Excessive Weddings

It has been part of my life as a rabbi to attend weddings; more often than not to “perform.”

I reckon over the course of my working life I have attended a hundred weddings of various sizes, styles, numbers and traditions. Some of course I have enjoyed more than others, and not a few have been the occasion of as much conflict, anger and dispute as happiness, love and delight. But I am finding it increasingly hard to feel comfortable about many of the religious weddings I have attended.

They are getting more and more protracted. I thought it was only Persians who called you for five, arrived at eight and started at nine thirty. The last Ashkenazi wedding I attended was called for six, ran a smorgasbord till nine and started at ten. You can now assume it takes half an hour for the procession into the Chupah. A wedding I once attended was so overcrowded with jostling relatives under the Chupah that the father of the bride couldn’t get close enough to give his son-in-law a sip of the cup of wine.

One band plays for the reception, another for the Chupa, a third for Hassidic or Israeli dances, a fourth for ballroom dancing and a fifth for a disco. One singer is for Ashkenazi cantorial style, one for Hassidic pop, one for Sephardi tunes and another for Carlebach.  As for food, a loaded reception is offered as people arrive, and sushi is a must, another after the Chupah before dinner, there will be a full main meal, Midnight refreshers and if there’s a Hassidic Mitzvah dance at the end you’ll get a complete breakfast too.

It is fashionable in the Diaspora, to fly in Rosh Yeshivahs from Israel, distinguished Rebbes, Rabbis. An oligarch recently hired an airliner to ferry over musicians, artistes and security alone.  Consider the millions being spent each year on religious weddings. And then consider how much charitable and educational work could be accomplished instead of a one-night bash that disappears into photo albums a few hours after it is over, to be glanced at perhaps once a year thereafter. The cost, the waste, it’s mind-blowing.

Successful businessmen have to invite business contacts, flaunt their success to attract new capital and invite gaggles of rabbis to prove their religious status and legitimacy. It is not just spoiled daughters who clamour for excess, it’s insecure magnates too.

Over the past fifty years of rising Jewish affluence as well as continuing Jewish poverty, to my knowledge, many religious leaders of all denominations have tried hard to limit excessive expenditure on weddings, to absolutely no avail. Desperate parents have offered apartments and cars instead of huge weddings to their children, but daughters have stood firm for their right to a fancy Disney World white wedding. Occasionally, you hear of a couple who elope to Israel for a quickie or just take a rabbi and two witnesses into Central Park. But the pressures are so great that in most Jewish circles it is simply not an option.

Recently, I entertained a relatively humble Rosh Yeshiva from Israel with ten children who has personal debts of $500,000 because of marrying off his five daughters.  It was not just the cost of the wedding itself or the seven mini celebrations, the Sheva Brachot, during the following seven days. It was the need to buy an apartment for each that left him staggering under such a heavy load of debt, including a down payment and loans. And at the same time, he must help support his five sons, who are also married but studying full-time. This is not atypical. A rented apartment is unacceptable nowadays. And the chances of someone with no serious secular education getting a good job are massively reduced in Israeli society, indeed in any society nowadays. Some families can support indolent, sponging trust-fund parasites.

I used to think that the number of wealthy families who can continue to be so generous and do this is shrinking because the open hands increase exponentially in each generation, without any new infusion of money earners. At the same time, the culture of permanent lifetime study as the norm for adult Charedi men is reaching the point where either poverty or social dislocation will produce disaffection and even violence, as it invariably does, regardless of religion. And yet, to my surprise, the number of families who can do all this seems to be rising.

Judaism is expanding because many families are blessed with many children. And it is true that Social Welfare (incidentally, a product of the secular culture they despise) enables this mindset. But eventually, at some point, social welfare will have to be cut back as fewer enter the workplace to fund this all with their taxes.

For our own good as a people, we must call a halt to throwing so much money away on pure self-indulgence. If we care for our future, we must give as much attention to supporting Jewish education as we do to Jewish reproduction. And the place to start is weddings. Make your calculations. Then set budgets, be realistic and divide the sum evenly between our needs and those of others.

It is a huge mitzvah to rejoice at weddings and to help couples get married.  Every day in our prayers, we are reminded how important Hachnasat Kala, helping a bride get married, is, but that doesn’t mean we should go overboard. There should be limits.

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen lives in New York. He was born in Manchester. His writings are concerned with religion, culture, history and current affairs – anything he finds interesting or relevant. They are designed to entertain and to stimulate. Disagreement is always welcome.