Reason #98043 for making aliyah

The following announcement is brought to you by the Our Shiputzim Aliyah Promotion Department.

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Picture this.

You’re at a wedding in Yerushalayim.

As is the tradition, the chupah (ceremony) is held outdoors, and the assembled guests are huddled in their winter coats against the clear, cold night air. (That is, all of the guests except for the chatan’s friends, who are in shirtsleeves and are apparently impervious to the chill. Or perhaps that’s why they jump up and down in time to the music which the band plays between each of the sheva brachot. But I digress…)

The mesader kiddushin (officiating rabbi) explains that the dust he’s about to put on the chatan’s forehead comes from Har HaBayit, Gush Katif, the Northern Shomron, and also the ruins of Kever Yosef in Shechem.

Then, just before the chatan breaks the glass, as everyone sings “Im Eshkachech” (“If I forget you, O Yerushalayim, may my right hand forget its cunning. May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not raise Yerushalayim over the top of my joy.” – Tehilim 137:5-6), you look around and see apartment buildings filled with beautiful, hopeful families and cranes signifying ongoing construction.

Does it get any cooler than that?

“מהרה ה’ אלוקינו ישמע בערי יהודה ובחוצות ירושלים, קול ששון וקול שמחה, קול חתן וקול כלה, קול מצהלות חתנים מחופתם ונערים ממשתה נגינתם…”

“Hashem, our God, let there speedily be heard in the cities of Yehudah and the streets of Yerushalayim, the voice of joy and the voice of happiness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of the bridegrooms’ rejoicing from their canopies and the youths from their musical feasts…” (From the Sheva Brachot, based on BT Ktuvot 8a)