Breaking a Glass at Weddings
Every now and then some tradition-minded families, when making arrangements for a wedding, ask that a glass be broken at the close of the ceremony, as is the well-known custom. Should we yield to this request or not?
First it is necessary to consider the status of the ceremony of breaking a glass. Is it deemed, in Orthodox law, to be an essential part of the ceremony or not? If it is an essential part of the historic ceremony, then, of course, we should hesitate seriously before deciding to omit it. The preliminary question can be easily settled. Moses Isserles, the great sixteenth-century authority, says (Shulchan Aruch, Even Hoezer 65 : 3): “There are some places where it is the custom to break a glass after the seven blessings.” Joseph Saul Nathanson, of Lemberg, in his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch (“Teshuras Shai”), says (referring to this custom) that Eliezar ben Nathan (the great twelfth century Rhineland authority) has doubts about [the acceptability of] this custom.
It is clear, then, that the breaking of the glass at weddings is in no way to be compared with the recital of the blessings over the wine or the giving of the ring, which are essential parts of the ceremony. The breaking of the glass is merely a custom and, therefore, if we have good reasons for objecting to it we need not hesitate too much in saying so or in omitting it altogether.
My honored teacher, the late Professor Jacob Z. Lauterbach, of the Hebrew Union College, wrote a magnificent essay on the subject. It is found in the Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. II. His essay is a complete analysis of the history and the mood of the custom. However, since the time when his essay was written there have been certain significant changes in the mood of the people and certain new opinions of Orthodox authorities. It may, therefore, be useful to restudy the question.
The bases usually stated as the source of the custom are the two incidents mentioned in the Talmud (b. Berachos 30 b -31 a ) where two rabbis (Mar, son of Rabina, and Rab Ashi) at the respective weddings of their children, noticed that the guests were hilarious and therefore broke an expensive glass vessel to shock them back to decorum. The Tosfos (eleventh century), commenting on the Talmudic passage, says: “It is from this that the custom arose to break a glass at weddings.”
Tracing the custom through the references in the medieval authorities, Dr. Lauterbach clearly shows that the custom had its true origin in popular superstition, specifically in the folk belief in demons who endanger the happiness of mortals, especially of bride and groom. This is evident from the fact that originally the glass used in the blessing, with the remainder of the wine in it, was thrown backward and smashed against the wall, evidently to scare away the demons. In some places when the glass was thus broken, the people exclaimed the verse (Psalm 124:7): “The net is broken and we have escaped” (“Taame Haminhagim,” I, pp. 1ll, 955, and Luncz, Jerusalem, I, pp. 7-8).
Dr. Lauterbach indicates that whenever the rabbis were unable to abolish a popular superstition and had to be reconciled to its continuation, they nevertheless managed to give the superstition a new interpretation so that in its meaning it would not be a flagrant violation of the rabbinic laws against demon worship, superstition, and so on. This, he indicates, was done with the demon scaring implied in the throwing of the glass at weddings. The new explanation was offered apparently for the first time in the book “Kol Bo” (laws of Tisha B’av, 62), fourteenth century, namely, that the glass is broken at weddings to remind us of the sadness which we feel at the destruction of Jerusalem, thus fulfilling the verse in Psalm 137: “I will remember Jerusalem at the time of my greatest joy.” This explanation was adopted by most of the subsequent authorities and, in fact, the custom became established among the Sephardim that when the glass was broken at the wedding, they all actually repeated the Psalm verse: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem … at my greatest joy.”
Although this explanation was a late one, it was certainly a decent one and could be psychologically justified, and if this mood of mourning persisted in our time to express the real feeling of our people it might well be con tinued. Or, at least, we could then discuss the question of the appropriateness of the ceremony on that basis, and we would ask ourselves whether we modern people care to include in the joyous service of the wedding such sad memories. Some Orthodox people would say that we certainly should do so; for example, it has become an Orthodox custom, when a parent of bride or groom has died, to include in the joyous marriage ceremony the tearful prayer of El Mole Rachamim, with the same melody and the same text as is used at funerals. However, the sentiment of our Reform congregations is such that we do not care to interject sad thoughts into our marriage ceremony.
The fact that the ceremony of throwing the glass had its origin in the superstitious demon scaring of past folklore would not perhaps be too serious an objection nowadays, because the rabbis since the days of the “Kol Bo” have succeeded in wiping out the memory of its superstitious origin and now we can rightly say that our people have very little trace of such a superstition in this regard. A rabbi, of course, might dislike the ceremony because of its superstitious origin, but the people can no longer be accused of being superstitious when they participate in it. It would then be a matter for the rabbi to decide, whether he should not help to abolish a ceremony which has so dubious an origin. Yet even he would have to admit that the old origin hardly lives in the present thoughts of the people.
However, the ceremony did not remain in the somber (but worthy) mood to which the rabbis since the “Kol Bo” were leading it in their desire to abolish the superstitious demon fighting which was its essential meaning. The whole mood has changed and Dr. Lauterbach in his paper takes very little note of that fact. Nowadays the breaking of the glass no longer evokes sad and solemn thoughts of the destruction of Jerusalem. On the contrary, it evokes loud laughter, often applause, which mars the ceremony just as much as excessive sadness might have done. At many weddings, when the glass is smashed under the heel of the groom, people laugh delightedly and shout, “Mazel tov!” (Goodluck).
This change of mood has evoked protest on the part of certain Orthodox rabbis. These protests did not appear at the time when Dr. Lauterbach wrote his excellent paper, evidently because the Orthodox rabbis were slow or reluctant to realize what this excitement and laughter at the breaking of the glass really indicated. Certainly there is an element of boastful strength on the part of the groom. It is considered a good omen if he smashes the glass at the first attempt. The symbolism is obvious and the vulgarity can hardly be denied.
The late Hillel Posek, rabbi in Tel Aviv, in his collection “Hillel Omer” (Even Hoezer, 59), has an article on the breaking of the glass, and he begins it as follows: “In my own experience I have seen that after the breaking of the glass under the chuppah, people say ‘Mazel tov,’ and among the coarse crowd there arises laughter and hilarity and vulgar thoughts, each one according to his way.” He then says that he has tried to explain to people how wrong it is that after the breaking of the glass, which is a reminder of the destruction of the Temple, the people should shout out the congratulatory words “Mazel tov. ”
Much more serious and even heartbreaking is the comment of the late and justly honored Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ben Zion Uziel, in his responsa, “Mishp’tey Uziel” (part II, Even Hoezer, p. 431). He writes to the Chief Rabbi of Venice, who has raised the objection (which is the same as the one which Hillel Posek had raised) that it is wrong to greet the breaking of the glass with joyous shouts of “Mazel tov, ” when instead they ought to quote the sad verse, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.” And now (says the Rabbi of Venice) this beautiful custom (of mourning for Jerusalem) has been turned into a ritual of boastful strength, and when the groom treads with vigor on the glass and breaks it into pieces, all the guests fill their mouths with laughter and say that it is a good sign. To which Ben Zion Uziel comments: “I also wish to express my unhappiness at this custom which in its present form is an unworthy custom. It would be better to abolish it entirely than to let it change to such an ugly form at which a decent soul recoils. Whenever I find myself at weddings and see this custom, I am greatly grieved at myself that I do not protest. We Sephardim used to say at the breaking of the glass: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,’ but now this new form of the custom has spread among us too. Oh, what harm is done by imitation and ignorance.”
This is the opinion of two Orthodox rabbis. When we consider how reluctant responsible Orthodox rabbis are to abolish any ancient custom, then it is obvious that the mood surrounding the breaking of the glass has become so unutterably vulgar that even they, at least those quoted, can no longer endure it; and the Sephardic Chief Rabbi could even wish that he were able to abolish it.
In this regard we are more fortunate than the Orthodox rabbis. The custom is already largely abolished among us and it is asked for only on relatively rare occasions. What, then, shall we do? It is possible, of course, if the rabbi himself feels attached to this custom because it is old, for him to make some spiritual interpretation of it, but even so, the moral lesson which he carefully tries to transmit is lost in the shouting and the laughter and the snickering when the glass is smashed. Many of us, however, have not particularly cared for this custom because of its superstitious demon-fearing origin. Nor were we attracted to the idea conveyed in the fourteenth-century reinterpretation, which would lead us to introduce tears in the midst of a happy wedding ritual. Certainly we are not attracted to it today, when the mood of the people has surrounded it with such thoughts as must only mar the sacredness of the marriage ceremony. If a ceremony of dubious origin becomes noble, it might in its new guise be admitted into our worship. But if even a noble ceremony has become ignoble, it should be firmly set aside.