ceefairdm Tradition! Time can Ted Roberts conquer ho doesn't cry at a Jewish wedding? Especially a hearty, Chasidic hoedown where the ritual is as rich as the Béarnaise sauce (margarine works as well as butter, you know) over our kosher boneless rib steak. Even if you're a sour cynic, God forbid, who sees lawyers instead of rab- bis, courtrooms instead of chupahs, witnesses instead of brides- maids, well, still there's food and drink. And, of course, there is the usual joy of checking out old friends who seem to have aged much worse than you. What's not to like about a gala wedding? We sit at elegant tables in the main ballroom of this old patrician hotel. Before us is music and dancing and a meal that would tempt Elijah, during his reclusive period, to flee his cave without a kitchen on Mount Carmel. Behind us, all the color of a traditional Chasidic marriage: the bedeken veiling ceremony, the wild singing in the groom's room, the kabbalat panim. And the ketubah reading and glass breaking. Special to the Jewish News W a lot, but not everything. Shlomo Gottfried of Judaea reborn in the heart of the United States. These ancient rituals remind us that, like Abraham, we're still strangers in a strange land. We have a past that clings like honey on challah. Change your name to Hall from Hallevichevawitz, move to Iowa, drive a Ford F-150 pickup truck, work at the feed store — you're still Schmuel Hallevichevawitz, the Jew. I mean, it is 2005, and we're still re-enacting Laban's deception of Jacob three millennia ago. That's a box office run that beats My Fair Lady by a couple of million performances. Here in this lav- ish hotel, a tuxedoed Jewish groom peers under the veil to make sure his marriage partner is his own true love, not some 21st- century Leah. And the bride's veil, now integrated into Christian weddings as Israel blessing his granddaughter, Sarah Leah Golombek of Colorado. 66 CELEBRATE • 2006 iN well, protects the groom from the hypnotic beauty of the bride. He should not be distracted from her inner beauty, say our sages. A pretty face might work for a year or two, but a good soul ensures eternal connubial bliss. This bride owns both, I'm thinking. But even though the groom is heavily distracted by the drum- ming of his heart, he does not forget Jerusalem, the bride of all Israel, the hometown of every Jew born and yet to be born, when he stomps on that fragile glass. The crowd shouts "mazel tov." ("If, next week, he breaks a glass," I whisper to my wife, "she'll shout, 'Clumsy dummy!'") The ketubah has not only been witnessed and signed, but has been read aloud to the guests, a testimony to the legal and ethical commitments of this heir of Jacob. It is a contract, the original prenup, unique to Judaism. We're not called the people of the book for nothing. We love the written word. Not shrill declara- tions of love, but words on paper spelling out responsibility. And guess who keeps the ketubah in the Jewish household? The bride. All these thoughts crowd my mind as I munch on appetizers and listen to the band tuning up. This room is full of memories. Here we held our fraternity socials. Here I danced all night with the bubbie beside me. Here, a son and daughter were married. Now here I attend the wedding of my friend's granddaughter. Time, who defeats all except tradition, shows me his bony face. I need to find one of my contemporaries who looks worse than me. They're certainly not on the dance floor, where yesterday's waltzes and foxtrots are supplanted by the-day-before-yester- day's frenetic Chasidic whirling and spinning and other acrobat- ics designed to amuse and pay homage to the royal pair. Modesty, highly recommended in Leviticus, still reigns. Boys and girls dance separately. A handkerchief connects the dancers. And later, the bride and groom chaired high, hold tightly to a common hanky. That cloth connection is typical of the fences that Jewish ethicists have built around prohibited relationships. Fence No. 1: The Chumash says no. Fence No. 2: No mixed dancing. Clutching, hugging, squeezing can inflame passion. If you can't dance or touch, maybe you can defeat the evil urging. Fence No. 3: Even the wedding couple here in this public place must filter the electricity between them with that square of cot- ton cloth. Fence No. 4: Besides all that, even the guys dancing for the chatan (groom) and kallah (bride) are only lightly connected by the hanky. Judaism knows the human heart, like the lungs, has two cham- bers: one good, one evil. That's why we have numerous rule- books, like paving stones that map the road to goodness, not evil. I am told by those stronger than me that the dancing went on until 1 o'clock. A traditional Jewish wedding in the year 2006. Tevye, the creation of Sholom Aleichem and a man who knew a thing or two about weddings, was right on when he shouted, "Tradition!" ❑ Ted Roberts is an attorney and humor writer in Alabama.