Greg's Wedding Journal 2

The wedding has come and gone, but we are still flying - I don't really know if any photo's or words can possibly describe to anyone who was or wasn't there what we felt, but I will try and we'll see what happens. The last time I wrote was a very hurried update on the ufruf and the t'naim which all happened over the Shabbat before the wedding. Well, after Saturday night, Andi and I separated so that we would only see each other the day of the wedding. I stayed with Marc and Andi lived with friends in Jerusalem, the women who would help her in preparing. We still had so much to do - besides trying to take time out to mentally prepare for the day, there were still lists and lists of last minute things: dress, clothes for me, who would do what when at the wedding, music, video, photo's , pay this person and that, what about table plans or serviettes - and we hadn't factored in the beautiful distractions of the arrival of guests from abroad, family and friends there for the wedding, who all needed greeting and feeding and lodging - wow, this was a major operation!!! I had some of my oldest and dearest friends out from South Africa and London, family from both those places, Andi had her family over from Budapest as well as friends and family from all around Israel coming to Jerusalem to see her. And then there was the not-so-simple matter of how do we arrange things if we can't see each other? So we set up times in my flat in Alfasi St. that would be either hers or mine and we left long notes on the computer for each other. This nearly ended in disaster when I left the flat on Monday late with Marc as my shomer (guard) and unbeknown to us, Andi was walking up the street in the other direction. We were whizzing along on our bikes when Marc, who was just a bit ahead, yells, "Greg - turn off, turn off, Andi!!" Luckily I managed to dodge up a cross-street before we actually saw each other - you know, I thought this whole thing was a bit stupid until the actual moment when I saw her at the bedeken (more later) and realised how much more powerful that moment was for not having seen her before - it was shuddering, magical, breathtaking-awaying, like…well, like nothing I've ever experienced really…mmm. Remember what I said about no words.

So that was the madness of the days leading up to the wedding - made more stressful by Marc and my idea to go off to Tel Aviv for the morning on Monday to find clothes for me. The plan was to zoom over in the morning, hit Shenkin, the bohemian fashion street, buy clothes, dunk in the sea and zoom back. Well, it all went horribly wrong from the moment we got on the bus - p'kak, which means "traffic jam". All the way, so we took twice as long getting there and then foolishly we decided to take someone's advice who said, "Don't go to Shenkin, you could go to the shopping mall and save time, there are hundreds of shops there." Well, there were, but hundreds that had clothes we didn't want, and it took us about 3 hours of mindless mall wandering to realise - arrghhh, it's a commercial trap, a capitalist plot! We're caught in their mind-zapping beam, must escape, must run, hrrmmm.

Anyway, after a bite to eat at Yotvata restored us to our wits, we caught a cab to Shenkin and soon did much the same thing - wandered up and down the street looking at shops. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after much of the day wasted we had succeeded in buying a pair of trousers and shorts for me, a nice shirt for Marc which he didn't want to wear for the wedding, and we had got into a huff over who would wear what and how long it was all taking and it was hot, and we didn't have time, and….SO we ended up humbly slinking onto the bus back to Jerusalem with our tails between our legs, humiliated by the power of the mall, and still without a shirt for Greg! Help! Andi was having dress re-designing nightmares, Marc had been given the whole "to-do" list of the wedding which up until now was both of ours, and was told "to do!" and all in all it was a whirlwind of balagan (chaos).

Tuesday we had all the family and friends over at the yeshivah and together we went through the wedding service, what we were doing, what was traditional and what we had made our own, so that everyone would understand what was going on on the day - I had been working with Andi on a booklet which explained the service, and we just managed to finish this on Tuesday morning and get it to the printer so that it would be ready the next day!! Marc had ordered special benschers (grace after meal booklets) which were ready too, and we looked in good shape.

But what about the clothes?! Patience, savlanut, it's coming…Tuesday night which was Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the beginning of the month and the new moon, Andi had organised for some of her closest women friends and family to meet at Elaine (a friend of ours') apartment, for a woman's ritual. Since I was not invited, I can only give you second hand reports of what went on, but they included her mikvah (ritual bath), a henna ceremony, lots of singing and dancing, and the stringing of a necklace with each bead given by one of the women accompanied by a poem or blessing. If you want to know more, ask Andi or any of the great women who were there. On the men's side, we decided to walk down to Lifta, which is an abandoned Arab village which was deserted in 1948 at the start of the War of Independence and has remained as an eery reminder that Israel is a land of two peoples - houses stand as they were left on the sides of a beautiful valley just outside Jerusalem.

At the bottom is a natural spring which we were to use as the men's mikvah. We walked down together from the road, me and my brother and father and some single and married male friends of mine, and at the bottom we sat together and I asked the men to give me advice or wishes - it as amazing to hear what the married men had gained from their experience and what the single men wished - really moving. And then we stripped off and jumped into the pool which was really cold, but all the more purifying for it. I felt like the moment I hit those waters all the running and doing and stressing of the build-up to the wedding washed off me. It was really then, as I stood up to towel off, that I felt like I was ready to get married. A real sense of calm and tiredness descended on me, and for the first time in weeks I was ready for sleep.

But what about the clothes? So the next day, wedding day, I had decided that since it was Rosh Chodesh and in honour of Rosh Chodesh the bride and groom are not supposed to take on the regular fast, I would undertake a ta'anit dibbur, a fast of words. I would only speak words of Torah or when absolutely necessary. I had also decided to have a family conference in keeping with the idea that the wedding day is like Yom Kippur and I wanted to make sure that there were no outstanding pains that needed to be discussed before the wedding. So our family all gathered, the five of us, at my parents' apartment, and one by one we had time to speak in a separate room (for this I lifted my fast) about anything and everything that we wanted - it was truly beautiful, a moving reconnection with each and every member of the family, and I will remember that as one of the highlights of my wedding. It really set me up spiritually for what was to come.

But what about the clothes? SO from my parents' apartment I jumped on my bicycle, rushed to the centre of town to a kippah shop, still without speaking, bought two new white kippot, then rushed to a clothes shop and bought a shirt, then rushed home, ran to our local mikveh, jumped in a shower, got dressed, jumped on my bike again and zoomed over to Hebrew Union College, where….

I think this is enough for now, I'm exhausted writing, so let's cut there and I'll pick up the tale after Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom to all, especially those who had a hand in this wedding, your hands held us up, without you we would have stumbled…Shabbat Shalom

L'shalom
Greg