en to someone else for safe keeping during the ceremony. The final part of the ceremony is called the nisuin and consists of seven different blessings of celebration and hope. Traditionally a different guest reads each blessing. After the completion of the blessings the couple drinks from a wine goblet and before they leave the chuppah a glass is wrapped in a napkin and placed on the floor where it is stomped on by the groom. This breaking of the glass is symbolic for the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 C. E. and suggests that the present day world is not yet redeemed. The seriousness only lasts a moment and at this time everyone yells Mazel tov! Congratulations, good luck (Scott, Warren, 432-433).After the ceremony is completed the bride and the groom are escorted to a private room for yichud or privacy. Two people stand outside the door to make sure they are not disturbed. Today the yichud is simply symbolic, but in biblical times the bride and the groom would have their first intercourse immediately after marriage. The bride would bring forth a sheet with bloodstains to show the loss of her virginity, which her family would then display (Scott, Warren, 433).A wedding feast or seudah is required because ritual and rite are formally celebrated with feasting. The end of the wedding feast is marked with a shevah berachot, a special grace with the repetition of the seven wedding blessings. Intermarriage In traditional Jewish culture intermarriage was considered to be a family betrayal and complete emotional cut off from the family usually followed. In the most severe of these circumstances the family would sit shive or formally mourn the child who intermarries. Even today, the most lenient and Americanized Jewish families remain highly sensitive to intermarriage of a child. Even if the family accepts the intermarriage, conflicts usually erupt later in life when grandchildren are born and the question of religion rises. ...
