Spiritual Reverence

Friday evening, I officiated Jess and Daniel’s wedding ceremony at Event1013 in Plano, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

One of the things that struck me about Jess and Daniel, from the first moment I met them, is that they are very spiritual people. As Daniel says, “I’m still on this spiritual journey of faith.” This journey has been nourished by their relationship. As Jess says, “When I met Daniel his love for God shined so bright. And I started knowing God through my relationship with Daniel.” In that context, Daniel’s framing of the genesis of as well as the ongoing aspects of their relationship is instructive. “Meeting Jess has been a blessing. I’m excited to see where our path will take us,” he says.

There is something profound in the second half of that statement. You see, in marriage we affirm that not only does the I of today love the you of today, but that my love of you and my knowledge of you makes me confident enough to state that the I of tomorrow will love the you of tomorrow just as deeply. In marriage we affirm that though we cannot predict the future, our love will remain, and the blessing shall endure. 

This is just one of the reasons the Ancient Rabbis saw God’s work in this process. They arrived at this through asking a question: In the Bible, God is extremely busy in a very visible way. He’s creating the world and striking the Egyptians with plagues. He’s parting the Red Sea first and the River Jordan next. He’s raining fire on Elijah’s altar, and saving his servant, Daniel, from the lions. He doesn’t really do any of that flashy stuff anymore. What has he been doing with his time, ask the Rabbis?

They tell us that he spends most of his time playing matchmaker, helping soulmates, like Jess and Daniel, find each other, so they may fall in love, build relationships together, and marry.

The timing of Jess and Daniel’s wedding follows a meaningful spiritual tradition too. Jews in the Russian Empire were confined to a specific area called the Pale of Settlement. They lived in the shtetls, small villages, immortalized in Fiddler on the Roof. They could not own land and were confined to mostly low-paying professions, which kept many of them in perpetual poverty, if not outright serfdom.

It was, therefore, not uncommon to marry on Friday afternoon, so the usual festive Friday night Sabbath meal could double as the festive meal that accompanies a wedding. This is what we might call today a money saving hack.

There was and is, however, something very spiritually appropriate about this timing too. In fact, every Friday night, Jews the world over greet the Sabbath as a bride, with these words of a medieval mystical poem, “Come my friend, toward the bride; let us greet the Sabbath.” Indeed, The Sabbath enriches and restores a person’s soul, as does marriage, and marriage gives us a taste of paradise, as does the Sabbath.

Jess and Daniel, what we wish for you is that the same spiritual reverence with which you enter your marriage and enter tonight’s Sabbath remain with you, that it continue to enrich your souls and that through it you receive your own taste of paradise.