From Nation's Capital to Nation's Capital: The Azza Street Spy

Secular Wedding in Israel
Last month a friend from work (the psychology job, not the five other ones) got married and she invited me to her wedding. As a friend, I was happy to accept the invitation, I had met her fiance before and liked him, and who could resist attending a secular wedding in Israel?

Background: My friend works in a different district office than me and most of the work guests were from her office. However, as a beginning psychologist we are in the same Continuing Ed classes. She made aliyah from Argentina three years ago; she started working at School Psych Services the school year before me; her now-husband was born in Israel to British parents. The guests were majority Israeli. However, a lot of Latino guests and British friends of the groom's parents. In addition, the civil ceremony in Israel is a religious ceremony. In order to be married by the state, the Rabbinate has to approve the marriage and the marriage proceedings. In a place with no real separation of church and state, secular people have to conform to the religous rules. In England or Argentina, where a choice exists, I'm not clear what type of wedding they would have chosen for themselves.

I'm pretty sure I've really only attended religious, Jewish weddings before, in the US and in Israel. Despite my limited exposure to secular or traditional (as opposed to religious) weddings in the US, the secular wedding in Israel is definitely its own brand.

The wedding was held at a nice garden (that was enclosed and transformed into a hall for the winter) off the J-m-TA highway. It was a nice facility, but it kind of made me feel like I was going to a wedding at a rest stop off an Interstate highway. Just like the Interstate reststops, you get off at an exit and 100 feet later is the parking lot of the destination. Rest assured, this place was sufficiently classy for a wedding. Note: My ride and I showed up nearly an hour after the stated time on the invitation. Perfect timing.

We arrived and each guest was responsible to hang up his or her coat on the free-standing coat rack that was about to collapse from the weight of the coats. The bride and groom were freely mingling with the arriving guests, as opposed to receiving their guests in separate rooms and being reunited at the ceremony. When they were ready for the Huppah, ceremony, the guests shifted on the floor while the staff set out more chairs. Note: sitting at the ceremony in Israel becoming more common but is apparently not the norm. The British and Argentinian influences probably account for out sitting.

The groom walked down with his parents, followed by the bride. When the bride and parents reached the aisle, her mother continued walking alone towards the Huppah. Then, the bride and her father walked as a pair. When they reached the Huppah, the groom stepped down to lower her veil, the Jewish custom of "bedeken." I'm used to this being a separate, pre-ceremony ritual. But, I guess there is no reason it can't be done as part of the larger ceremony.

The Rabbi was a friendly guy who sprinkled the ceremony with explanations and very limited descriptions of the couple. He talked about the week's Torah portion and connected it to the wedding. When it came time for the blessings, the Rabbi did them all himself. Again, I am used to the larger production in which some male relative is an MC and gives a brief CV of every man who is invited to make one of the assorted blessings. However, as a secular crowd fluent in Hebrew, they apparently had no interest in distributing these honors.

Another observation: It is becoming trendier in modern Orthodox circles to give women more prominent, inclusive roles in the wedding ceremony. For example, a woman might give the speech about the couple, read English translations of the blessings, etc. However, this component was totally absent from the ceremony. It was all about the Rabbi. Which makes sense, really. Religiously committed women would look to be included more. If the couple and families are secular, there is no motivation to push the envelope and be progressive. The men and women probably identify with the rituals equally and are equally un/comfortable with the status quo.

The Huppah ended with a PG-13 kiss and all of the guests approaching the Huppah to hug the bride and groom. Since the wedding conformed to Jewish law, I'm sure they went to the Yichud Room (secluded room) after. However, there was so much lingering and mingling, most guests had reached downstairs, food space while they were still upstairs greeting people. Different from the religious custom of dancing the couple off to their secluded room.

The food was buffet and amazing. I ended up at the work table, about half of whom I knew. No one brought their spouse, because apparently in Israel you don't bring significant others to work-related events. In the car ride back to J-m it was explained to me: the gift the guest brings is expected to pay for the meal consumed. Typically, this gift is cash. If the spouse comes, the gift needs to be doubled. So, in order to bring a more modest gift, the spouse stays at home.

How interesting. In the US the spouse is automatically invited. While a couple is likely to bring a nicer/bigger/more expensive gift than a single person, the gift reasoning is not that linear. If one member of a couple is out of town or has a conflict (the usual reason a spouse would not attend with sufficient prior notice, as opposed to becoming sick), does the attending guest scale down the gift significantly? Does it really work that way?

I guess in an economy where most people aren't "finishing the month" (i.e., paying their bills on time), this is a logical way to cut corners. Nonetheless, the simplicity of this reasoning struck me as really strange.

Last details: the dance floor was tiny; the couple danced first, before the guests came to the floor doing a salsa dance (they met at a salsa club); the bride serenaded the groom, a custom of the groom's family, apparently. If it had been me, I would have declined the family custom.

Summary: A fun time, and I'm really excited for my friend who married an awesome guy. Seeing a religious ceremony function as a civil ceremony was eye-opening and clarified which parts are religiously required and which are custom. The parts I saw were religious and the ones modified or skimped were obviously optional customs. When you're used to them all together, it's easy to forget what falls into which categories. Finally, going to a work wedding in which an envelope was passed around and colleagues stuffed it with money was also weird. Particularly now that I know that they left their husbands at home in order to stuff the envelope with half the money...

Advertisement