The power to change reality

This morning, Rabbi Miriam Lorie joined BBC Radio 2's Pause for Thought.

Listen here.

Last week I conducted my first wedding as a rabbi! 

And, oh my goodness, it was so joyful. Imagine a garden full of happy people in their best clothes, the sun shining, and in the middle, a chuppah, the canopy under which the ceremony happens. 

With a thumbs up from the wedding planner, we were off. The bride and groom, Hilary and Saul, walked circuits around one another, and we said blessings about the exclusivity of marriage. 

They drank ceremonial wine, given to them first by their parents, then by their new in-laws, because, as I whispered to them, “you bring one child to the chuppah and leave with two”. We sang seven more blessings to them. And there was excellently timed heckling from a grandma and two year old nephew. 

Before I knew it, the groom was stamping on a glass to remember, even at this happy moment, the brokenness out there in the world, then everyone was shouting ‘mazal tov’, the band struck up, and the guests stormed the chuppah to get the dancing going. 

And with that, two single people became married, their lives forever changed. 

So wonderful. And also so strange. What actually happened in that blur of a 45 minutes to change the very status, the very lives, of two people? 

The answer, I think, even though I’m still working out the mystery of it all, is ritual. The rituals of a chuppah, some of them practised by Jews for literally thousands of years, played out with intention, in the presence of formal witnesses and celebrating guests… Rituals have the power to change reality. 

Rituals can make a something out of what could be a nothing in the everyday too. Special actions, done with intention, can elevate a birthday, a leaving do, a new home, or the first golden leaves of Autumn. We can all practise rituals. 

But a wedding is up there with the absolute best of them. So Hilary and Saul, (I think you’re listening) thank you for entrusting this special moment in your lives to our time-honoured rituals. And lucky me to be part of the magic. Mazal tov!