D - Wedding tisch speech

December 20, 2009

Thank you, Ilana, my eloquent cherub. Magnificent. The first marital lesson I must learn is never to speak right after you. Yasher kochech. Welcome and thank you all for coming. We are absolutely thrilled to greet each of you today. As we wrote in our program, Zeh hayom asah adonay nagila v’nismacha vo. Special thanks to my Rebbe, Rav Chaim Brovender, for adding so much to this simcha with his inspiring words today and over shabat, to our dear friend and adviser Rabbi Seth Farber, who came in from Israel this morning, to Rav Shalom Baum and Rav Avi Weiss, my father’s chavrutot, as well as to Rav Yosef Adler, rabbanim chaverim who have been devoted family friends for years and who honor us with their presence today. Profuse thanks to our extraordinary parents and siblings, each of whom was essential in creating this simcha. Finally, we join our parents and siblings in giving thanks and praise to Hashem for helping us reach this day together as a complete family: shehechiyanu v’kiyamanu v’higiyanu la’zman hazeh. May we merit to share smachot with all our parents for years to come.

As Ilana just said, Daf Yomi played a key role in our relationship. Some of you have already heard us talk about how our relationship got off the ground, but the everyday activity of daf yomi is what kept us aloft. In some ways, the day-to-day commitment of daf yomi, a commitment that you, Ilana, approach with singular enthusiasm and rhymed zest, serves as a model for the daily work of marriage with its everyday demands of commitment and fortitude.

I want to look at another gemara we learned together in shiur with Rav Benne Lau: Bava Batra Daf Samech amud bet, the last daf of the third perek is particularly appropriate for a wedding as it deals with the verse “Im Eshkachech,” “If I forget you, Jerusalem,” that we will soon sing together under the chupa. The Talmud discusses how to institutionalize Zekher L’Mikdash, commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, in a principled yet balanced fashion. The gemara first describes one Tanna’s criticism of prushim, zealots who abstained from all meat and wine in the wake of the Temple’s destruction – the Tanna reasons that if the zealots wish to abstain from items that had been used in the Temple service, then by rights they should also renounce grain, fruit, and water, since these too played an integral role in the avodah. “Lo L’hitabel Kol Ikar,” “Do not mourn excessively,” the Tanna, Rav Yehoshua, chides them.

The gemara then addresses the wedding ceremony, a classic locus of zekher l’mikdash. The gemara cites the verse: “Im Ehskachech,” “If I forget thee Jerusalem,” and asks what is “rosh simchati,” the “peak of my joy?” The rabbis answer that it means to commemorate the destruction by putting ashes on the chattan’s head, similar to the custom I’ll observe of breaking a glass to end the ceremony.

The gemara continues, “Tanya Amar Rav Yishmael ben Elisha: Me’yom she’charav bet hamikdash din hu shenigzor she’lo le’echol basar v’lo lishtot yayin.” After the Churban, we ought to have decreed not to eat meat or drink wine – indeed Ilana might have preferred this. But we do not promulgate decrees that the majority of the community cannot endure. The gemara then extends this logic of zekher l’mikdash ad absurdum, “Din hu shenigzor al atzmenu she lo lisa isha u’le’holid banim.” Perhaps we should not marry or have children – a ban I’ve scrupulously heeded these past thirty years. But were that logic to obtain, the perek concludes, “Nimtza zar’o shel Avraham Avinu kalah m’elav.” In their piety to mourn catastrophe, the progeny of Abraham would extirpate themselves.

The chapter ends with the poignant question, Where do we find an appropriate balance between hope and mourning? Strikingly, chazal consider marriage a natural place to commemorate destruction. The pairing seems counterintuitive: Institutionalizing zekher l’mikdash in the wedding ceremony is like inserting a piece of Eicha, the book of Lamentation, into the romantic poetry of Shir Hashirim, the Tanakh’s great love song. The gemara cautions Lo l’hitabel kol ikar, not to take remembrance too far lest we imperil the Jewish future for the sake of Jewish memory. Why pause, then, at the crest of all our hopes and dreams to mourn the inevitable sting of loss, grief, and absence?

I’d argue that this bundle of emotions encapsulates the central contradictions and challenges of Judaism that Ilana and I embrace today. On the day of our highest bliss, we attach ourselves to the destinies of the Jewish people, our families, and loves ones with all the associated tragedy and triumph. As people of language, Ilana and I see this written into our foundational texts. Indeed, if we look closely at Tanakh, we’ll discover traces of Eicha’s rupture in Shir Hashirim’s raptures. A verse at the beginning of Shir Hashirim reads, “Hagida li she’ahava nafshi, EICHA tir’e, EICHA tarbitz b’tzohariym.” “Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze and where you rest.” The interrogatory terms, the questions asking where the beloved wanders, are EICHA, a jarring echo of Megilat Eicha’s mournful lament. Why insert this loaded term of eicha into the bible’s happiest and most romantic book? As we stand here today side-by-side on the brink of marriage, enraptured, encircled by the faces of all those we love, our sentiment is one of utter bewilderment. We are people of words, but we lack the language to describe our emotions right now. That is EICHA. Dumbstruck astonishment. How can it be? That bewilderment can be one of hope or despair. Our prayer is that we may know many more moments of joy than grief over our future together.

There is one other meaning of Eicha. It also means, “where are you?”, as in “Where does my beloved wander today?” It is not by accident that the first time God calls to man it is with the question “Ayeka,” “Where are you” from the word Eicha. Where are you, my beloved? Ilana, how often have we asked that distressing and baffling question over the years? As with any question, it begs for knowledge that lies outside oneself, for an answer that another person must complete. Today, after years of searching, I know with perfect faith that you, Ilana, are the answer to every question I could possibly ask.

If Judaism is about redeeming what Rabbi Soloveitchik calls the exasperating and desolate feeling of loneliness, then marriage, with its purpose of a life lived together in fellowship, love, and learning is the counterweight, the balanced zekher to the years of searching and solitude. Ilana, our search of Ayeka was a long one, but it could not have ended more magically. With one eye to a Jerusalem redeemed and another to you, Ilana, I close with another question from the many the lovers pose in Shir Hashirim: Mi Zot Ola Min Hamidbar? Who is that rising from the desert? I cannot wait to see the glow on your face as you come through the doors in a few minutes and to see you rise every day for the rest of our lives. Lecha dodi likrat kalah. Let us now rejoice. I love you. Mazal tov and thank you all for coming.