Kol Sasson! You may have heard this blessing at a Jewish wedding, sung along - but did you know its origins? The ultimate love song rises from one of the worst rubble heaps in our history. Each time we sing it we insist that hope persists.
The blessing’s origins are Jeremiah's. Still in prison, as Jerusalem gets ready to give up the fight to Babylon, the prophet continues to have violent visions: The temple and palaces will become rubble, heaps of corpses everywhere. It’s the end, just as predicated.
But then he hears a song. A future wedding. Right here, in the place where all is lost, in the city where for decades he has warned that no bride will dance and no wedding songs will be heard. A few chapters ago he warned the people that YHWH’s wrath will annihilate all that they love:
“And I will banish from them the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp.”
The phrase “the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride” shows up several times in Jeremiah’s visions, all but one time as a sad omen, a sound of love that will not be heard when funerals and death will be the rituals attended to. But in today’s chapter, as the end near, he uses it again, and this time - it’s a future promise -- we will love, and wed, and sing, again - right here, where it hurts:
YHWH spoke: Again there shall be heard in this place, which you say is ruined, without humans or animals—in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without humans, without inhabitants, without animals—
the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride, the voice of those who cry, “Give thanks to YHWH, God of Hosts, for YHWH —whose steadfast love is eternal—is good!” as they bring thanksgiving offerings to the House of YHWH. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as of old—said YHWH.”
Maybe every wedding is a healing to the hurts of history, the pains of the past? Every love story, or at least a marital ceremony, an opportunity to believe, to begin life again? Jeremiah sends the people of Jerusalem to their deaths and to their exile with a song that will keep playing in their heads. Generations later, the Talmudic sages will weave seven blessings out of his words, blessing each bride and groom with the promise of joy and celebration, no matter what. We sing this blessing, with Jeremiah’s exact words, just before we break the glass to remember our traumas, commit to repair, and exclaim - Mazeltov! Notice the other sounds emerging from this promise - the sound of faith and trust - a lifelong human task, esp. at times of trouble.
These are the last hopeful words out of the prophet’s mouth, before the end comes to Judah and Jerusalem. Will the people hear his hope? Will they be able to believe again in a deity who deserts them at their hour of need - or will they see beyond the moment to know that life and death, grief and joy, are woven in a long game, often hidden from the human eye, but still, sometimes apparent through our prophets and our songs?
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