Here Comes the “Kallah”

August 16, 2010 at 10:50 am · Filed under Instruction/Torah, Lifestyle/Halachah, News and tagged: Anita Diamant, Fiddler on the Roof, Gregory Bartos, Hebrew Roots movement, Jewish weddings, knit chuppah, sheva berachot

by torahgirl

Practically the only Jewish wedding I’ve ever seen is in Fiddler on the Roof, when Motel and Tzeitel get married. When people talk about a Jewish wedding, I think of solemnity, the groom in a top hat standing awkwardly alone, the encircling bride heavily veiled, and the sound of a wine glass being smashed. Well, that’s what I used to think. When we first got into the Hebrew Roots movement many years ago, my dad made a few comments about having a chuppah at my wedding and I discouraged that idea whenever I could. It bothered me that just because our religious beliefs had changed, all the sudden I had to have some kind of foreign wedding filled with traditions that meant nothing to me. I was influenced, as almost all girls are, by typical “American” weddings: a beautiful bride sailing down the aisle on her father’s arm, surrounded by lovely attendants, meeting her handsome groom at the altar to exchange sparkly rings and repeat their vows line by line, then leaving the church in a limo for their exotic honeymoon. This was the kind of wedding I pictured, although I never spent a lot of time dreaming about the details.

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