MARRIAGE WITHOUT RABBI OR HEBREW

QUESTION:

There are a number of young people these days who, for a variety of motives, prefer to compose their own marriage ceremony and also to be married without a rabbi officiating. Is a Jewish marriage valid if no rabbi officiates and no Hebrew at all is used? (Asked by Rabbi Philip Bernstein, Rochester, New York.)

ANSWER:

ONE MIGHT IMAGINE that the question of the indispensability of Hebrew in Jewish ceremonies would have been settled long ago. Yet, interestingly enough, it has been an on-going discussion from the very beginning of recorded Jewish law and continuing down to our days. Yehiel Epstein, author of one of the latest authoritative codes, Aruch Ha-Shulchan, (published in Vilna, 1923), makes this statement in Orah Hayyim 62:4: “The great teachers for the last eighty years have decided that nowadays it is forbidden to pray the Shema and the Tefilla and recite the various blessings in any language except in Hebrew.” Surely it is strange that in a legal tradition as ancient as ours, such a decision should have been arrived at only eighty years ago. A hundred and fifty years ago, when the Hamburg Reform Prayerbook was published, Moses Sofer, the great Hungarian Orthodox authority, forbade the use of any modern language in prayer by saying (in Eleh Divre Ha-Bris): “It is utterly impossible to translate the precise meaning of the Hebrew into any other language. Therefore if we recite the words exactly as the Men of the Great Synagogue ordained them [i.e., in Hebrew), then, even if we do not know their meaning, our prayer will be favorably received. This is not so if we pray in any other language.”

Moses Sofer refers here to the opinion of some scholars that prayers in the vernacular must be thoroughly understood, but prayers in Hebrew need not be. However, his argument is a curious one and can only be understood against the background of the situation. He was attacking Reform, of which he was one of the great opponents, and he had to face the difficulty that the reciting of prayer is actually quite valid in any language. The law, as stated in the Talmud in Berachos 13a, is that we may recite the Shema in any language that we understand; and so it is with the Tefilla and all the blessings over food and the blessing preceding the mitzvos (cf. Tosfos to Sota 32a). This permissibility goes through all the Codes. In the Shulchan Aruch {Orah Hayyim 62:2; cf. especially Be’er Hetev and 101:4), it is clearly stated that all prayers and all blessings may be recited in any language. Judging, then, by the timing of the statements of Moses Sofer and Yehiel Epstein, the prohibition of the use of any other language was modern, and a reaction to Reform. But basically, any language that is understood may be used in every form of prayer.

Even the traditional marriage formula, “Be thou consecrated … ,” need not be precise. The Talmud and the Codes (Even Hoezer 27:1-2) give many varieties of the marriage phrase uttered by the groom, and many of these varieties are quite valid. The Be’er Hetev (ad loc.) puts the situation clearly. He says: “It is our custom nowadays for the groom to say, Haray at m’kudeshes, etc., but it does not make much difference if the phrase is varied.” Of course, the complete lack of Hebrew in a wedding ceremony deprives the ceremony of the beneficent effect of honored tradition, which unites the young couple with the marriage of their parents, their grandparents, and all of Israel. Much is lost if all Hebrew is removed from the ceremony, but it cannot be held that the marriage is invalid if the Hebrew is omitted.

As to whether a rabbi is indispensable as the officiant, this is also a matter which has gone through considerable evolution. Before going into the question of Jewish legal tradition on this matter, let us consider the situation from the point of view of secular law. I have made inquiries as to whether a man who is not a minister or a judge (a man who has not received permission from the state to officiate at weddings) has committed an offense against the law if he does officiate. The answer for the State of Pennsylvania is in the affirmative. He has violated the law and is fined fifty dollars for having officiated without permission of the state. However, the marriage at which he has officiated may nevertheless be valid as common-law marriage. The law may be different in other states, but before a man officiates at a wedding, it would be wise if he discovered whether in the state of his residence he is not violating the law and, also, to what extent the marriage is valid, if it is valid at all.

The situation, as far as Jewish legal tradition is concerned, is somewhat different, though actually analogous. The Mishnah and the Talmud and the later law are full of instances where valid marriage was contracted without any sort of religious ceremony at all. If a man gives a woman an object of value (more than one peruta, one penny) and asks her to accept this as a symbol of marriage between them, and she consents, and there are two valid witnesses present, the couple is fully and legally married according to Jewish law (cf. the references above). Therefore, basically, no officiant at all is necessary. When marriages were conducted with more ceremony, the blessings could be recited by any guest, or the recitation of them given as an honor to some special guest.

As a matter of fact, Max Grunwald, in his article in the Jewish Encyclopedia (Vol. VIII, p. 341), says: “Before the fourteenth century the presence of the Rabbi was not required; nor did he speak at the marriage ceremony.” Unfortunately, Grunwald does not give a reference for this statement, but possibly he refers to the fact that Maharil, in the fourteenth century, in his section on marriage, describes a marriage ceremony in detail (in his city of Mainz) in which the rabbi plays a prominent part and recites the blessings. It may be that this fourteenth-century account is the earliest reference to the presence and participation of a rabbi at the ceremony.

However, in whatever century the participation of the rabbi first began, it was a natural development that this should come about. The Talmud (Kiddushin 6a and 13a) says that he who does not know all the details of marriage law should not have any dealings with the subject. This statement refers to the fact that the laws involved in marriage (such as forbidden degrees, periods of delay after a previous marriage, etc.) are so complex that no one but an expert should presume to answer the problems that may come up in any projected marriage. Since the rabbi was the expert in marriage laws, it was natural that he should play an important part in the negotiations preliminary to the marriage. Thus he came to participate in the ceremony itself. He recited the blessings and then, also, conducted the rest of the service.

As it was with the question of the necessity for Hebrew in the ceremony, so it is also a fact that the presence of a rabbi is not indispensable at the ceremony (except, of course, for the relevant provisions of the secular law as to the status of the officiant). Nevertheless, rabbis have been officiants at weddings for many centuries, and the Hebrew language has been used at weddings for many more centuries. Such a long tradition cannot be discarded without some spiritual or emotional loss. Certainly some of the sense of continuity with the past, which can add so much to the stability of the marriage, would be lost if a Jewish marriage were conducted without any Hebrew at all and officiated at by some friend who is not representative of the religious life of the community.