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16 - Groom's Table/Bride's Throne
48 Plays1 year ago
The wedding couple is treated like royalty on their wedding day - literally! If you didn't know about the custom of the Groom's Table and Bride's Throne in a Jewish wedding, you're not alone! These customs are usually seen as part of the more Orthodox-leaning weddings, but ANY couple can consider incorporating them. (It's VERY cool that we see similar wedding customs across many cultures.) As always, adjust according to your wants and needs.
Don't forget - you can reach me any time at www.yourohiorabbi.com.
Fill out the contact form there if you'd like to work with me on your wedding, or to ask me anything! I'd love to meet you.
IG: @yourohiorabbi
Send questions for me to answer on this podcast to:
Hope to see you next time! Remember - there is ALWAYS more learning to do!
<3 Rabbi LeighAnn
Mentioned in this show:
https://sixdegreesofkosherbacon.com/2021/03/04/the-brides-throne-by-ben-and-others/
https://kolsasson.net/kabbalatpanim/#tisch
Angela’s Fantasy Creations: https://www.instagram.com/angelasfantasycreations/?hl=en
Bridetender ep with Angela: https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/creating-blinged-out-beauty-with-angelas-fantasy/id1508058489?i=1000630179335
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Purpose
00:00:00
Speaker
I read a Reddit post where a photographer was saying that every single chair in the brides getting ready room had like schmutz on it. There was a schmutz of some kind. I don't know if it was like dirt or food or whatever, but she couldn't sit down anywhere. Listen, there's a practical reason to have that throne. Y'all grims get yourself a throne also.
00:00:20
Speaker
Are you planning a Jewish or interfaith wedding? Are you lost on where to even begin planning the ceremony, let alone finding a rabbi to help you? Well, it doesn't matter whether one of you is Jewish or you're both Jewish. You deserve a guide. So take a deep breath. I promise it will all be okay. Welcome to your Jewish wedding with Rabbi Leanne. Here, I can be everyone's
Creating the Podcast Journey
00:00:50
Speaker
rabbi.
00:00:50
Speaker
Yours too. My guests and I will share everything we know to help make your Jewish or interfaith wedding full of tradition and perfectly yours.
00:01:16
Speaker
Well, hello, everyone. It is so good to have you here on your Jewish wedding podcast. Once again, the weather is sunshiny and chilly. It's my actual favorite. I have a hot drink. I've got a candle burning. What more could you ask for, right? And listen to this. This is true. You will be truly astounded by this. I believe it is Tuesday.
00:01:42
Speaker
I am not speaking to you on Friday afternoon frantically as my holla-bakes. I know. Are you all so
Background on Jewish Wedding Customs
00:01:50
Speaker
proud of me? I hope you are because I'm a little proud of myself. Honestly though, I am getting very excited to start planning more and more of these podcast episodes.
00:02:00
Speaker
You know at first when I thought of this podcast, I thought to myself, okay I'm going to see if I can come up with 50 different episode ideas and just that way there will be a little database of stuff about Jewish weddings on the internet for people to access. So I did that and that's why I decided it was quote-unquote worth it to start the podcast. But the ideas have just grown and grown and split into different episodes.
00:02:29
Speaker
And I'm honestly just floored not only at how many episodes there might be, but also how much fun I would have recording this podcast and how much comfort and joy it would bring me to sit here and talk with all of you just like friends, even though I can't see you and I don't know who you are. Thank you.
00:02:51
Speaker
Anyhow, part of my original conception with this podcast was, well, I'll just talk about the Jewish wedding ceremony. You know, that's what people, I think, call me to talk about. And usually we dive right in in our first big planning call to, okay, processional, whatever. But I found myself realizing there's just a ton of background information
Pre-Katuba Ceremony Traditions
00:03:10
Speaker
and things that
00:03:11
Speaker
I think it's good for people to know and consider before they even start planning. The consequence is, we are now, this is episode 15, I believe, and we haven't even gotten to the Chubba yet. I'm just, okay, fine. So the more I learn and do my own research and looking into Jewish weddings and what questions people might ask and what different traditions there are,
00:03:36
Speaker
The more episodes I keep adding to the queue. Okay, so the last episode 14 was about your katuba signing ceremony, but it is a pretty common custom especially for more observant couples in North America and That is because a lot of people a lot of Jews who live in North America came from Ashkenazi so Eastern European background. This is a pretty common custom for
00:04:06
Speaker
Ashkenazi, observant, Orthodox couples, or people who came from that tradition and culture, okay? So I have had one couple observe one of these customs formally. That's not to say that a lot of you might not decide to add it, okay? So this custom, before I talk about what it is before naming it anymore, oh my goodness.
00:04:31
Speaker
So we are talking about a custom that traditionally happens before the katuba ceremony that separates between bride and groom. Okay. Here is my sex specific disclaimer for the episode. Okay. I'm going to use the words bride and groom a lot of the time because these were very sex specific customs that, you know, only the groom had the groom's tish.
00:05:00
Speaker
and only the bride had the hachnasa kala. We'll go into both of those obviously in a second. However, it is 100% possible for anyone of any sex to adopt these customs. And so I will try to remember that as I'm recording because I really want to make it clear that same sex couples are equally loved and adored by me. And I am here for any brainstorming
00:05:30
Speaker
or any crafting or reconstructing of customs that you and your beloved are thinking about performing, you know, just because these things are very old school, very old country, and same-sex marriage is very not old school or old country. I guess it will be in
Bride and Groom Separation Customs
00:05:50
Speaker
a couple decades, huh? We're starting to get old. But it doesn't mean
00:05:54
Speaker
that same-sex couples cannot adopt all of these customs and change them as much or as little as they would like, okay? So I will say that overall, I expect this to be a short episode.
00:06:11
Speaker
But seriously, these things are not that big of a deal, okay? And I say they're not that big of a deal because you will hear how all of these customs are kind of, we do them already in standard American weddings, okay? So this is just a question of, do you wanna make what you're probably already doing a little bit more dewy?
00:06:31
Speaker
So before we talk about these customs where bride and groom are separated traditionally, it's important to know that in couples who come from these cultures, come from these communities, follow these traditions or have grown up seeing them, it is customary for the bride and groom to spend a certain amount of time apart from one another before the wedding ceremony. And I think to only speak on the phone, sometimes not even that. If you know anybody who's done the separation between
00:07:00
Speaker
the couple before the wedding, email me at your Jewish wedding podcast at gmail.com. I want to know, I think I remember seeing weddings where they did speak on the phone, but it was a very serious thing. And it was done with like a little, it was a little sticky. Okay. It was a little, what's a translation of shtick? Hokie? Maybe sort of exaggerated for the purposes of what it was. Uh, but the bride,
00:07:29
Speaker
and Groom would each have a show mare or show merit, which is somebody who was with them all the time. A show mare or show merit in this case is a chaperone, somebody to make sure that they did not sneak off in the night to see their beloved. Listen, I think this is very sweet because it shows just how much the couple was yearning to be in one another's presence.
00:07:51
Speaker
And I think that that's a wonderful way to start off a marriage. Don't you? That they want to see each other so badly that they bring in people to sort of supervise them and make sure they don't sneak off to, I don't know. Where do from Jews sneak off to kosher hot dog stand? I don't know. Anyway, so usually this person would be like
Significance of the First Look
00:08:10
Speaker
a sibling or if they lived close by, um, the best man or the, or the maid of honor. Okay. So,
00:08:18
Speaker
The moment that the bride and groom saw one another on their wedding day was a big moment. Okay. We will talk about this more when we talk about Bedekin, which is yes, the next episode, but
00:08:33
Speaker
this whole idea of having a first look between the bride and groom. You all know I've talked about first looks before. Maybe have I on this podcast? Definitely on the bride tender podcast when I guested for SD on the bride tender podcast. The first look is like a thing. I think decades ago in American weddings, standard American weddings,
00:08:54
Speaker
Traditionally, the groom would wait at the front of the ceremony to receive the bride, and when she walked down the aisle would be the first time that he saw her all done up in her dress and whatnot. And you'll see these videos all over the internet, a groom becoming for clumped when he sees the bride coming down the aisle.
00:09:16
Speaker
I don't know what the origin of the American first look was. If you are a wedding planner, if you've been for a long time and you remember the time before the first look, please email me at your Jewish wedding podcast at gmail.com. You don't have to do a lengthy email. I promise you, I won't make you come be a guest on this podcast. Just tell me it was because of this, this, and this reason.
00:09:38
Speaker
I mean, you can be a guest on this podcast. I would love nothing more, but no pressure, okay? So the first look is actually like a Jewish thing. We have always had a first look. And the first look process begins with the customs that we're going to discuss on the podcast today. So I'm going to address Hachnazat Kala
Groom's Tish and Torah Lesson
00:10:00
Speaker
first. And I think this will make the most sense.
00:10:04
Speaker
So this tradition called Hachnas Akhala goes back to a time where the entire community would actually bring the bride to the Khaba. Okay, I found this citation on a website called, and I'm obviously going to link it in the show notes, don't worry. Oh, funny. It's called sixdegreesofkosherbacon.com.
00:10:26
Speaker
So there was no citation for this, but listen, it was the old country. We've done a lot of stuff by word of mouth. Certainly couldn't bring any documents over on the boat. You know what I mean? So we'll take it. But basically, the groom would be waiting under the chuppah and would have prepared the chuppah because the chuppah resembles the home, which we will begin speaking about two episodes from now. And the entire community would bring the kalah to the chuppah.
00:10:53
Speaker
So in this iteration of the custom,
00:10:56
Speaker
The kala, the bride, has a throne. I'm going to try and find some photographs of brides sitting on thrones. You will see a lot of Orthodox weddings include these photographs of the bride sitting on a super fancy chair. Usually her mom's on one side, maybe her grandma's next to her. All the women who were involved, a lot of times the mother-in-law, obviously her attendants, little children, it's very sweet and they are all surrounding her and celebrating her.
00:11:24
Speaker
So that's because the bride and groom are considered to be like royalty on their wedding day, according to some traditions. Okay. And one of the highest meets vote, by the way, one of the most, I don't want to say beloved or revered, one of the most important commandments that you can do as a person.
00:11:44
Speaker
Like literally, there's a very short list of people who say like, okay, these are the most important commandments to make sure you do whenever you can. Celebrating with the bride and groom, making them feel special. Okay, this is because it is the number one Jewish value to celebrate life wherever it crops up and weddings are considered to be like the ultimate symbol of new life. Maybe even more so than an actual new life, okay, because it's the potentiality of that
00:12:13
Speaker
new home, that new life together. Also, we recognize that life in the world is more to do with the way you live your life and stuff than whether you have babies. Okay. And, you know, I think that that's also, it's also a huge mitzvah because anytime somebody has a Jewish wedding,
Blessings and the Bride's Throne
00:12:30
Speaker
it means they are looking into their future and seeing a Jewish future, Jewish continuity. Remember?
00:12:35
Speaker
We've talked about this a lot. It's so important to the Jewish people. So this is a huge mitzvah to celebrate with the bride and groom. Before the wedding, that means making the bride feel like the queen that we consider her to be. Okay. So a lot of times you will see
00:12:52
Speaker
the bride in intense conversations. If you look through pictures, okay, maybe is OnlySimchas.com still a thing? OnlySimchas.com was a site when I was in college and it put pictures of like engagements, weddings, new babies, Simchas, happy events that had happened, joyful events that had happened in the Jewish community, but it was like the from Orthodox Jewish community most specifically. So you would see these kalas, these brides,
00:13:19
Speaker
on their throne, right? And there's like rhinestones and there's all kinds of stuff. Oh, actually, I wonder if that one guest that Estee had on the Bride Tender podcast does a rhinestone, call us chair. Okay.
00:13:37
Speaker
Hello, it's Rabbi Leanne from The Future here editing this episode. That vendor is Angela's Fantasy Creations, and I will link her in the show notes so that if you're interested in a sparkly callows chair or anything else studded in rhinestones and beautifully blindingly sparkly for your wedding, you can contact. Okay, back to the show.
00:13:59
Speaker
Okay, so you'll see a lot of photos of women in intense conversation with the bride, like face to face. A lot of times they're holding hands. A lot of times it looks very emotional. What is going on? There's a belief that, or tradition, that not only are the bride and groom like royalty on their wedding day, but that the gates of heaven are open to their prayers, like sitting and ready to receive their prayers.
00:14:27
Speaker
Whatever that means. You know, we talk about the gates of prayer being open on Yom Kippur for all Jews.
00:14:33
Speaker
This is that, except on your wedding day, they're open a little wider for you. So there's a tradition that the bride's prayers on her wedding day are very powerful. So people will come to her and ask her for blessings, for something specific or something general. But a lot of times if it's her best friends, she already knows what they most want in their hearts. Maybe it's to find
00:14:58
Speaker
a match of their own, maybe it's for children, maybe it's for a better job or a move they've been looking to make, or their health or the health of their family, anything that's of particular concern. If you go by this tradition, you have this, sometimes I call it a Jupiter-stition. Okay, I have this Jupiter-stition. If I know somebody who's getting married, I am actually, I have not made a point of doing this. But in the future, if you are one of my brides,
00:15:25
Speaker
Ask me, if you're up for it, be like, Rabbi, do you want me to ask for anything? Do you want me to ask for any blessings? Now, this is not like it doesn't have to be a religious thing. It doesn't have to be, I believe in God. But if you believe in putting good vibes into the universe, this is like a thing.
Modern Integration of Traditions
00:15:40
Speaker
So I don't know actually why this custom is or this belief is of the couple having like a special
00:15:47
Speaker
like phone line to God on their wedding day. But I do think it's created to the idea that human beings on their wedding day are participating in an act of creation, right? They're participating in the building of a new home, a new family. And it's one of the few days that humans can participate in that.
00:16:06
Speaker
in that explicit act of creation, maybe. Listen, this is just my Josh. This is just my little sermon on it. I don't know. If you've heard a different explanation for it, send me an email, okay? So anyway, you will see people asking the bride for blessings and you will see her giving them. And sometimes people are very emotional. You know, sometimes you know their story. It's a cool moment. And you will even see
00:16:29
Speaker
pictures of a bride with a cell phone on her throne, on her beautiful fancy chair. And that's because people are calling her, people who couldn't make it to the wedding, they're calling in to ask for their specific blessings.
00:16:42
Speaker
Genius, I need to do more of that, honestly. So I think that this is like a very cool custom and we will talk about ways on the second half of this episode on how you can think about maybe incorporating this into your wedding, even if you are not, you do not come from the traditional
Cultural Comparisons and Inclusivity
00:17:00
Speaker
Ashkenaz culture that would naturally set this up for you, okay?
00:17:04
Speaker
So that's what traditionally the bride does. She sits in her beautiful throne. She feels special. She gets a moment to take in the feminine energy of her attendance and the matriarchs of her family and, and the little girls. And it's very sweet. Okay. In a different room in the same building, almost always it's the same building. It's at least onsite. Okay. So there are some of these wedding venues where there's, you know, the bride's cabin and the groom's cabin, different,
00:17:33
Speaker
little buildings that are connected to the venue that you get access to. Awesome. Could be on the same property. Not too far away. Okay. You'll understand why in a minute. In a different area, there is
00:17:46
Speaker
what's called the groom's tish. Tish, I'm pretty sure just means table. Is that it? Tish means, it's a Yiddish word. My Yiddish is horrific. I'm just, listen, I know like some phrases to yell at my kids within Yiddish. I don't know words. Tish in Yiddish. Tish in Yiddish, yeah. It just means table. Okay, so it's the groom's table and you know, it's a wedding.
00:18:10
Speaker
we gotta have a spread, okay? The groom's tesh is full of food and sometimes drinks and sometimes even alcoholic drinks. And he and his guys can gather around and have a snack. Now this is significant because there's also another custom that because the bride and groom are considered like extra holy or extra luminous or radiant, I guess, on their wedding day where they are like royalty, they have this special pipeline,
00:18:36
Speaker
with their prayers out to the universe or out to God, that they also, they behave in one other way that is similar to Yom Kippur. Traditionally, a bride and groom will fast on their wedding day. So they don't eat from the time they wake up until I guess after the chuppah. But I think that at the groom's tish, I think he can eat.
00:18:56
Speaker
This is another thing, if you know or if you've experienced it, does the groom eat at his tish? I think he could. I certainly wouldn't recommend he have an alcoholic beverage before he ate at his tish, so maybe that's our little exception to the custom. Anyway, full of food, full of drinks, and it's the groom and his guys.
00:19:13
Speaker
Now, having a wedding in more Orthodox, more traditional, certainly older country communities, kind of went hand in hand with becoming an adult. It's not so much that way anymore, right? We get married in our late 20s, 30s, even 40s, go on to have families and children. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, people got married when they were 17, 18, 25, whatever.
00:19:39
Speaker
The idea of
Role of Groom's Lesson and Support
00:19:40
Speaker
the groom's tish is that now he is in charge of his own table. And the first thing he's going to do at his table is to give us all a lesson in the Torah. Because he's reached the stage of being able to get married, we assume he's like a Talmud ha-ham. He's like very, he's learned enough to teach us something even above and beyond obviously what he did at his bar mitzvah, okay? But similar to his bar mitzvah,
00:20:06
Speaker
a lot of times he's really nervous on this day, okay? So the idea is that the groom would present a lesson in that week's Torah portion or some other Jewish field of study, something that he could leave an impression on his guest and on his nearest and dearest that he taught on his wedding day. If he was the kind of guy who was a great speaker or
00:20:31
Speaker
you know, really, really smart and loved to give these kind of talks, then I guess his guys would let him give the talk. But most of the time, it is the tradition to kind of roast him. They kind of roast the groom. You know, he starts to talk a couple words into his speech.
00:20:47
Speaker
they interrupt him and ask silly questions, or they add their own interpretation when he didn't ask for it, or they make a crude joke. It really depends on your crowd. You know if your friends are the kind of people to be making crude jokes at your
00:21:05
Speaker
getting ready portion of your wedding day. Zygazant, enjoy yourselves. You do you, right? So I don't know all the nature of the ribbing, the roasting that the groom's guys would give him. I've never been to a groom's tish, probably self-explanatory. I am a woman and I've never seen a groom's tish firsthand. But my understanding is that it's to heckle him, of course, because you're his friend and you want to give him a hard time on his wedding day. That's a thing that people do. So many,
00:21:34
Speaker
toast set receptions are the exact same way, obviously. But there's a more compassionate, I guess, interpretation of this custom of heckling the groom at his tish, which is that you understand that he's probably going to be nervous and he's probably going to be too nervous to be super coherent in his speech, maybe to overcome with emotion. And so by his party and his brothers and whoever, all the guys there,
00:21:58
Speaker
by them interrupting him and
Joyful Procession and Blessings
00:22:00
Speaker
stuff and making jokes and sort of quote-unquote ruining his speech. What they're doing is they're giving him space to blame them for him messing up, I guess. So a lot of times he doesn't even get through the speech. But anyway, as soon as people decide the groom is done with his speech, or I guess they're done heckling him, what happens
00:22:19
Speaker
is a big celebration. You sort of break into song, maybe there's a guy with a guitar there, maybe they have a DJ who is working explicitly for this purpose, they start singing, they start dancing. And at a specific time, right, we are still on schedule here, Jewish wedding planners are working under the same time constraints as any other wedding planners, someone's in charge of making sure
00:22:44
Speaker
that they begin to make their way towards the bride, towards that bride's throne, right? The singing, the dancing, the excitement, they're all processing him, I guess they're accompanying him in this most joyful, excited manner to his bride. Okay, so he gets hyped up. And if he was nervous, I guess maybe it's another,
00:23:08
Speaker
It sort of diffuses some of that energy. So we're going to take a short break. And when we come back, we will talk about what to do if this is not your tradition. This is not something that you're instinctively going to plan as part of your wedding. But if you like the sound of it, how you can incorporate the idea or the practice into your own ceremony.
00:24:00
Speaker
And we are back. Okay, see, I think that this just actually might be a shorter episode. So for both of these customs that I just spoke about, I honestly think it's something humans instinctively do. You know, I'm going to talk about wedding Instagram once again, but it is a way for people planning weddings to sort of have a window into all the stuff that other people are doing and to ask themselves, oh, is that something I want?
00:24:30
Speaker
Now, I don't want this to be in a keeping up with everybody else kind of way. And I certainly don't want to make it sound like either of these customs is something that you have to do. It's not even something that I strongly suggest doing. But I do think that it's something that American people, not just American Jews, but like American weddings have these customs.
00:24:50
Speaker
or echoes of them already built in. So I think it's something humans instinctively do now. And in other cultural settings, you will also see this. I don't know about too many other cultures, but I do know a little bit about Indian weddings. And I know for sure in the Indian custom, there's the Bharat where they do this sort of singing and dancing the groom to his bride, all his guys.
00:25:16
Speaker
do the singing and dancing of the groom to his bride. But Indians, y'all, they have elephants or like horses, white horses. I don't know. I guess the elephant is probably more impressive. I guess it depends on where you are. I've seen guys in Indian weddings, Indian grooms roll up in like these motorcycles with streamers and it's like a big shiny and he looks very cool. And maybe his guys are on motorcycles too, but they, you know, they're singing, dancing, whatever. They bring him to the bride's home.
00:25:45
Speaker
And I know, like also in Indian cultures, my knowledge of this particular custom, by the way, comes almost exclusively from Bridgerton season two.
00:25:58
Speaker
that there's a gathering of the women, the brides nearest and dearest, obviously her wedding party and all those people. There's a paste made of turmeric and it's considered good fortune or good luck or maybe a protective blessing. I'm not entirely sure. If you want to talk to me about Indian wedding customs, please.
00:26:19
Speaker
email me at your Jewish wedding podcast at gmail.com. Okay. So it's sort of the same vibe, right? That there's a certain amount of blessings that we're hoping to confer or associate with the bride and groom.
00:26:34
Speaker
And especially for the groom, there's like the celebratory process where he's brought forward to the bride. And remember, if the six degrees of kosher bacon website is correct, there was a singing and dancing, the bride to the groom counterpart also.
00:26:49
Speaker
to the traditional like shtetl, like little village wedding in Jewish tradition. So it would have been actually exactly egalitarian, right? The bride wouldn't have been only sitting and delivering blessings. She would have then been doing her own singing and dancing, which I find very sweet. So, you know, I've also heard
00:27:06
Speaker
Some Catholic brides say they're going to organize like a special mass just for their wedding party. I guess that works if your whole wedding party is Catholic, which is, I assume, a thing that happens. So I think that there's every reason to work in some pre-rituals
00:27:21
Speaker
if you possibly can, between you and your nearest and dearest, like the people that you've chosen to support you, obviously, you know, the family members that you feel closest to, right? It doesn't have to be sex segregated, obviously, but I think that there's a special kind of intimacy that, at least in the past, was very heavily gendered. But I think that now that we all are on board with like, gender's a social construct, and we've been seeing more and more of, you know,
00:27:50
Speaker
grooms, having best women and people of all sexes and either side of the party. Right. We know that women are just as capable of hassling the groom as, as his guys are. So obviously it's whatever you feel comfortable with. And obviously if you're not in a heterosexual relationship, you're not having a heterosexual wedding, none of this sex, segregated stuff applies. Right. But I think that there was at the time, like a certain expectation of energy of like guys,
00:28:19
Speaker
being mean to each other. And that's just sort of like how we assumed all males express their support and love. And then obviously on the bride side, something different. Okay. And like I said, you guys have already been thinking, Rabbi Leon, we already do all this stuff. We have the getting ready. We've had the hair and makeup getting done. And you know, maybe, I don't know, do brides give her bridesmaids a gift on their wedding day?
00:28:44
Speaker
I don't know. I think that's an American custom. You would give your bridesmaids and groomsmen gift on your wedding day, so maybe that's part of the thing, right? But I think that there is something fun to really emphasizing the more elevated status of the people getting married on this day, okay? And using it to do something special, okay?
00:29:02
Speaker
Are you the kind of person who loves to share things with the people you loved? Are you always sharing social media short videos? Are you always sending a TED Talk somebody's way? Are you always recommending books?
00:29:17
Speaker
Are you the kind of person who expresses your love in sharing knowledge with the people who are closest to you? Then consider doing something like the groom's tish, whether you're the bride or the groom, where you take a moment to say, I've learned this about myself or my relationship with all of you or what a wedding day means to me and why it's so important to me that you all are here.
00:29:40
Speaker
I wanted to share it with you. Maybe it's connected to the Torah portion. Maybe it's connected to your field of expertise or your field of study or current events or whatever. But if you're the kind of person who shows her love by imparting wisdom or some lessons on the people that you love, then think about doing something like a
Practical Advice for the Wedding Day
00:30:00
Speaker
groom's tish.
00:30:01
Speaker
If you want people to hassle you, that's kind of your vibe. I don't know. I've heard about friends, super nerdy friends, which I would certainly call myself super nerdy, getting together and doing PowerPoint parties where they get drunk and then try and teach each other something. I don't know. It's a thing. Consider doing that, and maybe the heckling then is appropriate and you all have a wonderful time.
00:30:22
Speaker
So you could have a bride's tish and do that with, with your girlfriends and your, and your attendance and all that. Um, similarly, if you are someone who has a really close, deep relationship with each person in your inner circle, right? So the people who would be in your wedding party, or maybe it's your siblings or your close family, and you just want to grab a moment with each of those people.
00:30:49
Speaker
to tell them what they mean to you. And yeah, to give them a blessing, right? Because even just telling somebody what he or she means to you is giving them a blessing. It's giving them a word of support and encouragement and a way to see themselves that
00:31:06
Speaker
they didn't have before you gave that to them. Okay, so when I say blessing, I really want you guys not to hear like a prayer, and obviously not in Hebrew necessarily, and in most cases not, but something that you want to give the people in your wedding party that is more than something with your
00:31:27
Speaker
wedding name and date engraved on it. Okay. Something he or she can carry with him or her. Now this would obviously be adjacent to the bride's throne, right? Where she's sitting and giving blessings, but it doesn't have to be spoken. Okay.
Creative Integration of Traditions
00:31:40
Speaker
You could record short videos for each of your people and have a moment where everybody goes and watches the videos. You could write each person a letter and just carve out a moment where everyone sits and reads their little notes from you and it's private between you and them. And,
00:31:56
Speaker
I say it, I've been saying it in a lot of episodes here recently, but this is something that what the photographers love. This is something you could even do out loud, right? You could go around the circle of all your buddies and say, thank you so much for helping me learn to be brave and sing karaoke, even though I'm not a good singer. Or obviously the more serious, thank you for teaching me what
00:32:24
Speaker
unconditional love means to your older sister or something, right? So that even would be in the same vein. And you know what, brides and grooms, I want you to have a special chair. I just listened to a podcast where, oh no, it wasn't a podcast. I read a Reddit post where a photographer was saying that every single chair in the brides getting ready room had like schmutz on it. There was a schmutz of some kind. I don't know if it was like dirt or food or whatever, but she couldn't sit down anywhere. Listen,
00:32:53
Speaker
There's a practical reason to have that throne. Y'all grims get yourself a throne also, okay? Make sure that you have a special place to sit, even if it's just like a fancy blanket that somebody throws over the chair where you're sitting. Don't mess up your suit. Don't mess up your dress, please. So have a throne.
00:33:11
Speaker
And impart some wisdom or give some blessings that means a lot to you on this day. It is a moment to pause. And in traditional Jewish weddings, now I'll finish up with, you know, traditionally where this was in the grand scheme of the wedding day, okay?
00:33:28
Speaker
You get up, you get ready, whatever, eat all the stuff. And this would be sort of the first big event of your actual wedding, okay? No hair and makeup getting done, no photographers, special shots, no first look at your bouquet or first look at whatever or first look at whoever. This was the beginning of the goal of your wedding day, which is to have a wedding ceremony, okay?
00:33:58
Speaker
It is getting you amped up to a place of I'm reminding myself of how happy I am to be here and how much it means to me to be surrounded by these people who I have chosen to be close to me at one of the most exciting, most nerve-wracking moments of my life.
00:34:19
Speaker
and I'm giving them gratitude and I am letting them adore me, right? That's what these are actually about. It is by design a way to get you at the same time amped up and also to put you in a space of reflection
00:34:38
Speaker
of why you've chosen the people that you've chosen to surround you. And it's important that it goes in this space. Why? Because traditionally, they would have signed the kachuba, which is the very beginning of the legal process of marriage in an orthodox tradition. I don't recommend sorting it that way, and I'll speak more about why in the next episode on Bidekan, which is the next custom we're
Inclusivity and Adaptation for Modern Couples
00:35:00
Speaker
talking about. But
00:35:01
Speaker
That was legalistic, that was signing your name, the legal document. Now we're getting, we're approaching the emotional moment of the day, right? And as much as you love your wedding party, you know, bridesmen, groomsmaids, I think I just mixed that up, whatever. Or maybe you do have bridesmen and groomsmaids, as I guess, enjoy yourselves. The real person that you have planned this entire day for, that you love, that you focus on,
00:35:30
Speaker
that you set above and beyond even these most precious people in your life is your brighter groom. And guess what? At the end of this ritual, those people are going to bring you directly to him or her. And then the emotion intensifies. The next custom that people typically do in the series of Jewish wedding events is the bedekin. That's what we're gonna speak about in the next episode. And I have so much to say about that.
00:35:59
Speaker
So
Resources for Planning Jewish Weddings
00:36:00
Speaker
before I say too much and get carried away, I will end this episode there and look at us, everyone. We are, we put two customs in one episode and we're only in my recording time, 41 minutes. Let's please have a big round of applause for me and you and all of us. Are we, is this growth? Are we growing? Maybe.
00:36:26
Speaker
So before I sign off, I want to let you know that while I was researching this topic, I did come across a website that I have never in my life seen before, and it made me scream. I was so excited about it. It is coalsassone.net.
00:36:44
Speaker
I believe. I'm going to put it in the show notes. So Kolsa Sona spelled K-O-L-S-A-S-S-O-N. It's a reference to the seven wedding blessings in a Jewish wedding ceremony. It is a website exclusively for halachic. So according to Jewish law, wedding ceremonies that go as close to Jewish law or as closely adhering to Jewish law as possible for same sex couples.
00:37:14
Speaker
and how same-sex couples who really want to do things in the most traditional, most legally correct according to Jewish law way, lots of rabbis input, lots of text interpretations on how those couples can do that. So please, if you are a same-sex couple and you're trying to plan your Jewish wedding and it feels or seems impossible, especially if you want it to be as traditional as possible because
00:37:37
Speaker
That's the kind of people you are, maybe that's the kind of people your parents are. You have a resource obviously with Rabbi Leanne, your Jewish wedding podcast. I haven't done too many same sex weddings though and you should never stop looking for new resources. And gosh, I'm sure glad that I didn't think that I knew everything about the internet and weddings because look, we have this beautiful website. Once again, I'll link it in the show notes, but this is your reminder, just as it was my reminder this week, that there is always more learning to do.
00:38:07
Speaker
Until next time.
00:38:31
Speaker
Remember, you can always find me, Rabbi Lian, on Instagram. All one word for even more tips, tricks, recommendations, and wisdom on Jewish weddings.
00:38:48
Speaker
If you want to work with me on your wedding, you'll find all the info you need at YourOhioRabbi.com. Until next time, remember, you deserve the perfect wedding for you. Don't settle for anything less.