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The Dance with the Separating Kerchief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Zvi Friedhaber
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Extract

Ever since the question was first posed during the time of the House of Hillel and Shammai, there has always been an issue about how one dances before the bride. The action of Rabbi Aha who took the bride on his shoulders and danced with her exacerbated the problem seventyfold for other rabbis asked if they too could dance with a bride on their shoulder. Rabbi Aḥa actually reawakened the question and raised it to a new level: Does one even dance before or with the bride at all?

By turning to examples in the different Jewish communities including the Babylonian of the fourth century where Rabbi Aḥa lived, the European communities of the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries and also in Israel today, several different ideas as to how to dance before the bride emerge. These examples are to be found in various written sources such as the Talmud, the Shulḥan Arukh, Responsa literature and books by rabbis, as well as memoirs. The Talmud, written in the first half of the third century, is of great value for the study of Jewish history, law, theology, ethics and folklore. Examples of dance also appear there. Dance descriptions also appear in other commentaries by later rabbis, such as the definitive sixteenth century code by Rabbi Joseph Caro, the Shulḥan Arukh. Responsa literature too, provides us with dance information though it is a special genre of literature embracing every aspect of Jewish life, usually responses by rabbis to legal questions posed by individuals and communities. It is rarely an organized or systematic body of writings and of the several centuries when this vast body was produced, only a few hundred survive. Nonetheless, dance and questions of behavior during dancing at weddings are in evidence.

Type
Dancing into Marriage: Collected Papers on Jewish Wedding Dances
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Fall 1985 , pp. 65 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1985

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References

NOTES

1. The Talmud, , “Seder nashim,” Tractate ‘ketubbot,’ 17a, trans, by Daiches, Rabbi Samuel, (London: The Soncino Press), p. 94Google Scholar. Hillel, greatest of the sages of the Second Temple Period, lived at the end of the first century B.C.E. to the beginning of the first century C.E.

2. Ibid.

3. Eizenstadt, Rabbi Abraham Z. Hirsch, Pitḥei Teshuvah “Even haezer,”Google Scholar (Explanation and Commentary on the Shulḥan Arukh), third section, paragraph 65.

4. Shor, Rabbi A.H., Torat Ḥayyim, “Avoda zarah,” (Warsaw, 1971), p. 27Google Scholar. Ed. Note: in this period much of the rabbinic literature was privately printed and no publisher is given.

5. Ibid.

6. Epstein, Rabbi Y.M., Derehh ha-yashar la-olam ha-ba, (The Straight Path to the World to Come), (Frankfort-on-Main:1703), p. 86Google Scholar.

7. Luria, Rabbi Y., Meshivat nefesh, “Hayei sara”Google Scholar (Life of Sara), Manuscript Oxford, Opp Add. 4, section 91, Neubauer Collection 254, 16726.

8. The wording of the text quoted in the article is incomplete and separated in two places as if to say the quotation was taken from two different passages which caused me to check the manuscript. It was clear that one word is impossible to read and is cited here as missing in the manuscript.

9. Meshivat nefesh, on the Torah portion of “Hayei sara,” 22b.

10. Ben-Sasson's, Ch. H. “Mishnato ha-hevratit shel rabbi yohanan luria,” Zion Journal, Vol. 27, p. 193Google Scholar.

11. “Bare Hands” is interpreted by Ben-Sasson as “without gloves.”

12. Ibid. Torah portion of “Beshalah,” 81b.

13. Ibid.

14. Simonson, S., History of the Jews in Mantova Duchy, Vol. 2, p. 393, (Tel Aviv, 1965)Google Scholar.

15. Leibovitz, Rabbi Y.Z., Shulḥan ha-ezer, (Brooklyn, 1969), pp. 79b–80aGoogle Scholar, paragraph 8, subparagraph 5.

16. On this subject, see Friedhaber's, Z. “Dance in Judaism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” in Physical Education and Sport in the Jewish History and Culture Proceedings, (Israel: Wingate Institute, 1981), pp. 47–52Google Scholar.

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18. Leibowitz, Rabbi Y.Z., Shulḥan ha-ezer, p. 80aGoogle Scholar, paragraph, subparagraph 5.

19. Ehen, Y., Funem rebns hoyf, (New York, 1922), pp. 207–208Google Scholar.

20. Yediot Ahranot newspaper, Tel Aviv, 17 February 1965Google Scholar.

21. Sies, A.A., editor, Sefer menhagai komorna, (Tel Aviv, 1958), pp. 31–32Google Scholar.

22. Yediot ahranot newspaper, Tel Aviv, 17 February 1965Google Scholar.

23. Abraham, A., in Yediot ahranot Newspaper, “Avira meupeket behatunat nechdo shel ha-admor me laluv,” 14 July 1978Google Scholar.

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25. On permission and prohibition of the relatives in dancing with the bride, see: Katz, S., Kedoshiim teheyu, (Jerusalem: 1980), p. 78Google Scholar and Stern, Rabbi M., Be'er moshe, (New York, 1975), Vol. IV, paragraph 132-133, p. 192Google Scholar.

26. Rivkind, Y., “Klezmorim, A Study in Cultural History,” in Hadoar (weekly newspaper), (New York, 1960) pp. 28–30Google Scholar.

27. Rivkind, Y., “A Yiddish Name for Wedding, Jewish Dances and a Woman's Occupation,” Yidishe shprakh, (N.Y.: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1962), Vol. XXII, 2Google Scholar.

28. Rechtman, A, “Popular Notices and Meanings of some Jewish Customs,” (NY: YIVO Bleter B., 1962), Vol. XXXX, p. 251Google Scholar. The Yidishe shprakh newspaper ran an editorial about Rivkind's astonishment. See note 27.

29. Judah Elset, Avida meminhagei israel, with additions from the editor Druyanow, A., Reshumot, (Odessa: Moria, 1918), Remark 16, p. 341Google Scholar.

30. Ben-Ezra, A., “Marriage Modesty,” in Yidishe shprakh, 1963, Vol. XXIII, 2, p. 47Google Scholar.

31. Zizmor, Y., “Amolike khasenes,” Pinkas far dergeshikhte fun vilne in di yorn fun der milkhome un okupatsye (Vilna: Historish-etnografishe geselshaft oyfn nomen fun sh. ansky, 1922), p. 874Google Scholar.

32. Wengeroff, P., Memoimen einer Grossmutter, (Berlin: Verlag von M. Poppleauer, 1908), I. pp. 132–183Google Scholar.

33. Rappaporta, S., Aus dem religiosen Leban der Ostyuden, Der Jude, III, 1918–1919, pp. 225–226Google Scholar.

34. On the source of the name and its connection to wedding dances, see Rivkind, Y., “A Yiddish Name for Wedding, Jewish Dances, and a Woman's Occupation,” p. 48Google Scholar; Liberman, H., Yidishe shprakh, Vol. XX, 2, p. 54Google Scholar.

35. Linetzky, I.J., Does khasidshe yingl, (Vilna, 1897), pp. 102–103Google Scholar.

36. Gottlober, A.B., Zihronot u-masaot, (Jerusalem, 1976), I. p. 105Google Scholar.

37. From the poet who wrote this poem in 1921 in Odessa, we can conclude that the habits he described existed in the life of his neighborhood during the second half of the nineteenth century.

38. Tchernichowsky, S., Shirim (Tel Aviv, 1946), p. 372Google Scholar.

39. Memorial books of Jewish communities destroyed by the Nazis such as that containing Ben-Dov Tchechanovsky's “The House of My Grandfather,” are all housed in Jerusalem at the library of the Yad v shem memorial to the six million Jews.

40. Tchechanovsky, V. Ben-Dov, Bet saba (The House of My Grandfather), (Tel Aviv, 1961), p. 105Google Scholar.