Translating Jewish

I am completely fortunate that my whole life my parents encouraged me to marry for love. Not money, not religion, not security. Simply love. As a product of a middle class, Jewish household, it is mildly surprising that I received little to no pressure to marry for love AND Judaism. There may have been a small threat that if I married a Jew, I would inherit my great-grandmothers candlesticks (heavy, silver, carried on her person from Poland) and if I don't marry a Jew, I would be hit over the head with them. A small threat that was not repeated often over the years, especially after I fell in love with an amazing Jewish man, a man that I found without the aid of Jdate, blind dates, speed dates or any other system other than pure good fortune. So when the seemingly impossible happened, both families were ecstatic, and mine breathed a sigh of relief that the candlesticks would not have to be used as a weapon. But before the happily ever after could begin, first the wedding needed to be planned. And by wedding, I mean weddings. See, this most amazing man is not just Jewish, but Israeli. Enter the main character in this story: conflict. Not conflict between my husband and I or our families per say but between our cultures. Jewish translates in many ways from state to state and even across oceans but when it comes to wedding planning, Jewish is a whole other story. Thus begins the saga of wedding number one.

The American wedding. A celebration of values, tradition, love and of course an open bar. With my fiance across an ocean somewhere due north of Tel Aviv, the initial planning was left to me...and my mother. There were many things easily pinned down: save the dates--designed using a mac and sent electronically, sent 4 months before the wedding day; the venue--a platinum LEED certified non-profit that educates high school students in art; the music--dj, no line dances, minimal slow songs; the food--locally raised, vegetarian grub minus grilled salmon; no wedding party--less muss, less fuss; rabbi--friend of mine from LA, woman, awesome. But somewhere between harpists and breaking the glass lay the rub. Not only do Israelis plan weddings in roughly three days, they have much less to worry about--no flights (usually), no hotels, and no welcome bags at the hotel or information sheet for the weekend long festivities because Israel is a celebrate and sleep at home kind of country. I have also excluded all the pre-wedding goodness from registries, wedding showers to bachelorette parties. Try explaining over skype to your mother-in-law to be that you sign up for things you want people to buy you and then they buy them and then you kill trees to thank them. The whole process of wedding planning is full of long standing traditions and rules that sometimes offer wisdom and logic and other times offer complication in multiple shades of taffeta. It is also something that we successfully navigated in just four short months here in the US.

With all of the party planned and my fiance actually in Boston, we had time to concentrate on what is arguably the most important part of the day--the ceremony. Since we already had the rabbi, one big thing was accomplished. The challenge here comes back to an earlier note--this is wedding number one and wedding number two will take place in Israel. This means looking into a ton of halacha (Jewish law) in order to make sure we can legally marry each other twice. This is much more simple and more complex than one would intuit. The most important thing to both my fiance and to me is to celebrate this great event with all of those we love, not just throw a party one place and do the pomp and circumstance in another. In order to do that in Israel and be married religiously and not civilly (by a rabbi and not town hall) we needed to make sure that we did NOT have two male witnesses sign our ketubah (wedding agreement). This means that the whole process of the rabbi, the vows, the seven blessings...none of it matters or makes anything legal until two men have signed a document saying that they witnessed the wedding. Problem solved. Our ketubah was signed during the ceremony by four close friends: three women, one man. And we will do it all again in Israel, where two men will sign our ketubah so our wedding will be legally recognized as Jewish in Israel. I have significant questions that border on complaints regarding the marriage process in Israel but I will save that for another time.

The ceremony at our request was very accessible to people of all backgrounds. Our guests were a mix of ethnic and religious backgrounds and to ensure that everyone felt engaged and in the know, we not only wrote out a step by step program including questions like, "What is a Huppah and Who's Under It?" but we made sure that the rabbi introduced and explained each piece of the ceremony, in Hebrew and English. This whole process was again new to my fiance and his family. Weddings in Israel are generally all in Hebrew and thus require no translation or explanation. We had to question each individual piece to make sure we felt comfortable with it, for example the bride circling the groom after she finishes her trip down the aisle was new to my fiance. He wanted to know why it happens and what the history of it was. This was before I told him I wanted more liberal take on the whole woman circles man thing. This is somewhat what I meant by Jewish not translating across cultures. Another example includes the name stamped satin kippah that we all know all too well for them bar/bat mitzvah circuit. My mother, as any good Jewish mother would, went right out and ordered a large amount of satin kippot for our celebration. Another something that doesn't happen in Israel because who doesn't just have their own?

After all of the conversation, editing, and translating the American wedding was amazing and full of Jewish tradition, non-stop dancing, great food and genuinely happy people. And my biggest recommendation to any bride, no matter country or culture: Croc High Heels.

This blog was also published on jewcy.com!