Three Quick Stories
1. The Song
In my first two decades in Denver, there were three rabbis who led Orthodox synagogues. Two of them would serve congregations in the city for five decades and the third for three. I had the privilege of doing numerous weddings with each of them. On this one occasion, the daughter of Temple members was to wed the son of members of the largest traditional shul (now a Conservative congregation) on the west side, the Hebrew Educational Alliance (HEA). It’s then beloved rabbi was Manual Laderman. One of two Orthodox synagogues on the east side of Denver was Beth Joseph Congregation. It’s also beloved rabbi was Daniel Goldberger. The groom was the son of a cantor who had once served at HEA, which is where the wedding was to be held ... as Temple Sinai had no sanctuary at the time .
We three rabbis walked down the aisle together. The groom escorted by his parents came in next. Parents sat in the front row; the groom came under the chupah. A seemingly endless number of bridesmaids and groomsmen came in as couples and distributed themselves along the front of the bimah. One of the couples, the best man and maid of honor, came under the chupah. At last, the beautiful bride stood between her parents at the back row of the sanctuary, and before they took another step forward, the groom walked to the edge of the raised bimah, and began to sing ... a love song, in Hebrew to his beloved. It took my breath away. His tenor voice was strong and gorgeous. It was a total surprise to almost all of the guests that he planned to do this or that he could do this and so incredibly well.
I have heard love songs sung at weddings before and since, but never as a surprise like that, and never as stunningly beautiful, and never by the groom. Is it any wonder then, that the newly wed singer would soon become the next cantor of the HEA, and one who would go on to serve in all three orthodox synagogues during a long and illustrative career?
2. The Dance
The family was one of our founding members. Simply delightful people, there were four children, three sons and the youngest a daughter. At age six, she was easily the best athlete in a neighborhood of many six-year-old boys. At age ten, she was still the first person chosen to be on one side in any sport. She was funny, cute as can be, adorable. Her parents were in the food business and her father loved to act. He starred in many of our Temple’s annual theatrical productions such as, “Guys & Dolls,” “Little Me,” “Damn Yankees,” and so forth.
Her wedding was held at a local mansion long devoid of residents, and now a private club available for private functions. It was a lovely facility, with an enclosed outdoor space for large gatherings.
The groom was from out of state, a medical resident just months away from going into private practice. I met with him and then with them together a few times before the ceremony. I could not have been happier for the young lady. She had grown up just a few houses away from us, and we had shared largely in her early years.
To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. This was a well-known and well loved family. They were informal and funny and entertaining. So, as I stood with the groom under the chupah that lovely evening and watched as the processional unfolded, I whispered to the groom. “Should I expect the unexpected here?”
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders, “I have a suspicion of something, but no idea of just what.”
The bride’s mother came in on the arm of one of her sons and sat in the front row with the rest of the family. And there stood the bride at the back of the open space in a beautiful white gown holding onto the arm of her tuxedo-garbed father. Ah, I thought, good. Standard operating procedure. But I thought that too soon. As they passed the back row heading down the aisle, they each took from a chair on each side of the aisle, top hats and black canes, and as music suddenly blared forth from a boom box, they proceeded down the aisle to the tune of “Let Me Entertain You,” with words like “let me have this wedding, right here with this crowd ....” Of course, the entire march down the aisle was tightly choreographed, the hats doffed and the canes swirled in perfect precision. A few dance steps, a twirl, synchronized bows and turns, and as the guests stood to welcome the bride, they began clapping in time with the song and humming along.
When we think of weddings, the words holy, solemn, serious, loving, comportment, norms, tradition, words of that ilk, come to mind. This was not about solemnity; this was about wedding as joy, marriage as fun, relationship as a hoot, and this ceremony as a reason to lighten up — ritual as celebration. It was as if to say, Oh, we’ll say the words and perform the rites and create a Jewish home, don’t worry about all that, but we’re going to do it with as much joy as we can muster and as many smiles as we can generate in the years ahead. And, so far as I know, they have.
3. The Tisch
My assistant, after his first year in Denver, became engaged to a lovely young woman. They planned to have their wedding at the Temple to which he and his family had belonged for ages. It was a large west coast congregation whose senior rabbi was a classmate and dear friend of mine. The groom invited Rikki and me to attend and asked me to co-officiate at the wedding with his family’s rabbi. It was an honor and a great pleasure to do so. Besides that singular delight, we would also be able to spent time with old friends, and we also had family in the city, which made for multiple joyous expectations. The wedding was set for a Sunday afternoon in June, at 5:00pm. Since rabbis know rabbis, there were to be quite a few colleagues from hither and yon in attendance.
About an hour or so prior to the ceremony, the fathers of bride and groom, best man and groomsmen, a dozen or so rabbis including us – the two officiants, gathered in the massive, newly remodeled and refurbished office of the Temple’s senior rabbi. His pride and joy was a huge oval conference table that seated 20 or so people. The table top was highly polished and reddish in color, a beautiful, masterfully crafted piece of art. It was gorgeous and its new owner was very protective of it. The small drinking glasses set in front of each seat were carefully centered on wide cork coasters. Several bottles of scotch and vodka in the middle of the table were on protective pads and a dripless pouring spout was affixed on each. Clearly, this was the table’s maiden voyage. We were the very first group to use it.
The occasion was the pre-nuptial Tisch. It is an old tradition that a few hours before the wedding ceremony, the groom gathers his male friends, family, and officiants together to teach them an original insight or so from the Torah sedra of the wedding week. It is his task to take this very seriously, but it is the attendees’ task to interrupt his drash (teaching), with singing and with spontaneous quick toasts of well-wishes for the couple to be. The groom’s assembled guests drink small sips with each interruption or toast, but the groom did not partake, of course, as he must be cold sober at the wedding ceremony. A well done Tisch can last an hour with questions asked, and laughter, and lots of friendly interchanges.
This Tisch was very lively and well done. The groom managed to made a few good points, some unique insights even, despite the spirited interruptions. Everyone around the table behaved by setting glasses back down on their coasters and not pounding fists or slapping hands on the beautiful table. The liquor was poured (in symbolic amounts) without spilling, and my dear colleague — the senior rabbi, was beginning to relax after many minutes in tense readiness to rescue the table from a wayward drop or incident. He moved the stack of towels from the floor next to his feet to his desk a few steps away. The groom now called upon the fathers to offer toasts. Their talks were most appropriate and nicely done. He then introduced several groomsmen, each of whom offered mini-roasts having been his classmates or past roommates.
Last, he introduced his best friend and best man, who was now the rabbi of an eastern congregation. That rabbi’s glass was empty, and so while he was being introduced, he got up, reached across the table, took the vodka bottle, and poured a few drops into his glass. Holding his glass, he put the bottle down on that coaster, and sat. The groom concluded his rather lengthy introduction of his best man with the words, “We all know that this is my dearest friend and has been so since childhood. We are like brothers from different parents, and I love him. But if he has one fault it is this ... he is the clumsiest person in the world!”
With that, the best man, mockingly aghast, yelled, “I am not,” and as he rose from his chair, he swung his free hand in protest, knocking the vodka bottle spinning across the table and taking out three or four partially filled glasses as if they were a grouping of ten pins, sending them into tuxedo clad laps and onto the brand new floor carpeting. Needless to say, glass and bottle contents spilled across a huge swath of the table.
“My god, the vodka will destroy the finish,” the senior rabbi cried as he dove toward for the widening spillage towels in hand.
“My pants are ruined,” another shouted as he grabbed a bunch of Kleenex from a box on the rabbi’s new desk and blotted frantically.
“Damn, my shirt is soaked ...”
“Just be glad you’re wearing a bow tie!”
“Think I can cover this with my cummerbund?”
“Lucky it wasn’t red Kool-Aid.”
For the 20 of us it was easily the funniest moment in the history of Tisches. As the wiping and brushing and expletives went on, the rest of the assembled were doubled over in now perpetuating laughter. In retrospect, even the table’s rabbi / protector was hysterical as he threw towel after towel in on the 100 proof flow.
We were rehearsing the scene with wives and mothers as we joined them for the Bedeken (veiling the bride) ceremony immediately afterward. Even as we assembled for the processional, the entire male contingency, many of whom were still trying to hide wet spots on shirts and pants, was still chuckling trying to stifle the image of that ironic “I am not” moment. As for the groom and the best man? Actually, they were still laughing the hardest.
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I think we were at that lovely wedding, but sadly must have been with the bride, and missed that hysterically funny moment at the tisch!