Tu B'Av - Love the Second Time Around

Today was Tu B'Av, the happiest day on the Jewish calendar. Today in Biblical times, Jewish girls dressed in white dresses and danced in the fields, as they waited for eligible young tribesmen to come catch them.

Tu B'Av has been transformed into a day of love by the media. Still, it really is a perfect day for a wedding.

Today I attended two in the nearby town of Alon Shvut. Everyone was invited to "mesameach" (bring joy) to the bride and groom. And all those in attendance, danced and sang, just as if they were dear friends of the newlyweds.

The first was that of a middle aged couple from Spain that completed their conversion training and yesterday became officially Jewish. Today they became Jewish man and wife under a lovely chuppah with many friends around them. The bride was radiant in white with a purple flower on her dress. She carried beautiful purple flowers as she walked up to the wedding canopy, and then handed them to her teenage daughter to hold during the ceremony. The groom wore white too, plus a giant grin and a long beard.

As their parents sipped their wine and listened to their ketuba (wedding certificate) being read, and then translated into Spanish, their children giggled and whispered happily.

The couple may have teenage daughters, but they looked at each other with the same secret silliness that young brides and grooms do.

After their chuppah was complete, Alon Shvut's rabbi, Rav Gidon Perl, escorted them to their celebration and then invited the next couple to join him under the chuppah.

The Dutch groom with his grey and white beard and black hat, walked down the aisle with his nephew by his side. The Russian bride, dressed modestly in white, walked to the wedding canopy with a friend and the groom's niece, as his great-nieces excitedly ran alongside. As they stood beside one another, I could see their eyes shine.

This couple, as well, proved that love lives in the hearts of everyone who seeks it. There is no age limit to happiness.

May these couples, as well as all chattanim and kallot find joy together until 120, and may they build true and lasting batei neeman b'yisrael (faithful Jewish homes).

**

On another note :), it reminded me of an old Frank Sinatra tune.

Second Time Around Lyrics

Writer(s): cahn/van heusen   Love is lovelier, the second time around  Just as wonderful, with both feet on the ground  It’s that second time you hear your love song sung  Makes you think perhaps that love, like youth, is wasted on the young   Love’s more comfortable the second time you fall  Like a friendly home the second time you call  Who can say, what brought us to this miracle we’ve found   There are those who’d bet  Love comes but once - and yet I’m oh so glad we met  The second time around