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Jewish Wedding Dancing (The Hora) – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #9

14/11/2014 by Karen

All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 9 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

So far in this Jewish Weddings Explained series, we’ve gone through the entire day from morning to evening, now the real fun begins. Let’s be honest, Jewish weddings are known for their dancing. If there’s one thing that most non-Jewish guests know about a Jewish wedding, it’s that someone is going to be lifted on a chair and there’s going to be some crazy dancing.

In fact, we recently photographed a stunning and intimate non-Jewish wedding in the rolling hills of Devon. A couple of months before that day, the Groom’s brother had married a Jewish girl in New York. The Groom enjoyed the dancing at his brother’s wedding so much that he insisted his guests hoist him and his new wife onto chairs, which they did, as other guests around them clapped and made vaguely Jewish-sounding noises like ‘oy, oy, oy’. Even at non-Jewish weddings, lifting the couple on chairs will always be awesome!

Firstly, what do we call it? Most people nowadays refer to this part of the wedding as the ‘Israeli Dancing’. For me, it’s not as though everybody in Israel dances down the street in a circular fashion on their way to the local shops, and when you go into a club in Tel Aviv, you don’t see everyone being lifted up on chairs… so I call it ‘Jewish dancing’.

The Yichud – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #8

07/11/2014 by Karen

All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 8 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

So the couple have stood under their chuppah and the groom has smashed a glass. The family and friends have cried, laughed, clapped and shouted Mazal Tov! Now what for our newly married couple? The Yichud is another beautiful tradition in Jewish weddings. Yichud comes from the Hebrew word B’Yachad, which means ‘together’.

It is where the couple, who’ve been married only a few moments, make their way to a private room and spend the first few minutes of their married life just by themselves, without any distractions or other family members.

In religious circles, this is the first time ever that the couple will have had physical contact, so it really is a truly landmark moment in the lives of the couple. The room should be lockable, and the door is locked from the inside. In Orthodox law, couple remains secluded in the room for at least eight minutes.

For those who are less religious, even the Rabbi will know that the couple has had contact before, or that they live together already! However this is still such a precious moment, alone as a married couple — just the two of them. This is also a tradition that can be applied to any wedding, irrespective of which religion the couple follows. It truly symbolizes that even in the modern world with more demands on our time than ever, the couple should always find time just for one another — even with a crowd of friends and family all clamouring to give them a hug!

Breaking The Glass – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #7

31/10/2014 by Karen

All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 7 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

This is it, the time has come. With so much preparation carried out for this very moment, the ring placed upon the finger, every guest in the room hurriedly preparing their iPhones to take a shot, and clearing their vocal chords to shout “Mazal Tov”, it’s time to break the glass!

Such is the synonymy between Jewish weddings and smashing a glass, that we hear the most uber-cool Jewish wedding blog has been named after this very tradition. This site wasn’t named ‘Dancing the Hora’ or ‘Eating the Canapà©s’, but Smashing The Glass, as this is THE moment of the Jewish wedding.

The glass, usually wrapped up in a cloth or napkin, is placed on the floor in front of the groom. However before it is smashed, it’s traditional at most Jewish weddings for the Rabbi or Chazan (Cantor) to sing a Hebrew song called Im Eshkakech Yerushalayim, or in English… ‘If I forget you, Jerusalem’. This commemorates the falling of Jerusalem and destruction of the two Jewish temples that once stood there.

It’s said that whenever Jewish people experience immense joy, they should also remember the less joyous times in their ancestry. With celebration comes commemoration. So once the less beautiful times have been remembered, the time comes for the groom to break the glass. Why is this done? Great question.

There are many reasons that Jewish grooms break a glass at the end of their ceremony, sealing the marriage to their Bride. The first being, in keeping with the song that had just been sung, to commemorate the destruction faced by Jewish people over the past two thousand years, a nod to the suffering that had come before. After all, if you can remember the dark times even on the brightest of days, you’ll never allow them to be forgotten.

The Seven Blessings (Sheva Brachot) – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #6

24/10/2014 by Karen

All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 6 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

In the last five weeks on Smashing The Glass we’ve made it through from waking up on the morning of the wedding to standing under the chuppah. One key part of the ceremony are The Seven Blessings, or as they’re known in Hebrew the Sheva Brachot.

Seven blessings are said (or sung) over a cup of wine, which the couple then drink from, giving them these blessings for the rest of their life together. Sometimes the Rabbi, or Chazan, will sing these blessings to the couple under the chuppah.

If you’re planning a wedding, an incredible way to make your service more personal and interactive, whilst also honouring those who are most important in your relationship, whether that’s a grandparent or the person who set you up on your first date, is to invite seven people each to give a blessing. Each one will come up to the chuppah, one-by-one, hold the cup of wine and say or sing their piece.

One other really beautiful touch is to invite those people bestowing the blessings upon the couple to also write their own blessing, something personal which can be read out after the official blessing in whatever language is understood by most guests, which may or may not be Hebrew or Aramaic!

The Chuppah – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #5

17/10/2014 by Karen

All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 5 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

The word ‘chuppah’ is used in two ways. Firstly, it’s the Hebrew name of the canopy under which Jewish couples get married. Secondly, it’s also colloquially used as another word for ‘ceremony’. So if someone asks you “When’s the chuppah?” don’t assume they’ve lost all grasp of how to put a sentence together, they’re not asking when the canopy is, but when the ceremony starts.

So what is a chuppah? Why do Jewish couples get married underneath one? What do they do when they get there?

The chuppah, like many elements of a Jewish wedding, is beautifully symbolic. It symbolises the home that the couple will build together in their married life, and is open on all sides like the biblical tent of Abraham and Sarah, signifying that everyone is welcome and that everyone will be treated hospitably.

For readers of this blog, who may be planning their own Jewish wedding, the chuppah is also one of the great opportunities to personalise your ceremony. It can range from a massively decadent, custom-designed piece of floral artistry, to four friends holding poles, upon which sits a custom made quilt or Jewish prayer shawl, called a Tallit.