Question: I’m getting married soon and I’ve noticed that many Jewish brides are veiled at their weddings. Is that required?
Prior to an Ashkenazi Jewish wedding, it’s common to have a bedeken, a ceremony in which the groom covers the bride’s face with a veil just before the two join together under the chuppah, the marriage canopy. At my own bedeken, Rabbi Leora Kaye shared two scenes from the Book of Genesis.
The first was the story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah from Genesis 29. A quick refresher: Jacob, fleeing his family of origin because of an incident with his brother Esau, takes refuge in his mother’s ancestral home. Working for his uncle Laban, Jacob falls in love with Laban’s younger daughter Rachel and agrees to work for seven years for the privilege of marrying her. Except Laban is a trickster, and Jacob discovers after the wedding that he actually married Leah. Luckily for him, plural marriage was still a thing in biblical times, and seven years later he was finally allowed to marry Rachel.
The concept of the bedeken (a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew for “to check”) is usually connected to this story. Many say the custom was developed to allow the groom to confirm that the bride in front of him is indeed the woman he intends to marry. (Note that the bedeken is purely an Ashkenazi ceremony; it is not common in Sephardi/Mizrachi tradition.)
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But as Rabbi Kaye taught me, and as I now teach other couples, the veil goes back to an earlier scene in Genesis when Jacob’s mother Rebecca first encounters her intended. Rebecca too has left her family of origin, but she did not flee. Given the choice to set out on a new life with a man she had yet to meet, she says yes. And in Genesis 24, well before Jacob meets his beloved, we read:
Raising her eyes, Rebecca saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel and said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field toward us?” And the servant said, “That is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself.
Most often read as a sign of modesty, Rabbi Kaye offered me and my husband a different explanation. She said that Rebecca was known for her beauty, and Isaac would be able to see that immediately. But, she reminded us, the work of marriage is falling in love beyond what you can see on the outside. In veiling herself, perhaps Rebecca was asking Isaac to fall in love with her true self, her inner self.
Like many aspects of the wedding ceremony, the custom of veiling ebbs and flows with modern trends. Because it has always been a custom and not a requirement of Jewish law, we see lots of different practices, including some egalitarian ones. Whether you veil or not, I hope you find a way to reflect on its symbolism, and invite your beloved to see your truest self.
Rabbi Sari Laufer is the chief engagement officer at Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles.
