Seven Circles

From Ritual well
Seven times encircling my beloved
Beneath this fragrant canopy, our home
The seven circles of my love for thee
The seven blessings of our wedding day.

Seven are our vows today, my love
Seven the days of the week
And the Sabbath is the seventh day
The Holy Bride, the Sabbath Queen.

The first circle is chesed
I circle thee with lovingkindness

The second circle is gevurah
I bless thee with strength


The third circle is tiferet
May harmony rule in our home

The fourth circle is netzach
The circle of victory
May goodness triumph always.

The fifth circle is hod
The shining radiance of God's glory
Reflected on our faces today
On our wedding day

The sixth circle is yesod
The firm foundation
May the bedrock of our love and faith
Sustain us come what may


The seventh circle is malchut
The sphere of Kingship
Today I am your Sabbath Queen

Yasis Alayich Elohayich
Kimsos Chatan Al Kallah
Thy God shall rejoice in thee
As a Bridegroom rejoices
In his Bride
Ve'erastich li
I shall bind you to me
Be'emunah – in faith
Be 'chesed – in lovingkindness
Uv'rachaimim – and in compassion

With this dance
I thee wed.

And from Forever Huppah and the talented Rachel Eisen Bressler four beautiful, beautiful (consider it done seven times over) chuppot!

The tallit that binds

It is very common among traditional Jews to use a tallit for the chuppah... but I love what Chai Chuppah has done with THEIR tallit chuppah.



When you both marry for a second time, and you and your groom bring five children together in a new family, it's tricky to figure out how to include them all in your ceremony. This chuppah is made of interwoven tallitot, belonging to various members of the new family. We carefully basted them to a background of see-through netting, so that none of the tallitot would be harmed and so that the chuppah could be taken apart after the wedding and the tallitot returned to their owners.

Can't you imagine buying new tallit for the children brought together for this union and having them sewn together bringing individuals together into a family!

Shabbat Shalom (oh! and by the way, I am moving in to my new home today).

From Campers to Couples

(From an article from the Jewish Federation of Danbury, CT.)

Jewish summer camps teach the value of communal involvement and foster the development of Jewish community leadership.
Huge numbers of community leaders and Jewish service professionals point to their summer camp experiences as an essential
part of their Jewish development.
All this, and fun, too!
The importance of the social scene can’t be underestimated, either. There are a surprising number of Jewish couples in the U.S. who met their spouses for the first time when they were children at camp. Teenagers get their first taste of romance and dating in summer camp—with a Jewish partner. Not a bad foundation for Jewish continuity!

Did you attend Camp Eisner? Did you fall in love there and meet your spouse in the Berkshires? If you did, be sure not to miss the Shabbat services on Friday Night, August 10, 2007 where there will be a renewal of vows for couples who met at camp. It is all part of Eisner's 50th Anniversary celebration.

From Shayna Judaica, a lovely gift for a couple to remember their day... a huppa hamsa!

And for more information on camps
Reform
Ramah
BBYO
Kosher

Happy Shavuot

Historically, Shavuot was the day on which the Bikkurim (first fruits from the seven species for which Israel is praised) were brought to the Temple in Jerusalem by each individual. These species are: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates (Deut. 8:8). In the largely agrarian society of ancient Israel, Jewish farmers would tie a ribbon around the first ripening fruits from each of these species in their fields. At the time of harvest, the fruits identified by the ribbon would be cut and placed into baskets woven of gold and silver. The baskets would then be placed on oxen whose horns were laced with garlands of flowers, and who were led in a grand procession to Jerusalem. As the farmer and his entourage passed through cities and towns, they would be accompanied by music and parades.

At the Temple, each farmer would present his Bikkurim to the Kohen Gadol in a ceremony that followed the text of Deut. 26:1-10. This text begins by stating, "An Aramean tried to destroy my father"—which either refers to Laban's efforts to weaken Jacob and rob him of his progeny (Rashi on Deut. 26:5) or to the fact that Jacob was a homeless or penniless wanderer in the land of Aram for 20 years (ibid., Abraham ibn Ezra). The text proceeds to retell the history of the Jewish people as they went into exile in Egypt and were enslaved and oppressed; following which God redeemed them and brought them to the land of Israel. The ceremony of Bikkurim conveys the Jew's gratitude to God both for the first fruits of the field and for His guidance throughout Jewish history (Scherman, p. 1068).

Look at the beautiful Seven Species Chuppah created for the Deiter wedding by Carol Racklin-Siegel and the wonderful Seven Species Ketubah from Betsy Teutsch .

Chuppah

From www.jafi.org
The wedding canopy is a familiar component of the Jewish wedding ceremony. It can be placed inside a hall, on the platform (bimah) of a synagogue or out in the open air.

It is understood by many today as a symbolic representation of the house in which the married couple will be lived. But the origins of the idea of the Chuppah are complex and unclear:

The term is an old one that goes back to the Tanach, and there it means a room that belongs to a bridegroom, into which the bride enters as a mark of marriage. The coming of the bride into the special room that had been prepared by the groom for such an occasion was one of the signs that a marriage union had been legally recognised.
However, over time, the word "Chuppah" came to signify a number of different aspects of the wedding, such as the covering of the bride with the tallit of the groom.
Only in the sixteenth century in Eastern Europe do we seem to find the meaning of Chuppah in the modern sense – an open wedding canopy held up by four poles under which the marriage ceremony actually takes place. It is now an essential physical part of the marriage ceremony.
Over the generations, different ideas have developed about the meaning of the Chuppah:

As mentioned, it is understood to represent the home of the married couple.
The velvet canopy with which a Chuppah is traditionally covered is seen as representing the parochet (or curtain) that covers the ark of the Torah inside a synagogue.
The poles that hold up the canopy are said to represent the pillars of trust and faith on which the marriage must stand.
All of these are positive and significant meanings that the term Chuppah has acquired for itself during the years. However, as mentioned, the origin of the Chuppah is the groom’s special room into which the bride was brought as one of the signs that a bride had been acquired, and that a marriage had been concluded. The term “acquired” is to be used with care, because in the Jewish tradition, according to the Halachah, the groom must indeed acquire the bride, as already explained in relation to the Ketubah and later, in the motif of the ring.

The lovely photo is enhanced by a chuppah from Fabric Designs, the brainchild of Marjie McWilliams a fabric designer, textile artist and teacher who loves to combine her love of G'd and her love of art into Sanctuary Art.

Stitching together

Take a look at this chuppah which is being knit by Theresa. Now that is love!