Staying Real in Israel
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"The Marty Roberts Show"

“tradition“- custom or practice taught by one generation to another

We attended a wedding last night near Yavne, in Israel.  There is nothing quite as lovely as a Jewish wedding…the start of another beautiful Jewish family…and it’s especially beautiful in the Jewish homeland, the Land of Israel.

Before a Jewish baby is even one week old, as we bless the new Mom in the synagogue with wishes for a speedy recovery from the trials of childbirth, we are already also blessing the newborn with visions for her future, to “build a faithful Jewish home in Israel”.  When the young couple stands under the “Chuppa”, the Jewish wedding canopy, and enter into the contract of marriage under Jewish Law, it is the culmination, the realization of the blessing first bestowed on the newborn child.

I really DO cry at weddings.  Something about the ecstatic but frightened young couple looking into each others eyes and seeing their future unfolding…or maybe, for me, it’s the parents of the bride and groom, as they escort the end product of their lifetime labor of love forward to their new independant future together, helping them to start the next chapter of their lives, hoping and praying that THIS fruit has not fallen too far from the tree
that bore it. 

I don’t totally understand the free flow of my prolific tears, perhaps that will be the topic of another essay…

As the ceremony builds up to the groom’s declaration, “If I ever forget thee, O, Jerusalem”, and culminates in the crushing of the glass under his foot, an eternal rememberance of our holy capital’s destruction and the subsequent exile of the Jewish people from our homeland, I am used to hearingthe band break out in Jewish-Chassidic song, to the cries of “Mazel Tov, MazelTov” by the gathered friends and family.  A brisk hora is the usual sounds that escort the couple to their isolation room for a quick snack and recovery
prior to the gala party.

Not last night.  No band…there was a DJ,which is OK…there are plenty of Chassidic CD’s around…but after the crushing of the glass, the mega-watt speakers blasted out,

“You know, you make me wanna’ SHOUT…”

It made me wanna cry even more.

I love the old rock and roll, probably even more than most.  I have even been known to appear in a club or two with my “oldies” band.  I can even tolerate the supersonic volume levels and flashing multi-strobes of today’s audio amp systems.  I am, and always will be, after all, a child of the sixties.

But a Jewish wedding is a place for tradition, a time to preserve the old, not to introduce the new.  It is not a time for self-expression, for innovation.  It is the mega-centuries-old traditions, based upon Jewish laws and customs, that bind our generations together, across time and space.  Different Jewish ethnic groups may have developed variations on the theme, but each is a tradition unto itself.  A Jew should never feel out of
place at a Jewish wedding.

There is a certain sense of comfort in knowing that at a religious ceremony there will NOT be any surprises.  The surprises can come in the party to follow, with the young couple finding outlets for expression of the unique form of love that only they have discovered…

But, please, not under the Chuppa.  It’s worked pretty well for about 3000 years.