibility for it. Figuring out how to link arms with my son while holding a havdala candle in my other hand was all a bit beyond my brain at that portentous moment.

But what may surprise you is that the guests pray, too. The chuppah is a holy time when G-d is very close, blessing the new couple. Guests are encouraged to use the opportunity to add their own prayers. They don’t have to be selfless about it, either. Sure, everyone prays for the happiness of the new couple, but it’s perfectly fine to ask for your own needs as well. The ceremony is long enough to fit in all kinds of prayers.

The lyrics of “Sunrise, Sunset” capture the prayerful spirit pretty well. The bride’s younger sister Hodel and her love interest Perchick look at the couple and wonder, “Is there a canopy in store for me?” When I was single and attended friends’ weddings, you’d better believe I was praying for my turn to come soon. But now that I’m older and have “married off” a child myself, I relate to Tevye’s lines more: “What words of wisdom can I give them? How can I help to ease their way?” The truth is, my couple doesn’t need my wisdom. I trust them to do as Golde says: “Learn from one another day by day.”

“Fiddler” is a good point of reference, but I’m here to describe the real thing. The wedding I attended last week has an adorable story. The two fathers have been best friends since high school. When one of them became engaged, his future wife’s friends attended their engagement party, and her best friend ended up marrying his best friend. Now these pairs of best friends have become mechutonim. Their children are married to one another. (Isn’t mechutonim a useful word? It’s too bad English has no equivalent for it.)

My husband claimed to be the third best friend of the group, but I always got the sense that the other two were closer. Even so, the two women were very welcoming to me, even though I’m much more modern than either of them. I’m not close to very many people in the Stoliner community, but those two are special to me. I made an extra effort to attend their wedding, which is saying something. I skip most weddings. It’s not very nice of me, but I’d rather stay home and write.

My favorite part of any wedding is the chuppah, all because of the opportunity to pray. And my main thought at that one, as I watched my friends marry off kids who used to play with my kids, was how much I want to be in their place again. So after davening for the new couple, and my own young couple, I davened for my unmarried kids to find their ideal matches, too. Then somehow, I turned into both Tevye and Hodel at once because I davened for a chuppah for myself. Perhaps I shouldn’t admit that in a public post, especially since my divorce is far from settled, but there it is. Anyway, I bear my husband no ill will. I didn’t forget him in my prayers. May G-d heal him from his health problems and grant him a long life.

So it was quite a powerful experience, and tonight it was taken to a whole new level. Since Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are right around the corner, I listened to a Torah lecture for preparation. I’m not going to summarize the whole thing, but I will share this insight from it: attending a wedding in the month of Elul is excellent preparation. Rabbi Glatstein turned the concept of the wedding day as a personal Yom Kippur on its head. He said that Yom Kippur is our wedding to Hashem. Normally, the wedding metaphor is reserved for the holiday of Shavuos, but Rabbi Glatstein said that Yom Kippur is our second chuppah, which works out historically because it was when we received the second set of tablets.

I fear I’m not doing justice to Rabbi Glatstein’s words. I recommend you listen yourself. But the main point is about those heartfelt prayers. So let’s be as hopeful as brides and grooms this season. Let’s pray hard for a beautiful future.