Wedding Minhagim: The Indoor Chuppah by Rabbi Anthony Manning

good morning everybody welcome thank you for coming it's great to see you um I'd like to uh thank our sponsors today's Shear like all the shear in this academic here have been sponsored by an anonymous donor and today's sh has been specifically the sh this morning have been sponsored by SAR and ronen Coran family uh in memory of their father and grandfather RBI Dr Ela shirts on his six yard site are our sponsors here now if not then thank you anyway uh really grateful for that sponsorship so as you know I've been away for a couple of weeks I was in England doing nice things went for a wedding and went to see with my wife and I went to see my uh in-laws and uh other logistic things but I'm glad to be back and I hope not to be away for the rest of the year uh going all the way through to theim I'm not planning any other trips uh so hopefully we'll be able to get something done and I'd like to uh get right into today something we've never talked about before um moving off the sh we had two or three weeks ago on minhagim we started with an overview of what are minhagim different kinds of minhagim and there are different ways to chop up a typology of minhagim we looked at clis minhagim Community Family personal uh today I want to look at uh one specific minhag of the wedding which took up a lot of uh you know a lot of inquest spil on which is do you have Thea inside or do you have Thea outside and this can be you know very dramatic I remember I was at a wedding of a student a few years ago happened in the winter in the torrential torrential rain um and I went to the m and they had the setup outside it was drenched completely and I said come on just move Thea in there was a marquee or something move it say no we have to have Thea outside so they took the poor and the poor kala and they stood them in they was like throwing down rain and both of them were dripping under theer their clothes were pasted onto their skin I think to myself okay was that is that really necessary or required where does that you know stand in terms of you have to be mes to that degree to have your outside let's have a look at it we before we start specifically and get into that minhag which you'll see maybe some of this will be new to you a lot of this sh When I Was preparing was new to me minhagim that we no longer have but which we see the vestig remains of yes are there any for for what oh okay that's very interesting yes there are they they are and one of them is whether you can have a hoer under a glass Dome and we'll actually talk about a little bit about that thank you for raising that let's start with number one it's a general point but it it it it goes off onto the issue of minim generally and this is to do with but it spreads beyond that and I do want to look at in future weeks I want to look at the issue of the and where that comes from and whether you're required to stick to it the pronunciation of Hebrew is a very hot potato you know are you an O an oi an ow uh kind of person if you're a Jewish K you probably say all of those things um but let's have a look in number one says the magav here he's talking about um whether you should have PIM in the some people are very for them some people have them in the small print let's have a look number one says the mag he didn't put any new in the only the ones that was an established from and theistically resonant ones no new songs in the please but you know something with all du cover to the AR if you have a Min and that's how your does it does it then you should stick with your min because there are lots of ways to do things key and here's the key point there are 12 different Avenues if you like to Heaven just like there are 12 tribes apart from that which is common to all Jews which we get from the system there are 12 different tribes and therefore there are 12 different ways of doing things 12 different from Roots by the way this is one of the origins of having 12 windows in the sh there is a it's actually brought down have 12 windows in a sh if you go to sh count some of the architect windows in the architecture you'll see 12 it's from this idea and therefore do not be scared of your even though they they sent from there to to the even they gave us a don't change from your minhagim and certain communities are very proud of their minhagim we today are going to look at a minhag of the Yim the Yim are super proud of the minhagim to sometimes they a little bit overreach I think and they claim that minhagim go all the way back to the Bas R and this is how everybody was doing things I'm not sure I always go with that but we'll see certain things which we uh we've lost but the Yim nevertheless cling on to okay so let's talk about weddings why would you want to have a wedding outside B and the answer is based on a Braha that is given in um in Braes to AR so look at number two and three I'm going to do the first few sources very quickly because the real excitement is in the second half of the sh I don't want to lose time so these are familiar so God says I'm going to make your descendants he says to AB like the S like the sand like the dust of the Earth can anyone count the grains of dust on the earth so that's how your seed will be counted and then a little bit later after the battle of the Four Kings and the five Kings number three he gives him a vision he says to him do not fear I'm going to protect you your your reward will be great and he takes him outside now where where is he taking him this is in a dream it already said it's in a vision in the vision he took him outside he said look at the sky count the Stars can you count them he said to him that's going to be your children um like the stars and in fact we even see in the later on inim number four when we are um for it's foretold that we will suffer because of our sins we will be left small in number instead of what you used to be like like the stars of the sky Etc now what's going on here because the Jewish people have never been such a big such a big nation we've always been a small nation we certainly not as you know the trillions and trillions of stars um that are around um I brought you a couple of ideas this there's a lot of T you could give on this um I brought you in this footnote from May Shapiro the founder ofin and he says he picks up the point that actually it was still light outside when God showed him the Stars the also says this look at number six for a second it was still the daytime and he showed him the stars in a dream as it were because it was still daytime how do I know says the it was daytime because after that it says say and then the sun set so when he went out as it were to see the stars it was still daytime so says Shapiro um that's the point that when you go out to count the stars and you see the Sun and you see that one Sun can outshine millions of stars so so too the Jewish people even though they're few in number they can be Superstars even though they're surrounded by trillions of stars they're a little bit different from how we imagined it I also saw a nice idea that you see the stars you think they're tiny that's because you're so far away when you get close to them you realize they're Giants so too when you see other Jews and you think they're small in your eyes it's because you're just too distant from them get a little bit closer to them and you'll see that they're all superstars so there lots of beautiful ideas you can say Rashi says the idea that you he took AB ainu out of his mazal quite a famous idea AB ainu said I'll never have children and God says what do you mean you'll never have children never say never get out of your mazal start a new mazal and of course soon they become not Abraham and Sarah but and Sarah but Abraham and sah etc etc what's that got to do with us what's all this got to do with us so go over to the page this is where we page two where we start with weddings number seven says the Remar and this is the first halakic if you like sack on this issue there is a view that you should make the under the stars under the sky simov it's a simonov simonov we won't talk about maslov today that's a another sh we'll talk about Sim that the star should be like their children descendants should be like the stars in the sky and if you think about it this is a beautiful BR the idea that you're starting a new mazal like we just said Aran SAR started a new reality even if you say well look it's in the middle of the afternoon what's the point of having it under the stars it's still daytime that's the whole point it was daytime when God showed Abraham the stars as it were so whether it's daytime or whether it's night time there's a yes to make the under the sky and in fact that's based on an earlier ruling of someone called the maharam mince the Maham mince RAV mosha mince was a cousin of the Mahari mince um and the R I think he was ysf mince and the Mahar mince says a very interesting thing number eight the this is what we do he's living in the 1400s in Germany this is what we do actually Northern Italy I should say this is what we do not just signs we'll see what that means but meaning don't don't take these lightly they're serious because we want to give to the couple we carry torches when we do the mine so I saw these this word mine I looked it up in all the rash Tavis dictionaries couldn't find what it was and I was really tearing my hair well if I had any hair I would have been tearing it out and I was uh what am I going to how am I going to translate this word I have no idea what it means and it turns out that this is actually the Lynch pin of the whole share at the beginning of cly the first half so when you do the mine I'm not going to translate it now you have these torches because it's a Simon for light and to you have to have the Under The Sky Under the Stars so to wheat we throw wheat on the heads of the and for rim and we shout out to them pru I'm not sure many people still throw wheat at weddings uh my uh my son uh married an Italian and they throw rice at the wedding at first my thought my son thought that they were going to throw cooked rice and he thought that what am I going to do with my suit so my daughter-in-law to be looked at him and said no it's not cooked rice rice we throw raw wi rice at the wedding and they throw rice and people throw rice they throw um wheat I saw one in here it says you throw apples at Thea I said that could be that could be a little bit distressing depending on what kind of apples you're throwing um but nevertheless you these are but he refer to this mine and this appears in a number of places number nine the mar Min elsewhere says in the morning they go in the morning with these torches to the yard in the sh M to do the mine each City according to the Minh and after the M they put them under a so we what is a we'll see said which is made specially for that and this is so he seems to indicate that there was a TW stage wedding in the morning they do the mine with the Torches and in the afternoon what's that we'll get there we'll get there and in the afternoon they do some kind of a regular quotes unquote and they put a over both of them so we'll see one of the interesting things about the Jewish wedding is that there's absolute Clarity in Hal as to what is kush is the gives a gift to the he says up she accepts the gift and everyone agrees on that but when it comes toing what is there are seven or eight different opinions we had a share on this once uh some time ago is it the canopy is it the bedin is it the room is it the and we'll see a little bit of that um Dynamic coming out so what is a mine it's a is asking so there is a um somewhat confusing Source in number 10 what do we do on a wedding day okay that's pretty straightforward in the morning we say chevas on a cup with a minion so far okay we don't all have our weddings in the morning it's actually quite rare to have a wedding these days in the morning except on a Friday morning but um you do the wedding in the morning and you do it again in the evening sud before the meal why I did it in the morning why am I doing a again in the afternoon before the meal this is not Chas after the benching this is another or another Chev as it seems at the end of the day so the answer to this question is as follows and I brought you a later on here number 11 one of the talum of the who explains what's really going on here and then I'll bring you a little bit in English we'll read together the so's he quotes from the we'll see this CH soon Min and they quote from the sources that we've seen addresses this as follows and second line here explains this is how they used to do it back in the day they had two they had a which is the beginning of the they did that da outside it was the mind that they had outside and the second meaning they didn't make the twice they did the in the morning without Shas and they did another in the evening with the in the afternoon with the bras and they did that in sh so you're asking yourself so did they do the outside or inside the answer is both the morning outside the evening or the afternoon inside K so they didn't do everything in the shaw but they split it and let me bring you now a little bit of uh of reference on this the ring I don't know and that's bothering me I don't know when they did the kushin So eventually we did it all together but the men originally they did the kushin maybe a year before so there's no mention here of the kushin so either they would have done it at the beginning of the day before the Kat M or they did it already a few months ago but I'm not sure and that's going to make a big difference in a minute because we're going to see that according to this Min the and can are holding hands and we're going to say oh say what the Anda holding hands so that actually becomes quite let's do a little bit more number 12 so so this is from um the the Yas have a um the um schlom bamburger has an organization called meses ashas and he has for on this and there's an English Sher which is a um a summary of those four Hebrews for him and I brought this from a translation that I found online I also reference the Hebrew you can check it against that number 12 according to an ancient tradition attributed to which we just saw and explicated in the works of the there is a angle on this which we didn't bring the wedding is divided into two ceremonies the first is referred to ASAS mine we still don't know why and the second in which K is performed ah no so he answered your question Kush is on the second I didn't notice that before Kush is the second and Chas actually that now makes a make I understand now a little bit more and CH is the second one is called thealis the okay the mine is the first one the talit is the second oh we'll see we'll see maybe maybe go to page three in earlier times the M was held before shakaris and thealis was held after shakaris or after according to the the reason for holding the wedding so early in the morning is because of the conceptual similar it to the giving of the Torah on Mount Si which took place in the morning since the M was held very early in the morning the assembly would bear torches and candles to light the way now you know why we have torches as we walk the K and kala down the the aisle because originally with the Ash with it was dark it was before Shak at the very end of the night they knocked on everybody's doors they went out in the last part of the night and they walked with candles down the street I don't know do theim use candles as well or only the ashkenazim I think only the ash okay fine it is also reminiscent of the lightning flashes that were seen on sin as it became more more difficult to gather participants so early in the morning the two ceremonies were held before and after or before and after Mar some perform the two cies one immediately after the other with no intervening Services the K's mind proceeds as follows the assembly accompanies the groom to the entrance to the synagogue Courtyard in Min and its Hamlet or to the door of the wedding house in vers and its hamlets we'll see different mines could be the mine that we're talking about if the rabbi is to officiate the ceremony he escorts the groom to the with the groom leading the rabbi following and the rest of the assembly behind or ahead of them the assembly esorting the bride and groom to the carries lit torches in the mine only and not of theal the children are usually given the task to be the candles and torches simply because they enjoy such activities all the kids are pyromaniacs they like carrying fire musicians play the ancient Melody the same triumphal Melody is used onim when reading the verse Man in The Scroll of Esther so they sing the same tune when the groom arrives at the K area the officiating Rabbi takes him by the hand not the arm to the Kat mine bench what's thisat mine bench where he waits for the bride and the the groom sits down and his escorts flank him on both sides and in case you want to know what this ancient yish Melody is that they sang to the Milla and also to the mine I brought it for you here courtesy of Rabbi bamburger if you can't read music it goes like this he goes da da da na na n it doesn't doesn't mean anything to me thank you very much thank you very much um uh it doesn't mean much to me apparently there were people who sang Divi to this melody but if you ever go to a yushu wedding and they start singing this then you'll know where it's from now 13 the torch Bear's musicians and the bride's friends accompany the bride from her home to the K area accompanied by a separate retinue of women the Bright's face remain covered with a cloth Veil while walking to and from the ker two women or the two mothers walk beside her since the Bright's fade is case is covered her attendance support her by holding her arms since the groom's face is not covered his arms are not held when the bride reaches the entrance to the synagogue Courtyard the gro the rabbi takes the groom by the hand and leads him to the bride accompanied by distinguished members of the community the groom takes the bride's hand and thereby it FES the nissuin stage of the marriage and this is what confused me cuz when did they do kushin they said later and now it's saying they're doing now in terms of handholding it's very clear that and the are not allowed to hold hands between the kushin and the nin before the kushin is already a debate if the kala has been to the Mikvah and that's become more popular these days I have photographs before the K but that is not itself so straightforward so I'm trying to work out where the hand Holdings happening here and and I brought you in the footnote Rabbi Bamberg in in his book in the English book he says if the ca was ritually pure the groom even takes her by the arm and they walk in arm by arm in arm so first of all that seems a bit risque to me uh and secondly does it imply that if the kala was not toor then he just holds it by the hand that itself is very questionable how if she was aidita how would he hold I I don't know the answers to these questions we need to dig deeper I didn't have the opp okay is very relative holding you might say the and now walk back from the at the end holding hands a few you know decades ago that was considered very bad form but now it is is not the main issue here because I think is subjective whereas is much more objective aa aa a a well he he trust and you know something it didn't work out too well for Yakov on that front Okay Okay so let's just finish this all sh all three walk in this fashion to the mine bench and again we're still in the morning so I don't know if K has happened which is considered the official ah now we have the bench the bench is the for this m during this procession the participants throw wheat kernels on the couple and call out pru if the participants are likely to take offense of the bride and groom holding hands this is Miriam's nearest concern he may hold on to part of her bouquet instead the bride and the groom sit together for a short time on the bench or platform the bride's attendant is called at home and then the young boys lead the groom to press service in the synagogue the rabbi and the rest of the assembly follow themas mind is held only for a woman's first marriage and if you look here on the top of page four I brought you again courtesy of Rabbi bamberger's book a little um illustration from AXA in 1320 of the Katan and the kala with a nice discreet little tree between them sitting on a bench with a with a like an archway with a wooden special it's kind of like AA but it's not on poles it's a bench with a wooden Archway over the top of it and I brought you here at number 14 the custom in Ms and the communities that followed his tradition was to conduct the mine outdoors in the yard of the synagogue as a sign of the blessing the couple should multiply like the stars in vers and the communities that followed its Traditions by contrast the was customarily held on a community wedding hall this custom perhaps follows the view of the defining as bringing the bride into a specially designated building and this is a very important point because as I mentioned there are different views on what is if is the bringing the bride into his domain into his closed area then having a having something Outdoors under the stars is lacking a key element of that it has to be inside somewhere where the owns the thing we'll see soon the he puts His Garment over her now we're all conditioned to say oh well you've got AER what what do you know you got you know you've got a piece of cloth and four poles and and that's the domain that since when is that called The Domain so you've heard all of the ni it's like the tent of Sor with all the walls but we'll see in a minute according to many of theim this the as we know it is a modern phenomenon before the 16th 15th 16th century no one did that they did the ashim did this Kat mine and thenat Talis talit but the the actual um the the uh canopy was problematic a because it doesn't really cover anybody it's just above them and secondly because it doesn't belong to thean yes not yet but that's later they haven't done the seconda yet they're going to do a second this evening have a party and then they're going to do finally it question what is this mine business number 15 the word mine he says is used in reference to this event used in reference to this event it spelled in Hebrew in different ways and I brought you the five spellings that Rabbi bamberger brings and in German it's main man man main man Etc various theories have been proposed to explain the terms origin and meaning the most reasonable of which identifies it as derivative of either the German word Mayan which means to Rejoice or the word gine which means joined or unified as in gine shaft is a company in German or AIT Ginder or breaking the community Etc so the two words that he didn't use here either mines meaning how do we know it's not from the town Kat mes maybe it was originally called aat mes Frankfurt will get there and there's another res resonance which we'll see in a minute okay fine and we stopped doing that Rabbi Burger suggests as people started moving to the suburbs out of the ghos people couldn't wake up at 5:00 in the morning and walk down the streets they all lived all over the place and the reform didn't like it they felt it was very uh um sort of uh primitive and medevil and therefore it it basically uh it basically fell away there is a theory by the way that Rabbi bamberger brings that what we do today as the bedon which kind of sticks out of the beginning before anything why do we do this could be the vestigal remains of the M that we don't any longer have a m but we have the ceremony with the bedin could be yes yes interesting but that was outside in the courtyard yes on the north wall oh but yes I that was part of the in the wedding they stood by the north very interesting I never heard that I don't know but it's outside which is interesting that's the point here um I brought you the we're going to speak about that very briefly the some people still do this they put the puts theal over the under the and I think that's catching on again but that was the and here's a painting from an Italian painting from the 15th century and here's a very old illustration from 127 too that you have a Katan and a Kala interesting I don't I can't work out which is the Katan and which is the kala I I I I I think I think that the the one with long curly hair is the Katan actually with a hat on and the the kala is uh is is in full covering there okay fine uh but the the the idea of a of a canopy just go over for a second to page five the canopy actually was originally used as a processional for example this again courtesy of the book The this Jewish delegation to the Pope in 1417 they they walked there under a canopy now also to keep the the sun off I suppose but this was a sign of a dignitary a dignitary walks under a canopy and similarly I brought you a Frankfurt um uh etching there from 1617 where the kala is being walked to the ceremony the the processional is under the K but the use of the only caught on later and I brought this in number 16 the RAR in Poland in the 16th century says today I'll tell you what a wedding looks like for is something where you have a cloth which is put on poles you bring the under the poles Under The Canopy him in public and you do the then you do everything under this then we take them into a room that's the room and they eat together in a private place just the two of them this is what is now meaning I don't know what kind ofas you used to do in the Middle Ages he's saying but in Poland in the 1600s this is what a looks like he puts it in and that is what we do today as to how old this idea of doing the da outside we'll see that soon as well I brought you a H I'm not going to dwell on in number 17 which says he talks that about where did they do the and he said well it depends if they had a lot of guests they did it outside in the courtyard if they had a smaller wedding they did it inside so it didn't seem to matter that much to them whether they did dka inside or dka outside it seemed to be more of a practical thing um I actually went to a wedding this week uh in the Israel Science Museum which was very interesting um just like as a venue for a wedding everyone could play with all the exhibits and and all that but I'm saying you can do the wedding anywhere but NE nevertheless as we know today A lot of people are very mpid to have it outside even if all you have is a little hole in the roof so that they can just be standing under um it seems a little bit token because the point is to be outside to look at the stars to see the sky to feel the broa but nevertheless people take it very seriously and we'll get back to that in a minute but first of all a little digression for few minutes about what is a simantov what does it mean that we do this for a simantov and he will have another um idea as to what the Min or mine is so first of all let's talk about anointing a king number 18 says the gamar we'd only anoint a king spring so that their King ship will uh extend it will bubble it will be fresh it will keep going um it will never end and he brings a posc there from David amik it's a famous POS from the haor where David's dying and he tells Natan Ai and soken to go down and anoint his son schomo at the gon for those who are into British coronation ceremony this is the posk on which zok the priest when they take uh the king as they took if you saw the coronation they took King Charles into a m sanua very interesting they close it with barriers and they sing zadok the priest by handle which basically is this this posic the zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet etc etc okay so what does he got to do with us so Rashi points out the point is it's aday it has to da be aday and that is the of the rambam in number 20 when they anoint the true Kings ofid now you should already be wondering is there any connection between and the mine or is that just random so have a look atce number 21 so he talks about a simantov and all the different things that make up a simov simov at the wedding there has to be simov like we said the has to be under the heavens and he says I want to claim um i' I've I've looked at this commentary when he brings the and they call this and I think he says it's either what you said before it's the place frankurt and we saw that in M they actually did it Outdoors dka as opposed to vers I want to suggest something else we take the king to a to a spring so they will have a long rain and this brings the rambam and he says therefore and therefore this word is a short hand for s s mine and they just switch the iron and the AL therefore mine whenever you say the word mine that's the code word for simonov that's going to be okay that's a nice it's an inventive idea but now I've exhausted all the different things I have to say about K and what that could possibly be um as far as a simov so the gamar raises the question of well why isn't this a Prohibition of of of superstition like we're not a superstitious religion I mean we shouldn't be and in fact there's a terror prohibition of n you're not allowed to interpret signs and and you're not allowed to say I don't want number 13 uh Jewish houses can be 13 and non-jewish houses they don't want to be 13 Etc these are all real issues so the gar says the following number 22 they say exactly what we're saying here you only take the king down you take them down to a spring says I'll tell you all about this Sim have a man man the boy if you stand to coming towards rash and you want to know if you're going to survive the year you put up a candle in the 10 days dur the you put up a candle but base it in your house in a place where it's not windy because if it's windy of course the candle is going to go out if the candle like a longlasting candle if the candle burns then you'll know you're going to make it through the year but if the candle goes out okay not good someone who wants to start a new business so Bo you want to know is he going to succeed or not you should raise chickens take a chicken Sher if your chicken grows fat and happy if you have a fat Happy Chicken healthy chicken then you'll have a fat happy healthy business and someone who wants to go on a long dangerous Journey he wants to know will he ever get back home again from this dangerous Journey you go to a dark place and he looks for his shadow but not just the shadow but the secondary Shadow the shadow that's made from the shadow there's different interpretations of what this is if he can see one of these Shadows then he but if he can't see any Shadow then he's he's it's a dangerous Journey says the gamar on all of these things VAV mil he and none of these things are correct you mustn't do any of these things dma should I say because they'll upset you you don't think you're going to live live through the year or come back from your journey and the fact that you're depressed will itself change your muscle there's a very interesting psychology here like that whether you will be successful to some degree depends on whether you think you'll be successful and if you think you're going to fail then you'll fail the actual psychological state has ruined your mle don't do any of these things what should you do but we do have an idea that a Simon is a real thing should you do you should have in front of you k vuia vti v Silka V tamri all the Sim that we have on rashash night that you can do and we had a share on this a couple of years ago I'm not going to go into great details but the understanding of these simanim go in either one of or two ways the Mei says that you put the Simon there in order to look at it and think about it and and and just as these things are all resonant of good ideas and good Omens as it were you'll think those positive thoughts and then you'll have a good year but says the M since people start to get all superstitious and they think that the carrot sitting in front of you is going to give you a good year therefore therefore the men became to say rodson so you shouldn't think that the carrot is what's giving you a good year the carrot is just helping you think of the good things of the things you need to do next year and the heroin will keep you focused so says thei first comes the carrot then comes comes the and it's all there to help you realize that it's a for a Sant and again I'm not going to go through this in detail but I brought you another way of looking at it over the page in in the the brings the ramban the ramban says the other way around says the ramban says that first you have the and then you have the carrot as it were he brings an example of what does it mean the Hashem said to AB is andov all these things are going to happen to your children they're going to have bras they're going to inherit the land of Israel and okay that's very nice I like that idea now do something concrete and physical to if you like make that BR make that BR real in your eyes and that's whyu had to walk around the land why can't he just say okay I've got a brocka I will inherit the land no now you have to walk around the land in order to to concretize that image in your mind so to each na'vi had a a certain image this Navi had to to do this and this na'vi had to do that and this had to take two sticks and put them together why are they doing these things they've been given the NAA says the ramban it's the Sim actually allows the na to be concrete so whichever way you look at it there is such a thing as a Simon so we want the and kala to have a long happy fruitful life together so we take them outside and we say look at the sky this is reminiscent of the BR meaning you should know the BR already because you should know so I don't need to take you under the sky but the sky will help you remember that this is what the BR is that you're going to that you've been told Hashem has promised the Jewish people will have a long and happy uh life and have lots of children okay and and the actually brings you let's do a look at the bottom line 28 before we get into the modern developments says the 28 it's just and then we've got two interesting tuers to look at together so it says there AR that people don't start a new job on a Monday or a Wednesday generally speaking by the way um even numbers of the of the uh I didn't remind people to turn off their phone at least that was a nice phone ring I like classical music um but generally speaking Jewish people are not so excited about even numbers even in in in theim when it talks about four cups of wine on S night the gamar is astounded certainly the talmud bavy which is maybe a little bit more susceptible to these concerns how can you have zugos how can you have 2 4 68 we don't do that because that brings that's reminiscent of zero asteron M and Duality and dualism we're into we're into odd numbers and if you look at the actually the days of the weeks of the creation the good stuff happened on day 1 357 and the bad stuff happened on Day 2 4 and six and you can go and look at it and think how that works Etc two was mlus and four was the you know it says the curses of the illness for the children and and six was the whereas one was creation and three were I'm not getting into all of it now seven is shabas and by the way if we can get not just an odd number but a prime number which by definition has to be an odd number number if we can get a prime number oh then we're like over the moon we we just love our prime numbers because again I heard from Ravin prime numbers are indivisible that's the point of prime numbers and the unity and the monism if you like of Judaism drives us to love the prime numbers uh 13 is the prime number seven is a prime number 613 is a prime number which is interesting he's doing a three in head working it out I promise you it's a prime number yeah and therefore there are men AR that we don't start on a Monday and a Wednesday because they're bad mule and similarly we only marry women as the as the as the we only get married as the Moon is rising as the Moon is growing you only have a wedding in the first half of the month says thear start a new these things are all permitted because there's a Simon he talks about mule interestingly are we mpar to have weddings only in the first half of the month no we're really not you have a wedding whenever there's a hall available that's the way it works okay and I imagine if you take you know uh research probably it's half and half I got married on the 22nd of the month uh people get married whenever they can get married so we just ignore that why why do we then have this issue we have to get married outside to the point and we'll see the Chas now Samra bonim will not perform form a if the wedding is initial they won't come they just won't come thead weddings are outside even if there's a blizzard you know friends of ours have got married with with the Kal had a fur coat in a in a snowstorm literally so why are we so you know out of kilter on these two we okay there's a simonov you have a wedding outside there's a simonov you get married in the first week first half of the month so we're not bothered about one but where some people are incredibly bothered about the other where does that come from so partly that comes from the reform movement look at number 19 the let's have a look at the 29 excuse me I think I said 19 by mistake 29 bottom of page seven says the he's asked a question should we change our ancient to have the inside the SH now why were people in the 19th century driving to have their weddings inside the shaw because Christians have they'll have their weddings inside the church and therefore if they get married in the church we should get married in a sh because you know we have a very Western view of what a marriage should look like with a white dress and people playing here come the bride Here Comes the Bride etc etc although I think this was actually before mendleson wrote Here Comes the Bride but that's not for now actually know it was Vagner that wrote his Bri sorry before anyone picks me up on that for sure but for sure uh it was before that so look at the cha so he brings the RAR that says you should have a wedding outside there a simonov okay very nice and then he's a sec third line now in number 29 and the which we've seen as well we made the outside but you should know all of these they've all been established by and Rashi and and that meaning they go back all the way which by the way we'll see ra mosha Einstein later says I don't know what you're talking about because we just saw in toastest before at least one toastest that where did they have the wedding inside or outside depending on how many guests lots of people they did it outside not so many so don't don't don't let's overreach and say that everything comes from Ancient Ancient maybe they were different man Haim but even ra mosha picks up on that these Elders of our community saw that this was very good okay so what should we do so flip over the page to page so see what he says we should always act in such a way try and bring don't you want for in a place where you can see the stars even if you can't actually see the stars and this is by the way where one of the of the the writes about what a what about a glass a glass bubble on top of you and he says even though you can see the stars it doesn't count because you're not under and there he brings down down from a Suka just like if you there's an idea you should be able to see the stars inside a Suka although that's a little bit of a fake like a red hering you really need to see the stars but you can't have a glass roof over the Su even if the stars are visible so he says we have this idea and the Elders of our community also said butes on the other hand there is an idea that you should say the she is in a holy place in a place where you DAV so now you have different things pulling in different directions I have this Minag to have the wedding outside because of a simov but then I also want to say the chevas inside a sh because it's a kades so how am I going to do this maybe this was one of the reasons for the two stage one could be outside one could be inside and everyone can have their cake and eats it so they and he says they ended up having both they didn't have both and he talks about this idea in the morning in the in the afternoon as well next paragraph the a woman who was hadn't been married before had this split wedding Al but with a with a with a woman who was widowed the lake she never had this early we wanted as much Sima as we can for this lady because she needs even more Sima because NE she's been through a marriage before and her husband passed away and therefore she gets double sorry fine and that's why the says that you know something do all the weddings outside last paragraph So why are people having weddings inside now even though they used to do the now he says what everybody does they do it in the they do it in the courtyard it's interesting the Nobody Does it inside people have started now but nobody used to do it inside this is very interesting he says maybe it's because of ashkanazi synagogue design why did they do it in the sh Courtyard because they didn't have a little Shaw they didn't have a corridor where they daved like the Breakaway and they daved like able in the in the yard as well therefore you again you have your cake and eat it it's outside and it's a m fill okay very nice however the last thing he says is very important which is just the last few lies but we have a principle we follow the call we follow the who says do it outside fine and here's the key thing but what if you don't want to the say we must have it in we have to have it in sh and these people who want to have it in sh want to copy the nju they want to have a quote unquote church wedding and they're not they don't have this BR the non-jews weren't giving this just like they get married in a church these people get want to get married in a sh so they'll be like the non-jews they'll lose the they've lost the but if you want to have this special you should be like everyone always was and should have your outside okay what did he say did he say you can't have it in the shaw he didn't say you can't have it in the shaw he said if you want to have it in the shaw I'm concerned that you're copying the non-jews and you're going to lose the broa okay so maybe someone else said you know something I lose the BR you know my my in-laws want to have a wedding in The Shaw they like the stained glass windows Shalom is I'll lose the BR I he he doesn't like it but he doesn't say it was AA um and the I brought you another reason just skip to number um number 32 by the way very often 30 and 31 the these two minhag were often put together of having the wedding at the beginning of the month for broa because the Moon is growing and having the wedding outside for br and again like I said if we dropped one why can't we drop the other so I Rabbi Morris lamb wrote some very important books in English about veas also about about um weddings so I brought you here what he says in number 32 the community could not abide placing Thea directly in front of the Ark because Thea is after all a public representation of the bridal chamber it's an interesting one I'd never even thought of hence Thea was kept on the synagogue grounds but it was held in the OR sh rather than in the sanctuary and the Rama in the 16th century who was the first to record the use of a portable room in the form of AA was also the first to record the outdoor wedding for thear outdoor wedding was a remember of the Stars etc etc large number of guests so he brings this idea that um we don't want the in because it's like P Thea represents the bridal chamber I'm not sure if anyone sees it quite in that way um I remember when we my wife and I we did in sh it's very beautiful sh my wife sh my parents sh um and then they took us into the Y room and the Y room was the little sh but the little sh had an Aron kodes in it okay and so they kind of went down this route and they said well it's one thing having the ceremony in the sh but having the Y room the room even though what you do in the Y room you sit and eat a piece of cake and because you you've been starving all day says you can't have a y room with the iron codus and then we had like numerous rabbis in the Y room looking around and and deciding whether it was a good y room or a bad room and we were just sitting there now waiting to you know whatever and and by the by the time they decided what to do some kid had stolen the food and taking all the food away so okay fine so there you are but it was I don't know if this was a Simmon TI but it was a okay whatever um so that's another consideration so RAV mha Feinstein was asked to Shila and and with this will we'll finish really um I I'll mention Raad towards the very end and we'll we'll look at a couple of ideas in this ra MOS I won't have time to read every single line ra MOS was asked number 33 is there a Prohibition or even a that should refuse to go because it's a 1956 1955 ch 56 juva so he says there are rabim that say I won't go I won't do it I know rabim to this day that won't do if it's inside because they say it's copying the go copying the non-jews okay so he says a few things um in the first uh chapter it's first paragraph there uh he says first of all the rav should be going to the uh ceremony number one to make sure that it's being done right cuz what you know if if you're not there what are they going to do they're going to mess it all up number two because it's in your contract to go yeah number two and number three because it's Derek eretz to go because just in terms of wishing the couple well you're not going to you're going to make a like a stand on the day of the couple's wedding that's a great recipe for brus and the community going forward so he says first of all not only can you go but you have to go to get it right to do all your job and to also to to be friend and then he talks about the issues of the KAS sofa and he says at the end of the day the S never said it was Assa he never said it was Assa the just said you lose the BR because you're trying to copy the non-jews and he says today MOS says today nobody's having a wedding in a Shaw because they're trying to copy the non-jews they're having a wedding in a shol because they like to have things in the shol and by the way it's not copying the non-jews he said if you were copying the non-jews you'd have your wedding in a church good point he said in the sh is not a church you're having it in the sh because you're from Jew that's not called copying the non juice and therefore he says uh it's absolutely fine uh you are allowed to have the wedding inside and uh you won't even necessarily lose the BR and then he says an interesting thing there are lots of things that kazal said about when you should do weddings for example they said you should do a wedding on a um a Wednesday you should do a wedding on a Wednesday so that you've got three days of Celebration Thursday you can have a long weekend Thursday Friday and shabas and then the H going to go to work the next week on Sunday does everyone have a wedding on a Wednesday not everyone has a wedding on a Wednesday again you have a wedding when you can have a wedding so he says this is in kazal kazal say you should have your wedding on a Wednesday and we're not particular about that because it doesn't fit it's not like a all the more so having your wedding outside which is doesn't even appear in kazal the idea of having your wedding outside has its Providence from the late weon him at the earliest that we can see so it says if we're not particular about some of these other ideas because they're not halic they're just they're good advice we're not necessarily going to be particular on this either and therefore he says not only can you have the wedding there but the rabbi has to go and he and uh and and the Thea don't have to worry about it so he's nevertheless lenient about it and I think the point about shom is a very important point if the rabbi has a particular concern about doing a wedding inside he needs to understand what the downside of of insisting on that's going to be and that brings me back to this wedding where the and kala are dripping wet under theer I I really felt very strongly I wasn't in a position to say anything that however important you think the wedding being outside is it's not halachically required and what you're doing to the and kala is in my view hierarchically prohibited you know putting them in this situation can you imagine how much money she spend on her makeup and her hair do and now and now she's now she's standing there literally dripping like unbelievable and they were saying oh it's I know I know it drives you crazy people fixate on things which they blow up into enormous ideas and and they're not necessary two other points just before we finish Radu brings two other is issues which I think we need to consider just go over to page 10 for a second we've got through this quite well bar I brought you at the very end of shi who I said is very particular but look at number 36 and 37 so R has a Chua on this he he says the same thing as ra Moshe not only can you have a wedding in scha but he says the SIM don't even have the Minag of having a wedding outside it was in the RAR it's from the mam mints it's not from the rambam or from s it's from the as so the don't even know what the problem is to start with so he says for sure you can have a wedding inside but he says I've got two problems with you having a wedding in a Shore number number 36 so he says he brings there is no love or should be no love like the love between a person and okay people who like kissing in a way which is permitted kissing their son kissing their daughter the r kissing the people like kissing each other not English people you should just know English people don't like kissing anybody English people are barely allow their family to kiss them anyway okay but some people want to kiss everybody and and you know that the is going to end with a big kiss in ceremony with he's not talking about prohibited kissing he says you should be careful because there's and this it's a I find this one of the most difficultas you're not meant to kiss your children your grandchildren um even though there's nothing Hally wrong with that kissing surely is not the place for kissing solic said a similar thing the reason that you're not sitting next to your spouse or significant other in SCH is because you're not meant to feel that sense of comfort that sense of oh I'm I have my loved ones by me you're meant to feel isolation you're meant to feel that you need to turn to God there's nowhere else for you to turn and when you sit in sh cuddling your grandchildren and I agree I find this terribly difficult because they're so cute and you want to kiss them you know you shouldn't you shouldn't kiss your grandchildren you shouldn't kiss your children so he says no kissing and therefore if you if everyone's going to kiss a problem and then number 37 says that's just the permitted kissing now he's going to get on to all the prohibited kissing all the kissing and the men and the women and the flirting and the da da da da he said that for sure don't do that in short cuz if it's going to happen you know it's bad enough but if it's going to happen you shouldn't do it in a shw so that's something to think about as well um but you know we've covered a lot of ground there we've finished even with a minute to spare um I I think this is fascinating because it brings in something that we we we know we experience on a daily basis but a lot of the roots of this are in old old minhagim that we've kind of forgotten about and we'll see through this series on minhagim a lot of these things will come up again and again we see it works this way but what we're seeing is the culmination of a of an of an evolution of minhagim that ended up the way they are in 20124 and now of course we're all mixed up we're all Saran ashkanazi and everything which is also not good for amen Haagen but the Yas will remain I'm quite sure they will they they will hold out all right I hope to see you next week be r