After seeing it on facebook for a few days, I finally watched the video that so many have posted when a colleague of mine asked a question about it appropriateness in an e-mail forum:
Wedding Entrance Dance
My gut reaction is: How is this any different than the craziness that goes on at the reception at Orthodox (and ideally all Jewish) weddings during the reception? For those who don't know, some weddings just get crazy with jugglers, fire eaters, people doing acrobatic tricks and all other crazy things to entertain the bride and groom when they get too tired to dance.
After Rachel and I were in yichud (a momenet of calm and quiet after the ceremony where the bride and groom can just be together), we ran into the synagogue's social hall to kelzmer music, began to dance, and within 30 seconds our entire wedding party and half (if not more) our guests were on the dance floor with us. The 20 minutes of crazy dancing that followed were probably the 20 most unrestricted minutes of pure joy in my life.
You might say that, that is fine for the reception, but this was before the wedding. Well, once again, going to traditional Jewish practice, there is the custom known as the Grooms Tish, where all the men get together and the Groom tries to give a short lesson on the weekly Torah portion, but is interrupted by his friends and family making jokes, telling funny stories (not always family friendly ones!) and plying the Groom with scotch or other spirits. (The Bride in the meantime has what is called Kabbalat Panim - receiving of faces, where all the women gather and tell the bride how beautiful she is).
I did this as well at my wedding, but instead of segregating by gender, all of those who were at the wedding as my friends and family joined it, with all of Rachel's friends and family at the Kabbalat Panim. At the end of the Tish (at which point I was a tad tipsy), I was marched in with loud signing and dancing to the Kabbalat Panim where the band picked up on what we were singing and everyone joined in as I confirmed the identity of my bride and we signed the Ketubah (marriage contract).
From a rabbinic point of view, I am always glad to advise on processional and recessional and to give my opinion of what is traditional, but I always say I am in charge only while the Bride and Groom are under the chuppah (traditional Jewish wedding canopy). Anything before or after that is up to them as long as it neither directly contradicts the Jewish ceremony I am about to perform or have just performed, nor requires me to jump out of an airplane.
In November I will perform a ceremony in the St. Louis Planetarium where the entire wedding party (myself included) will be hidden behind a curtain on a platform. The whole room will go dark, and then as the stars come out the curtain will lift and the only additional light will be what I require to read the liturgy. It will be different, but I am looking forward to it.
Ultimately, a wedding should be an expression of joy, love and the unique union that each couple forms. I see my role as Rabbi as making sure that the proper ceremonies as dictated by Jewish law and custom are fulfilled and that the couple is prepared for the marriage that will follow.
I could see this working in a Jewish context with kelzmer music playing rather than the dance club music. As Rabbi in this situation I would do two things: a) I would be like the minister in the video, and just hang out on the bima and enjoy the show, and b) as I began the wedding I would remind people of the mixture of joy and solemnity that a wedding encompasses, and that we have reached that solemn point in the day - the point that allows for the joy and merriment we just witnessed.
As long as the couple takes seriously the vows they will be making and I am able to professionally discharge my duties, a wedding should capture the personality of the couple and the joy that they feel on that day.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Fast Food Judaism
This morning in my regular quick scan of the news I came upon this article.
The gist of the article is that there is a new service via Twitter that allows people to tweet prayers to someone who will print it out and place the prayer in the Western Wall.
For those who may be unaware, the Western Wall is the remnant of the retaining wall the surrounded the 2nd Temple In Jerusalem. Today it serves as the most sacred site for Jews. There is a tradition that if you place a written prayer in cracks in the wall, that it will receive special attention from God. As an aside the wall is cleaned out by the Rabbis who over see it 2 times a year and the prayers are buried according to Jewish custom.
Now I am among those who agree that there is something sacred about the Western Wall. I felt it the very first time I visited the site. My heart skipped when I saw it from afar and when I touched the stones I felt a fulfillment of the generations of my family returning to that place.
Through the year I spent in Israel, I visited many times, sometimes to see the scene, such as Tisha B'av, other times as a place for reflection or quiet conversation, and other times to fulfill the commandment of pilgrimage to the site (on Sukkot and Passover - I was not Israel during Shavuot). There is definitely something sacred about the site that is connected to the Jewish people's history, struggles and our unique relationship with God.
There is nothing sacred about Twitter. While I was impressed with how Twitter has served as an important conduit of information from Iran during the current political unrest, I find Twitter to be mostly junk, Facebook without the depth (and I find Facebook normally as deep as your average puddle). Its main use seems to be feeding celebrity narcissism and the transmission of irrelevant minutia between people.
Therefore, the idea of Tweeting a prayer to the western wall, strikes me as having the same shallowness as suggesting we can follow God on Twitter. I have always been skeptical about writing prayers for the Wall in general, but I see it as an idea that teaches the importance of the wall itself. In a teaching situation as well, having people wirte notes that will be physically carried to the wall by someone they know can impart a small portion of the feeling of the sacredness of the site to those who have never been there.
Twittering to the wall, however, I see as fast food Judaism. It may be tasty, but it is no where near as good as sitting down for a fine meal, and too much of it will harm your physical well being. The same is true for fast food Judaism. God is no more likely to hear your prayer on twitter than if you hold that prayer in your heart. It may satisfy some quick need, but it ultimately is detrimental to the true body of Judaism - that is community.
True prayer for Judaism can come at any time, but ultimately the place for payer in Judaism is in the context of a community. That is, in part, what makes the Western Wall such a sacred site, it is a gathering place where all Jews come together and have come together for 3000 years. When we suggest that the sacredness of a place can somehow be transmitted on-line by anonymous people sticking your computer printed message in the cracks of a wall, we cheapen what that place has meant to so many for so long.
The gist of the article is that there is a new service via Twitter that allows people to tweet prayers to someone who will print it out and place the prayer in the Western Wall.
For those who may be unaware, the Western Wall is the remnant of the retaining wall the surrounded the 2nd Temple In Jerusalem. Today it serves as the most sacred site for Jews. There is a tradition that if you place a written prayer in cracks in the wall, that it will receive special attention from God. As an aside the wall is cleaned out by the Rabbis who over see it 2 times a year and the prayers are buried according to Jewish custom.
Now I am among those who agree that there is something sacred about the Western Wall. I felt it the very first time I visited the site. My heart skipped when I saw it from afar and when I touched the stones I felt a fulfillment of the generations of my family returning to that place.
Through the year I spent in Israel, I visited many times, sometimes to see the scene, such as Tisha B'av, other times as a place for reflection or quiet conversation, and other times to fulfill the commandment of pilgrimage to the site (on Sukkot and Passover - I was not Israel during Shavuot). There is definitely something sacred about the site that is connected to the Jewish people's history, struggles and our unique relationship with God.
There is nothing sacred about Twitter. While I was impressed with how Twitter has served as an important conduit of information from Iran during the current political unrest, I find Twitter to be mostly junk, Facebook without the depth (and I find Facebook normally as deep as your average puddle). Its main use seems to be feeding celebrity narcissism and the transmission of irrelevant minutia between people.
Therefore, the idea of Tweeting a prayer to the western wall, strikes me as having the same shallowness as suggesting we can follow God on Twitter. I have always been skeptical about writing prayers for the Wall in general, but I see it as an idea that teaches the importance of the wall itself. In a teaching situation as well, having people wirte notes that will be physically carried to the wall by someone they know can impart a small portion of the feeling of the sacredness of the site to those who have never been there.
Twittering to the wall, however, I see as fast food Judaism. It may be tasty, but it is no where near as good as sitting down for a fine meal, and too much of it will harm your physical well being. The same is true for fast food Judaism. God is no more likely to hear your prayer on twitter than if you hold that prayer in your heart. It may satisfy some quick need, but it ultimately is detrimental to the true body of Judaism - that is community.
True prayer for Judaism can come at any time, but ultimately the place for payer in Judaism is in the context of a community. That is, in part, what makes the Western Wall such a sacred site, it is a gathering place where all Jews come together and have come together for 3000 years. When we suggest that the sacredness of a place can somehow be transmitted on-line by anonymous people sticking your computer printed message in the cracks of a wall, we cheapen what that place has meant to so many for so long.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Centrist politics
I have been away for a couple weeks, but now I am back to do more blogging.
I will resume with a short post about politics. I saw this post on another blog and I found myself agreeing with much of it (although I will dispute some of the historical interpretation in the blog):
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/9955
Basically it is form a centrist-right perspective and it makes the point that the Democrats are over reaching to the liberal side as much as the Republicans had been over reaching to the conservative side. Ultimately the author says there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle, but the demand for party purity (especially on the right in my interpretation) bars otherwise fair minded politicians from using or accepting those good ideas.
Ultimately I would love to see the rise of a true centrist party that respects individual liberties and demands individual responsibility while still supporting a safety net to assist those in our nation who have temporarily found themselves in a difficult position along with those who are unable to support themselves due to disability (physical or mental). Such a party could actually make some progress for America.
I will resume with a short post about politics. I saw this post on another blog and I found myself agreeing with much of it (although I will dispute some of the historical interpretation in the blog):
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/9955
Basically it is form a centrist-right perspective and it makes the point that the Democrats are over reaching to the liberal side as much as the Republicans had been over reaching to the conservative side. Ultimately the author says there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle, but the demand for party purity (especially on the right in my interpretation) bars otherwise fair minded politicians from using or accepting those good ideas.
Ultimately I would love to see the rise of a true centrist party that respects individual liberties and demands individual responsibility while still supporting a safety net to assist those in our nation who have temporarily found themselves in a difficult position along with those who are unable to support themselves due to disability (physical or mental). Such a party could actually make some progress for America.
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