on weddings and marriages.

Oh weddings. Weddings have been on my mind a bit lately for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which was B dropping the "m" word right and left this morning. (ack! I'm too young!)

Jewish Atheist was blogging about jewish weddings and funerals in response to my post about my dad's reaction to his funeral. Part of what he was talking about was how in some Jewish weddings, people get so involved in the ritual that they forget the couple involved.

When I was planning my wedding back when I was engaged 4 years ago, I wanted this band Soul Farm (now called the Humble Kings, who I incidentally saw at a festival a few weeks back) to play the wedding- they played jewish music, but it was in a more hippie-ish, jam-band style. More my style that is. Soul farm played secular music (that is, music in english), but also plays traditional jewish music, including a song i believe they wrote called "Ani l'dodi" from that line "ani l'dodi v'dodi lee" (I am for my love and my love is for me) which I thought would be great to walk down the aisle to.

My parents balked at the idea of having a non-traditional band at the wedding, even though they played jewish music. They wanted the "traditional" jewish band, which includes some really bad musicians playing keyboards, drums, a trumpet or two, maybe an electric guitar...anyone who has been to an OJ wedding know what I'm talking about. Not very high up on the musical talent list, and music has always been very important to me. The real point of contention here was the jewish dancing...i HATE jewish dancing, it seems stupid to me to run around in a circle, that would not be entertaining to me, and I didn't want it. I wanted my awesome jewish jam band, or if not, just some classical music playing during dinner.

But of course, even though OJ's say that the jewish wedidng is all about making the couple happy, it's not REALLY about making the couple happy, and the morning that me and my ex broke up, I had finally given in on the jewish band thing. My parents insisted that I need Jewish dancing or it wouldn't be a "real wedding."

All this is to say the other day it hit me..if I had married A, my ex, I would still be stuck in the jewish world. I would probably be going to my parents or his parent's place for rosh hashana this week, I would have to go to orthodox events on a regular basis, and I would have to pretend like I was still orthodox. Indeed, from what I know of A and his new wife, that's exactly what they're doing..pretending to be orthodox, but secretly not keeping shabbas or kosher. So it would be like the wedding would have been...our marriage would be more about keeping other people happy while secretly hating every minute of it.

So maybe A breaking up with me was the best thing that ever happened to me. And maybe dating B and being forced to confront my issues of belief, which I spent many years being ambivilant about and intentionally not thinking about, was even better.

Tommorow is rosh hashana. It'll also be 8 months since I started dating B. I've decided not to go to the grad student dinner..instead me and B will be having dinner together. There will be challah and honey (my favorite part of rosh hashana was always challah dipped in honey), and sweet and sour meatballs that i just made from my mom's recipe (that she always serves on holidays). Ohh and a pomegranite if I can find one in the grocery store tommorow! There will also be no prayers, and no wine, and no religion of any kind. Only two atheists marking 8 months together, and the start of a sweet new year.