Marriage

Dear Rabbi, At a Jewish wedding the groom places the glass under his foot and smashes it into several pieces. What is the significance of this act? I have a friend who is soon to be married and he asked me this question. Thanks so much for this service!

Is it permitted for a Jewish man to marry woman who is Jewish according to halacha, but actively practicing another religion and planning to remain as such?

My mother passed away 1 year ago. The wedding will be incredibly difficult without her and in addition, when it comes to jewish weddings a mother plays an important role. I will get married in an orthodox ceremony (United Synagogue, London) and would like to be escorted just by my dad to the chuppah. I can’t imagine having somebody else by my side. I would like to know if there are any rules or laws that would allow or forbid that? I would be fine walking alone if necessary but not with an aunt or a friend by my site. I appreciate all your help!

I am getting married in August. The officiant will be a conservative rabbi. She says we must have two witnesses who are Sabbath-observant men to sign our ketubah. My best friend grew up observing the Sabbath, went ‘off the derech' for many years, and then returned to full observance three years ago. Does he qualify as a witness?

Our daughter is getting married in May. We should have every reason to be happy. Trouble is, her fiance's family is planning on hosting a big packed wedding with hundreds of guests, not taking COVID into account as an issue. And they are paying for the whole thing. Her fiance's parents have a “my way or they highway” attitude and are impossible to reason with on the matter. Neither of us feel comfortable with this. I am immuno-compromised and the vaccine does not produce many antibodies for me. I had COVID in 2020 and I was in the hospital with pneumonia and could have died. It was the worst experience in my life. My doctor says I can definitely get it again and should avoid getting it at all cost. My husband has heart disease and risks death if he ever gets COVID. He’s lucky he didn’t get it when I did. Because of this, we work from home, get all our groceries delivered, and only socialize with others outdoors or with masks. We are Reformed Jews, as is our rabbi, and we are not even much into the Jewish religion. My husband is not even considered a Jew by orthodox law because his mother had a reformed conversion. Our daughter’s fiance and his family and their rabbi are orthodox. Our daughter became orthodox several years ago. Our rabbi is sympathetic to us, but has tried contacting theirs, the one who is planning on officiating at the wedding, but has not gotten anyone to change their mind and says he can’t do anything more for us. We have asked his parents if we can make a virtual appearance with the help of video technology, in which we could see the wedding from home and there would be a video screen by the Chuppah. But they are not flexible and won’t allow that. We asked them if the wedding can be outdoors, but they won’t do that either. We told them we will have to be no-shows if this is how it’ll be. They realize they cannot force us to be there. But we really don’t want to miss our only daughter’s big day. We just want it to be safe for us.

Why is the fasting of the bride and groom important on the say of their marriage?