In 2002 while the intifada was raging, Josh felt the pull to come to Israel on a one-man mission. He spent time with a number of our friends, helped in his small way with the tourism economy, and showed people that he cared.
He also attended the wedding of the brother of our close friend.
It was the first Israeli wedding he had ever attended, and he called me in tears.
“Romi, you can’t understand it until you are here, but this is why we need to move. The energy, passion, and unadulterated joy is like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
He tried to explain to me that the Israeli wedding is the embodiment of the Israeli spirit, and the ingathering of cultures; that it showed him just how much we are missing out on by living elsewhere.
Through the years, as we’ve attended many weddings here, I’ve been able to understand exactly what he meant.
Weddings in Israel have fewer frills and less pomp and circumstance than they do in other places. There are very few chairs set up at the chuppah, as most people stand, dance and sing along with the ceremony. People come in all manner of clothing from the fancier (almost never the fanciest) to the jeans-and-slightly-nice-shirt look. And no one cares, because the event is about making the bride and groom happy and celebrating the joy together.
After October 7th, the weddings have taken a slightly different turn and meaning for many. There have been the middle-of-fighting weddings that were required by law and safety regulations to be smaller. Right after the 7th, our friends’ wedding plans were seriously truncated and many of us from the Yishuv came to sing and dance outside their home and to bring great joy to them as they left for their small ceremony. We hugged the bride’s brother, injured just the week before while fighting in the south.
Each wedding since then has carried its own weight; its own incredible juxtaposition of joy edged with longing, with sorrow. Our weddings include a bracha (blessing) for the safety of our soldiers and for the recovery of our wounded. This blessing is often said by a parent who has lost their child in battle. Many couples recite the names of those they have personally lost, remembering and holding their great sorrow at the ultimate moment of their great joy. Josh and I have both remarked at many of these weddings that we feel the ghosts, the neshamot (souls), in the room embracing their friends and dancing alongside them.
I have left my tears all across this beautiful country since October 7th, and this has been particularly true at weddings. There is an idea that your prayers are more powerful while a couple is getting married, while under the chuppah creating a new union. I have used this time to cry to Hashem; to ask for mercy on my beautiful boys while they were in battle; to ask that they should be given the opportunity to reach this milestone and find the right person with whom to share their long life; to ask for the speedy recovery of those injured and the mental and physical strength for those in mourning; to ask for the return of our hostages and the strength for our soldiers battling every day; to ask that the neshamot (souls) of those we loved and lost be allowed to rest and that they should always be remembered.
We mark 22 years in Israel today. 22 years of Aliyah; of choosing, despite all of the obstacles and all of the distance from family, to plant our feet and our lives on our people’s soil.
I’ve had many milestones along the way where people have said, “Oh, now you’re really Israeli.”
Soon, please Gd, I believe that day will come true as we will be privileged to stand under the chuppah as our oldest son gets married.
24 years after that phone call from Josh, after the expression of desire to be part of the Jewish people, on our soil, at our weddings, we will make our very first wedding. We will be part of the ingathering of cultures, of the miracle that is the modern Israeli wedding, of the blessing that we have to witness the creation of a new family unit and the extension of ours.
And with this milestone, I believe we will have fulfilled the vision that Josh expressed so very long ago. We arrived with two little boys who have carved such strong, Zionistic, loving, thriving lives for themselves in our ancient land. May the hopes that we had when Josh went to his first Israeli wedding, and later when we stepped onto that Aliyah flight, be woven into our family’s future; may we, and all of the nation, have the privilege to bring each of our children to the chuppah and to share in the great joy of building the future of our people through raucous joy, memory and hope.
