Kei’tsad Mirakdim Lifnei HaKalah: How Do You Dance before the Bride?

Abstract

Like a willing hand into a soft kidskin glove the hue of the stones, of the Judaean wilderness itself. Maybe because I brought so few things with me from my life in Santa Monica. Is it real, or only a dream? From the moment I moved into this little studio on Smolenskin Street, on the edge of Rehavia, in the heart of Jerusalem, the last 20-odd years of my life seemed to dissolve. I eased back into the life of the city I once lived in, California—framed photos of my daughter, a single shelf of books—it was hard to hold onto the knowledge that I had been living that life at all. Or perhaps, despite my hesitation about returning to live here. Despite my years of bias against this city in favor of less history—haunted Tel Aviv, as soon as I moved back to Jerusalem I began to sense that my soul had never really left at all.

How do you dance before the bride? The school of Shammai says, [you describe her] “just as she is.” The school of Hillel says, [no matter what she looks like, you say] “What a lovely and charming bride!”

Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 16b–17a