As Andre and I wrote in the programs we passed out to friends and family, a traditional Jewish wedding is a spiritual gift—or at least, with intention and thoughtfulness, it can be one. Like so much of Judaism, the ceremony is surprisingly accessible, deeply evocative, and meaning-filled, a refreshing mix of ancient tradition, modern creativity, and common sense. Most important of all, like the home and family we dream of building together, a Jewish wedding is inclusive of all emotions: elation, celebration, heartache, bittersweet feelings of nostalgia (or, as our Brazilian family might call it, “saudade”!), and endless love among them. All of these feelings were welcome at our wedding in October of 2022.
We dreamt up our own version of the traditional ceremony, picking and choosing from our people’s thousands-years-old traditions and sprinkling in some of our own ideas to craft an afternoon and an evening that felt most like “us.” Here, I’m sharing our explanations of each of these rituals (and a few post-ceremony traditions we included, too). I hope that in sharing their meaning, you’ll better be able to experience and understand their universal sacredness.
The Chuppah
We were married beneath the chuppah, or marriage canopy, that you can see in the photo above! A symbol of the home we would make together, the chuppah was open on all four sides, representing unconditional hospitality and generosity. My late Zeida’s cherished tallit (prayer shawl) acted as the “roof” overhead, my dad served as our officiant, and we had some of our siblings stand on either side—so the inside of this “home” felt familiar, real, and filled with people who knew us well.
Bedeken
As I approached the aisle with my parents on either side of me, Andre left the chuppah to welcome and veil me before accompanying me the rest of the way to the chuppah. This was our version of the traditional bedeken (veiling) ceremony! A nod to the biblical story wherein Jacob is tricked into marrying Leah rather than Rachel, the bedeken gives Jewish grooms the opportunity to “double check” that they’re marrying the right person. But the moment also signifies the fact that the groom is marrying the bride for her heart and mind, not her outward appearance. Mostly, we mostly just loved the idea of taking this walk together, hand in hand.
The Ketubah
A ketubah is the Jewish marriage contract, which we signed during a tiny ceremony prior to our walk down the aisle. It details the various commitments we will make to each other as a married couple—we chose to supplement/revise the text using a mix of traditional and not-so-traditional sources. I mentioned this in other posts about the wedding, but we enlisted my friend Malka Klein to create the beautiful design, which actually includes our Hebrew initials hidden inside of the antlers of a deer illustration (there are close-up photos over in this post!). Malka is an incredibly talented calligrapher and watercolor artist, and the entire piece was produced by hand in her studio in Caesarea. It’s going to be such an honor and a joy to have this piece framed in our home for the rest of our lives, and Malka is also just the kindest soul and so fun to work with. I really can’t recommend her services enough.
Hakafot
Upon arriving at the chuppah, I circled Andre seven times (hakafot = “circles/circling”), which some people think of as representing the creation of a “force field” of love and protection for our new family. In Jewish tradition, the number seven is imbued with lots of spiritual meaning: It took seven days for God to create the world (our circling represents our own “creation” and newness); Joshua circled the walls of Jericho seven times before they crumbled (our circling represents a desire to crumble any remaining walls between us); there are also seven special wedding blessings, which we received—in our own way!—later in the ceremony.
Kiddushin
Our ceremony includes a blessing over two cups of wine—one representing our “betrothal” (kiddushin) and one, later, for our nuptials (nisu’in). We shared these cups just as we will share our joys, our grief, our responsibilties, our laughter, and the rest of our lives.
Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings)
The sheva brachot are the seven special wedding blessings Jewish couples receive beneath the chuppah. Traditionally, the first blessing is over the second cup of wine, and the next six center on various ideals related to the new marriage. We decided to do this a little differently and invited seven groups of loved ones (including my friend Maria, above!) to replace the traditional seven blessings with personal wedding blessings written from the heart in English, Hebrew, and Portuguese, which brought us to tears and made our day that much more meaningful.
The Breaking of the Glass
The breaking of the glass is a reminder of the destruction of the Jewish temples, but it’s also commonly interpreted as a celebratory act and hopeful prayer: that we will spend as many happy years together as it would take to perfectly reassemble the shattered pieces. A third interpretation reminds us that even in our happiest moments, there is brokenness in our world, and we have a responsibility to acknowledge that, too. At our wedding, we decided to share our own (fourth!) interpretation with our guests and loved ones. We chose to view our broken glass as a testament to the humanity and beautiful imperfections that will define our life together. We know that, like the shattered glass, our relationship will never be perfect—and yet it will be holy. After offering this explanation, we read a paraphrased excerpt from a favorite author of ours, Sheryl Paul, which we believe best represents this view of marriage (edited slightly to make sense in the context of a wedding, but the words and general idea is all Sheryl’s—from here).
“To be human together is to know that you are imperfect and yet whole. You will hurt and be hurt; you will feel disappointed and you will disappoint; you will stumble and fall and get back up again. You will ache with joy. You will ache with sorrow. You will ache with wonder. You will ache with regret. You will feel joyful, peaceful, angry, excited, saddened, thrilled, and serene.
To be human is to remember that this being human is an experiment without a goal or a destination, but with a plan—a plan that includes learning about love at its center. Because to be human is to love without perfect skill. At times, you will feel connected and alive; at other times, you will feel disconnected and alone. You will doubt and exhale, find peace and lose it again. You will forget to take care of yourselves, forget to pray, forget to say “Thank you,” “I really love you.” In your life together, you might spend more time forgetting than remembering, which makes those brief dips into the sparkling pool of remembering ever more divine.
To be human is to make mistakes. And sometimes this means that you will hurt others, whether your closest loved ones, your best friends, people you’ve never met, or each other. To be human is to say “I’m so sorry. I hope you can forgive me,” as you dance a dance of closeness and pain, remorse and forgiveness, rupture and loving repair.
To be human together is to age together. With aging comes wisdom, with time comes acceptance, and with the shortening of days comes the lengthening of gratitude.
It can be so hard to be human. It is harder still to be human together.
But to be human, in the end, is simply to love and be loved as best you can, and to remove the barriers that prevent you from loving…so that together, you can bring your imperfect love into a world that so desperately needs it.“
And then we broke the glass. (Thanks, Sheryl!!!)
Yichud
As tradition states, as soon as the ceremony is complete, the bride and groom make their way to a private room to peacefully experience the first few moments of married life together with no distractions, just each other. And a much-needed snack. It’s a really nice moment in the midst of a rushed day. And did I mention the snack.
Incorporating My Zeide’s Sukkah
The inclusion of a sukkah is not, in fact, a traditional Jewish wedding thing—at all. But our wedding took place just before Sukkot, and our family’s sukkah is particularly important to us: It was hand-built by my Zeide, a carpenter, decades and decades ago with the goal of creating a kosher structure that we could assemble and disassemble every year as a family. That assembly process has become one of our most beloved family traditions (I’ve written more about it over here), and so it only felt right to use this beautiful structure as one of the centerpieces of our day. We nailed an additional wooden trellis onto one of the outside side walls, installed tiny hooks into each section of said trellis, and then Andre and I got to work hand-writing cards to each of our guests, slipping them into tiny calligraphed envelopes, and added metallic string and holes to help string them up. We had my father (aka our officiant!) explain what the guests would be looking at, so—assuming they were paying attention—nobody arrived to the sukkah without an understanding of what it meant to us.
Seudat Mitzvah and a Really Long Hora
Tradition states that there should be a feast following the wedding ceremony—in fact, it’s an actual requirement of Jewish law (a “commanded meal”). What’s more, it was a mitzvah to join us in our feasting and merriment. Good thing our guests didn’t let us down on this one. Our reception kicked off with a song and dance from me and my musical husband, and was followed by a delightfully raucous 30-minute hora (slash surprise crowd-surfing experience) led by our incredible band, New York City Swing. We danced the night away and finished things off with Brazilian brigadeiro-filled cake, gooey chocolate chip cookies, hugs and happy tears, sparklers, and late-night pastrami sandwiches.
(Tradition does not state that you should throw your hair into a more practical low ponytail before embarking on said raucous dancing adventures, but…I highly recommend that part.)