Jewish Weddings

Are you having 7 blessings read?

Are you having the Seven Blessings read during your ceremony?  Will the rabbi read it or a family member/friend?  If yes, will it be in Hebrew or English?I've heard of a ceremony where the rabbi reads it in Hebrew and a family member reads it in English.  We're thinking of something similar, but I'm afraid that it would make the wedding go longer than the 30 minutes we've planned.

Re: Are you having 7 blessings read?

  • RachiemooRachiemoo member
    First Anniversary First Comment Combo Breaker
    edited December 2011
    yes, our rabbi read them in hebrew.  i think it would be nice to do it in hebrew and english, but like you said it will take longer.
    image BabyFruit Ticker Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
  • edited December 2011
    Our Rabbi is reading them in English.  There are different interpretations, but i guess you just pick what you like.  it would make the ceremony a little longer to do both, but you should do it if that's what you want.
  • ShoshieShoshie member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    edited December 2011
    We had them read twice: at the ceremony, the cantor sang them in Hebrew and the rabbi said them in English. At our reception, we called up different groups of friends and family to read the parts in Hebrew (I put my parents in charge of that), and then called on different tables to read the translation -- so everyone felt like they were a part of it. It was kind of fun!
    image
    Adam & Shoshie 10-21-07: "My family is big and loud and everybody's in each other's lives and business. ... but wherever I go, they will always be there." * My Blog: Tales of a Hopeful Jewish Mom to Be * BabyFruit Ticker
  • edited December 2011
    We're having different ppl come up and read in Hebrew and English.  The blessings are short and they will have time to practice ahead.  We are asking them to line up on the sides of the room to make it go faster. 
  • silversparkssilversparks member
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    There are lots of different ways to read the 7 blessings. We called up family and friends to do them. We expected they would read in both Hebrew and English though most just ended up reading the Hebrew. But if you are worried about time constraints, the key is to make sure that people have them ahead of time (we put each person's blessing on their seats in English, Hebrew, and Transliteration) and had assigned seats for them in the front row so that it would be easy for them to get to the chuppah. The difference in timing between having our rabbi do them all and including the others was less than 5 minutes.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • joesbbyjoesbby member
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    The cantor is doing the Seven blessings in Hebrew and in the program there is Hebrew to English translation in case any one wants to follow along or know whats being said if they don't understand Hebrew.
  • Danaz1Danaz1 member
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    we were going to have people come up but decided against it. It was confusing and we had people who were not jewish who could only read in english but the rabbi said it would be weird to have just one person read in hebrew. I don't want the ceremony to drag on either.
    Lilypie Second Birthday tickersLilypie First Birthday tickers Image and video hosting by TinyPic Image and video hosting by TinyPic
  • 2dBride2dBride member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited December 2011
    We are having the Seven Blessings read in Hebrew, with a loose interpretation in English.  [url=http://sites.google.com/site/2dbride/ceremony/ceremony-text]A copy of our ceremony is here[/url].  However, we are not having guests come up to the front to read them.  It will be a very small ceremony, so people will just read from their seats.Each of the English versions will be done by a different guest.  We gave each guest who was reading a blessing the choice of whether to also read the Hebrew version, or have it done by the rabbi.
  • edited December 2011
    we will have them read as well- we have 2 rabbis officiating so one will read the first and one reads the last, the 5 in between will be read by family/friends in hebrew. the last one will also be read in english by FI's cousin. The majority of our guests are Jewish (and more or less observant) so we thought it may be nice.
  • RedZeeRedZee member
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    My dad did the first. His dad did the second. The cantor did the rest.We were going to have them read in English, but we didn't get a lot of support on that from the Orthodox contingency because it would have lasted too long. I sort of regret that we didn't (but I'm also glad the ceremony didn't take forever). We were also going to put the translations in the program, but then we skipped the programs.One recommendation: whoever is participating should start out up there with you. It's annoying to have to wait for 90 year old great uncle Henry to make his way to the chuppah.
    imageimage
    October 2013 February Siggy Challenge: Valentine's Day Fail Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
    EDD 10/3/13 BabyFetus Ticker
  • edited December 2011
    yea good point Redzee- we are having the readers (all under age 60 except for FI's grandpa who still drives his car around ny) sit in the front row so as to avoid 10 minute gaps.... I was worried about having a really long ceremony
  • emerlynemerlyn member
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    At my wedding we had a Cantor and a Rabbi. The Cantor sang them in Hebrew, and the Rabbi read them in English!!
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • edited December 2011
    While I don't want to have the wedding go on for too long, my thinking is that this day is for my FI and I before G-d and our family and we won't be doing this again, so if folks are going to be upset over an extra 5-10 minutes, then they can have an extra drink at the reception.  :-) We still have to discuss it with our rabbi, but I plan on having seven folks read them - it allows us to give more family and close friends honors (his two sisters and three cousins, and our two friends).  Everyone has studied Hebrew at some point or is versed, but I will give them the blessing weeks before to practice.  I will have three sit on one side of the aisle, four on the other and when the time comes they will all stand in front of the congregation and one at a time say the blessing, first in Hebrew then English.  I can't imagine this will take more than 5 extra minutes.
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards