having complex feeling about Shvartze Chasanesā¦
#The only chance you have as an orphan/pauper/disabled person at marriage being a pantomime/inversion of a Proper Wedding#You could never pay for this yourself. You are forced into accepting charity whether you like it or not.#Your bodies and your lives are the property of the town#How do you feel? Do you love him? Do you like her? Everyone gives you their cast-offs and you sit at the table in the graveyard and you#Smile because you have to because itās your wedding day. Around you roars a plague. You sit in a dress in a suit in a kittel in shoes you#Could never dream of affording. You sit across from a (wo)man who is joined to you by your shared miserable fate#You have no yichus. Whatās your other chance at a chasaneh?#jewishthinking#Idk. People (myself included!) have written about the minhag as somethingā¦ admirable#almost? A type of charity characteristic of a community-focused moral compass#But the reverse of that coin is that you are expected to give to the community as well#And you have nothing to give. Nothing but your life and your lifecycle celebrations. You marry a (wo)man in a graveyard. Amidst the matzeva#Of the long and recently dead#A plague howls around you#You stand in donated finery you cannot afford#You drink wine and alcohol and eat food you could never buy#Everything in black#Everything draped in black
