If you’ve ever been to a Jewish wedding, one of the ceremonies they have is the breaking of the glass. Aptly named because they, well… break a glass, usually a glass cup. There are many explanations for why the glass is broken and Rabbi Jacques does a very good job explaining it.
The next to last thing we do at a traditional Jewish wedding is to break something of glass. There are many explanations of why we do that. Most of them are quite depressing. They have to do with the temple in Jerusalem being destroyed… actually, that story is meant to teach you temperance.
There’s a story in the Talmud that this very wealthy rabbi’s daughter is getting married and he took this big, fancy piece of crystal and trashed it. And they said, “Why did you do that?”
They used to have week-long parties and in the middle of it, he broke it and he said, “Why? Because we should remember that the temple is destroyed. And why? To teach you temperance. That in the moment of great joy, you remember something sad so that when bad things happen, you know good things will come down the road.”
But I find that, personally, fairly depressing.
Perhaps, far more depressing, is that my brother, who is a rabbi in the land of our ancestors… south Florida, says that this symbolizes the last time you’re going to set your foot down. And yet I have seen you in action and I know that was some point around December 1999.
So I would like to leave you with an explanation that rather than being depressing is uplifting.
Here we have a glass that is one and whole. By its very nature, if you leave it alone, it will continue one and whole forever. But once you do something to it, you step on it, you radically change the nature of the glass. It becomes something it wasn’t before. It can never go back to be what it was.
So we hope that we have put together here today will never be destroyed. That we have done here has radically changed your nature.
For that to occur, you also have to remember that your relationship is like the glass: it’s fragile. You need to look after it every day and never slack off. Look after it as you would very fine crystal.
So now, two things. First of all, to all of you, the Hebrew word of the day is “Mazel Tov.” Mazel tov means congratulations. So when he steps on it, you say, “Mazel Tov.”
And for you, Chris, it’s very very very bad luck to step on the rabbi’s hand… it’s bad luck for me. So allow me to remove my hand first, okay?
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