Synagogue Sermon
The Marriage Metaphor (1975)
The three pilgrim festivals have many interpretations in Jewish life. Already in the Torah itself, we have two views on the three holidays. One concerns their natural significance, as occasions of harvest or first fruits. The other is the historical interpretation, when each holiday is seen as commemorating another great event in the life of the people. This morning, I commend to your attention a marriage metaphor explaining the שלש רגלים, as offered by R. Yehudah Leib Alter, the Rabbi of Gur, author of “שפת אמת.” The three festivals, he maintains, symbolize different stages in the relations between a consistent and persistent thread that runs through Scripture and Midrash and Kabbalah and the prayer book, is the formulation of this relationship as that between lovers, between husband and wife. God is depicted as the lover, and Israel as the beloved, as the faithful – and sometimes unfaithful – wife.According to the Rabbi of Gur, each holiday is another step in the marriage process. Thus, Passover represents קדושין, the act of betrothal. As we know, a Jewish wedding consists of two parts, which were originally separated by about a year. The first part is the קדושין or betrothal, where a man gives a woman a gift and “sanctifies” her to himself, and they are thus considered married insofar as the rest of the world is concerned, but they do not yet live together. The second step is נשואין, or actual marriage, symbolized by coming together under the canopy (חופה) and then in a chamber together (ייחוד), from which time and on they live together completely as husband and wife. Now, the Biblical term for betrothal is לקח, “taking,” as in, כי יקח איש אשה, “If a man take a wife.” This first step in relationships is symbolized by Passover, because the Exodus was announced by God in the words ולקחתם אתכם לי לעם, “And I shall take you to Me for a people.” Passover is thus an act of betrothal, קדושין, a metaphor reinforced by the fact that Seder begins with קדש, the act of “san…
