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Beggars at a Wedding
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The poverty of Rabbi DovBer, the Maggid of Mezeritch, was legendary. Meals, when they were, were a crust of bread; the “furniture” in his hovel was an assortment of wooden planks and stumps. Once he was asked by his disciples: “Rebbe, why is it that you must endure such abject conditions, while others, much less deserving than yourself, enjoy the blessings of G‑d’s world?" Rabbi DovBer replied with a story:
A wealthy man once married off his daughter. The father of the bride was a most generous and charitable man, and desired to share his joy with the unfortunate. So he put up notices in all the synagogues and poorhouses in the vicinity, inviting every beggar and vagabond to partake of the wedding feast.
The day of the wedding arrived. Hundreds of beggars took their places around tables laden with the best and the tastiest food money could buy. But then tragedy struck. The bride suddenly fell ill. The greatest doctors were rushed to her side, but to no avail. The bride died, and the wedding was transformed into mourning.
The beggars were divided into two camps. One group said: “The food is on the table. Who knows when, if ever, another such opportunity to fill our stomachs will present itself? Surely, our host would not want all this delicious food to be wasted. If we remain hungry, would this alleviate his grief?”
The second group of beggars, however, would not touch the food that lay before them. “How can we eat and drink,” they cried, “when the one who provided all this mourns? How can we enjoy a feast whose purpose and cause has been transformed into calamity?”
“The world is a wedding feast,” concluded Rabbi DovBer, “created for the sake of G‑d’s union with His bride, Israel. But then the wedding was disrupted, the nuptial home—the Holy Temple—destroyed. Yes, the feast is there for the taking, but its soul is devastated, its provider is in mourning.
“There are those who have no difficulty enjoying what they can of the feast. I, however, belong to the second group of beggars. I cannot bring myself to partake of the leavings of this aborted wedding . . .”
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Some people are better at impromptu fasting than others; some always stick to plan; a 'belly jew' is not the same as a creative person who sees the notion of sustenance as being far more than the sum of a meal.
Wisconsin
To come to a wedding feast and have the bride die, is a terrible event, a cause of deep mourning for all.
There is the table and this spread. What of the beggars, should they, eat, or not?
It is surely a personal ethical decision, and could go, in my mind, both ways. Most ethical decisions require the angst of making that decision on either side of uncertain. It's a kind of weighting of decision making. There is no absolute clarity as to how to proceed in so many decisions of ethics.
So I can see here, both sides. And I think there is no one answer but that inner struggle that decides, and one could make an argument both ways, to eat or refrain.
The refrain here in ethical decisions is a constant one, a kind of music that seems ubiquitous in the course of such deciding.
The beggars could eat in a solemn and respectful manner given the grave upset.
marshfield hills, ma
chabaddb.com
Hashmonaim, Israel
My daughter will be wed May 1st, this coming year. Yet yesterday, with the completion of the Parsha, both of us were talking about how we were left with a feeling of grief, instead of joy. She mourned the loss of the Patriarchs, their wives and the 'friends' she had met once again as she read the book of Genesis.
Her mourning was not only for this loss, but the knowledge of the losses of the future nation of Israel, based upon their straying from Ha'shem and his law. She began to cry to me, as only a 20-year old girl can do, about the loss of the Temple, and the loss she would perhaps experience someday if something happened to her future husband, even if it was in 50 years from now. "How can I live through such a loss, Mama? How can I love so much and let myself open to such potential for grief?"
I will send her a link to your article now, as I sent her one from Sara Esther Crispe's own wedding, yesterday to try and calm her. She is a young woman who feels deeply and will understand the meaning of what you have shared with us.
She, like her mother, is of the group that would mourn with the father, even if she had never met him before.
Thank you so much.
Sydney, AU