The mothers' active role in Jewish weddings and a query
For my NY Jewish Bridal Examiner page, I am planning to go through some of the aspects of the traditional Jewish wedding. There are people who struggle to reform the ceremony within a nominally Orthodox setting by suggesting various additions to give women more publicly active roles at the wedding. But, the way I see it, women were granted more activity in the Jewish wedding than in the traditional nonJewish counterpart. Think about the fact that usually both the bride and groom are equally escorted by both their parents in contrast to the bride only being escorted by her father -- who give her in marriage. Another thing the mothers get to do is break the plate for the Tnaim. I'm wondering why that falls to the mothers rather than the fathers. Anyone know?
Comments
Interesting that there seems to be a custom of breaking plates in other cultures as well (google search).
I don't have an answer to your question, but it is a good one.
http://www.kevinandjana.com/uk/Breaking-a-plate---Rozbijanie-taniera.html
Hmmmm..... sounds like just one of those fun things that are shared by many different types, and to which great portent is attributed afterward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcOuR8h7Zhk
Drop me a line and I'll remove it.
But he did not say what the book says. Anyone have it? Otherwise I may have to browse at the seforim store.
Pathways of the Prophets: A Treasury of Torah Thought and Law; Looking at Ourselves Through the Lens of the Prophets by Rabbi Yisroel Reisman published by Artscroll. The book does include a section on "Imponderables" with a subsection of Imponderables related to Chasunas. Therein was the same query I had.
Rabbi Reisman concedes that he could not find a source for the minhag of mothers, specifically, breaking the plate. He offers a possibl explanation as follows: the tanaim undertake a financial obligation. As the fathers of the chasson and kallah each have a prior financial obligation to their wives' kesubos, the wives participation indicates their willingness to allow this new financial agreement.
I really have no idea, but now that you've asked, I'm determined to find out.
As Kaplan (1983) explains:
The reason for breaking the dish is to show that we mourn for Jerusalem and other martyred
Jews even at the height of our joy. A china dish is broken to show that, just as a china plate can
never be fully repaired, a broken engagement is an irreparable breach. Even if the bride and
groom are later reconciled, the breaking of the formal Tanaim contract is considered very
reprehensible. (p. 28)
Better to just let the mothers do it and lie low.