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Recently, my good friend Karmel Melamed wrote an article about an epidemic of sorts that has spread in our community -- extravagantly large and elaborate weddings. As Karmel says, there is "a growing number of young Iranian Jewish professionals who, due to family pressure, are incurring large debts to pay for lavish weddings." Personally, I believe this is only part of the problem, with the root cause being something much larger; a problem that affects other aspects of our lives as well.
As we all know, the weeks and months preceding any wedding are hectic and extremely stressful, but all too often the wedding hosts find themselves caught up worrying about and focusing on the guests instead of ensuring the joy of the bride and groom. The most common concerns in the days leading up to the wedding day have become, "What if we do not invite this person?", "What if this person sits over there?", "What will they think if we don't bring this singer?" You don’t have to attend many weddings to realize that so much time and money has been spent to please the guests rather than the true stars of the evening.
When did the wedding go from being an event for the bride and groom into a party for the guests? Did you know that we actually have a Jewish Law1 that states that we, as Jews, have a religious obligation to make the bride and groom joyous during their wedding? In fact the Talmud tells us2 of the wrongs committed by someone who "benefits from the banquet of a bridegroom and does not bring him joy." Conversely, we are told that if one does "bring joy [to a wedding] it is as if he has brought an offering in the Holy Temple!" It is clear from here that this a very serious Mitzvah that should not be taken lightly. Just like we have an obligation to give Tzedaka to the poor and visit the sick, we have a religious and moral duty to do what we can in order to make the couple as joyous as possible.
This level of simple piety is a far cry from what we observe at many of the weddings in our community, where the hosts are often times observed constantly. In addition, they are obsessively worrying what the guests will think and say to others after the day of the wedding. A stark contrast to these 'guest-centered' weddings can be seen at more traditional Jewish weddings. In such a wedding, the majority of the dancing revolves around the bride and groom, where every guest tries to perform the most entertaining and exciting dance moves, all for the delight of the newlyweds. In Ashkenazi weddings, it has become a custom for guests to wear entertaining costumes and perform tricks, such as juggling, break dancing, and fire eating, all in front of the bride and groom! To drive the point even more, there are even religious organizations dedicated to sending out volunteer ‘dancers’ to weddings where, for whatever reason, there are not as many guests to fill the dance floor. Their sole purpose is to simply give the bride and groom as much joy as possible. Now I ask you: if complete strangers are willing to make the bride and groom happy, how much more so should we feel that level of responsibility when attending the wedding of a family member or friend?! It does not take a beard and black hat, or a hair covering and long skirt, to realize the importance of this most important value of selflessly focusing on the newlyweds, rather than selfishly focusing on ourselves.
How many times have you heard of someone creating a fit because their seat was not in such an honorable place? And not only that, instead of keeping it to themselves, they may even have the audacity to complain to the hosts! Even worse, I was once shocked when I overheard someone complaining to the host during the party that the food was better at another wedding. You can even notice this self-absorbed mentality more subtly, where it is all too common to find guests, invited or not, who clearly attended the wedding for their own self-seeking pleasure with total disregard for the newlyweds, as if they have come to some random night club or bar. The saddest of them all was when, I had to console a newly married friend who felt that he had just made at least 20 enemies, all because some of his selfish guests were bothered about where they sat, or some distant family were offended that they didn't get an invitation. And the story goes on, since we want to be accepted in the community, we try harder and harder to cater to the guests' selfish drive and make sure it the most upscale, exciting and enjoyable wedding that they have ever attended.
In my opinion, it is exactly with this totally misguided focus and attention, among others, that produces the issue at hand, namely forced expensive weddings. When we as a communty lose sight of what is really important, the family is pressured from all sides to invite and impress so many people that the costs become overwhelming. So much so that it is all too common to find newly married couples forced to go into debt to finance a ‘socially acceptable’ wedding. Now tell me, which sane couple would willfully start off there new lives in debt? Instead of starting a life full of hope and with a positive outlook on their future, they don't even get to start their new lives with nothing, they start off even worse … literally less than zero!!!
It should be said that I am not advocating for a ban on expensive weddings (which is probably the most effective way to solve this epidemic). After all, what if a couple is wealthy and can afford to have an expensive, elaborate wedding, or better yet, what if they do not have the proper means for such a party, and yet they still desire it for themselves?
To answer this question, like all such questions, we have to analyze the goals and intentions, and clearly know the purpose of our actions. If they are purely motivated for the joy and happiness of the new couple, and in reality it is what the bride and groom truly want, then of course, party away. But if we feel forced to spend extravagantly on a wedding that we don’t want with people we do not even know, we will have to learn to start standing up for ourselves. The tragic truth is that unfortunately the older generation in the U.S. is so severely plagued by honor and materialism that I think it’s too late to change their flawed mentalities. It is up to us, the newer generation, to change this tarouf infested, judgmental, and honor-seeking society that we were born into. The responsibility of analyzing our intentions should not be left solely for the hosts, but for the guests as well. When we don’t get invited to a wedding and feel disappointed, is our source of negativity because we truly love them and we want so badly to be there for their joyous occasion? Or is it because we expected to be invited and our pride has been hurt? Because, if it is the former, and we really do love them, then we should still be happy. Why you ask? Because there is a reason we weren’t invited -- the wedding hall might be too small or maybe they desired a smaller, cozier wedding, and if we actually do love them so much, we wouldn’t want to hurt them by going against their wishes. Interestingly enough, the natural thing for us to do would be not to invite them to our next party. So ultimately our test of friendship will reach us when it is our turn to invite them to our joyous occasion; will we willfully invite them? Or will we find ourselves slaves to our bruised egos and pursue that sweet taste of revenge by not inviting them? In brief, my message to our community is that next time we help plan, attend or hear about an upcoming wedding, let us make sure that we do what we can to act with as much respect to the couple by attending it with excitement and joy for their sake and not ours. We should make sure to only be positive-- whether the flowers cost $150,000 or cost nothing, or if we are seated right in the front, or we have no seat at all. We must realize that the wedding is for them and not for us, because it is all too easy for us to fall victim to our drives for pride and honor that so commonly causes the corruption of our values. It is no wonder that our Sages warn us that "self-satisfaction and honor remove man from this world"3. In our case it would be the removal from the purpose of the worldly matters regarding the wedding-- An event that by definition is designated for the joy of two individuals that all-too-common is hi-jacked and turned into a circus where the attendees are the focus and purpose of the entertainment, instead of the bride and groom.
Whether we are involved with planning a wedding or simply attending, let us do our part to help guard against the extinguishing of the spark of the newly formed couple and work towards adding fuel to the flame that will hopefully unite their souls for eternity. 1 Ben Ish Chai, Year 1, Shoftim:18
2 Berachot 6b
3 Pirke Avot 4:23 |
