1995 Miles Hochstein

1995

Above: This picture, one of my favorites from the wedding, was taken by the author and artist, Lisa Rauchwerger.

The wedding took place in the backyard of Leora's childhood home - nothing fancy, and just the way we wanted it.

The following text from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) illuminated our Ketubah. Read from our choice of texts what you will!

One generation rises and another generation passes yet the earth abides forever. The sun dawns and the sun sets and sun returns to the place where it dawns again. The wind blows north and circles south circling and circling blows the wind, and in its circle returns. All the rivers flow to the sea and yet the sea is not filled; to he place where the rivers flow there they return.

Below: The groom attacks the cake.

In September, I was married. So was my wife. Fortunately, it was to each other.

Above: The Chair Dance Thing.

Below: The bride wore tennis shoes.

My father's friend Tom Lynch surprised us by reading the following poem in our honor. It was the first time I'd heard it, and I still like it today.

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

W.B. Yeats

Below is the Ketubah (Jewish Marriage Contract) that Leora and I composed. We could not use the centuries old traditional Ketubah text which involves the chatan (groom) "acquiring" the kallah (bride.) This was not for us. Our relationship would have to be founded in equality. That is simply not possible within a traditional Jewish halachic (legal) framework, even if Jewish couples have forged relationships of respect and trust for centuries. So when the time came to marry in 1995, after talking to several Rabbis, we defined our relationship in a way that was true to ourselves while reflecting the cultural connection we felt.

Egalitarian Ketubah (Jewish Marriage Contract)
for
Miles Hochstein and Leora Troper

On the first day of the week on the Fifteenth day of Elul in the year 5755 of creation, corresponding to Sunday, the Tenth of September, 1995 of the common era in the County of Los Angeles in the State of California in the United States of America on the Planet Earth, we have witnessed that the chatan Miles Laszlo Hochstein, also known as Shimon Nachum ben Pinchas v'Gianna, said to the kallah Laura Miriam Troper, also known as Leora bat Shmuel v'Yehudit,"Behold with this ring you are consecrated unto me according to the laws of Moshe and Yisrael" and that the kallah Leora said to the chatan Miles "Behold with this ring you are consecrated unto me according to the laws of Moshe and Yisrael."

The chatan Miles and the kallah Leora agree that their relationship will be guided by the highest ideals of the Jewish path.

The kallah Leora and the chatan Miles further agree that it is their intention to work on behalf of each other, to honor, sustain and provide for one another, to accept equal responsibilities and to perform equal labors, to strive to communicate openly throughout their lives, and to live as one family and to build one home in faithfulness and integrity as is the way of the sons and daughters of Yisrael.

The kallah Leora received a ring from her beloved and the chatan Miles received a ring form his beloved as tokens of their love for the purpose of marriage.

The chatan Miles and the kallah Leora accept responsibility for the obligations of this ketubah and for the monies and material goods which each has brought into the marriage.

And we have concluded this agreement on behalf of the kallah Leora and the chatan Miles with an appropriate instrument and all here is valid and binding.

Signed and Witnessed

After defining the text in English, I worked with my future father-in-law Shmuel Troper to translate the text into Hebrew, and the final Ketubah contains both the English and Hebrew texts. That's a good way to get to know your future father-in-law - write out the wedding contract with him. He was thrilled that his daughter was marrying a man who knew Hebrew. What were the odds of that happening in America?

In creating our text we borrowed from other sources to create this document, but I am no longer able to properly attribute them. If you should find this a good starting point for your own Ketubah, I'd love to hear about it, and if we have blatantly stolen your words let us know so we can at least thank you.

Finally, it is indicative of the kind of people Leora and I were, and are, that our biggest fights in the time before the wedding were all over texts. We fought about the Ketubah text. We fought about the invitations texts. We fought about the explanations. We fought about the words. That's what we seem to care about.

I should also note that in 2003 I still have a hard time seeing where it says in the above text that I have to take the garbage out tonight, but Leora says its right there, as plain as anything.

Note 1) "Jewish Path"? What's that? It's just something we made up. Its a loose translation "halacha", in the sense of "way" and "walking" and "path." It is also "path" in the sense of spiritual "path" and way of being. I back translated it into Hebrew as "derek ha'yehudi" - the Jewish path. It made sense to us at the time, even though the "Jewish path" may not exist anywhere but in our heads.

Note 2) "As is the way of the sons and daughters of Yisrael..." Well, that's kind of hokey sounding in retrospect. For some it has been the way, and for some it has not been the way, just as with all people and peoples. Oh well.

Note 3) "Behold you are consecrated to me according to the laws of Moshe and Yisrael" - Hari at mekudeshet le c'dat Moshe v'Yisrael - together with a ring this will make you very married. Don't try this at home kids. The actual phrase is "k'dat", that is to say "according to the dat", and "dat" means in modern Hebrew "religion" so we would have "according to the religion of Moshe and Yisrael" but in the original usage might be better translated as "according to the tradition of Moshe and Yisrael." To translate k'dat as "according to the laws" is to make a narrow assertion about the tradition, one might argue. I would have preferred to say, and I certainly meant, "according to the tradition" which to my mind includes not only the legal tradition, but the emotional, spiritual and mystical elements of Jewish life.

Leora's old friends Avi and Eitan in full nose gear (right) sang the Jewish classic Lydia the Tatooed Lady, so surely the text deserves to appear below. No, I don't think they sang all of the verses.

In addition, many other friends sang songs and entertained us.

Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that folks adore so,
and a torso even more so.
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia.
Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo.
On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.
Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too.
And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!