Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis Sermons

Wine, Canopy, Ring and Glass

The Wedding by Harold M. Schulweis

My cup of wine poured with thine
Into one empty vessel.
Drink a new mixture,
Our wines like our lives intermingled,
Fusion without coercion,
Merger without loss,
A curious admixture,
Two into one
One into two
Union without subtraction,
Singularity multiplied

Four separate poles
Too close, the cover collapses,
Too far, it will not hold.
Let there be space in our togetherness
Distance that holds together.

The ring unbejeweled.
Simple as love,
Not blinding our vision.
The ring,
A circle not to exclude
But to embrace.
An encirclement
Reaching for the hem of God.

The glass broken,
Symbol of fragility.
Strong we are
Yet vulnerable.
Gentle now, soft now, tender now
We two are fragile
As the broken glass.

Love more powerful than death.
Heals, binds, cures, cares, resurrects,
Sharing faith and fate
Place and time
Seal the sacred friendship,
A new world created
A new beginning
A new promise.
Rejoice the world that rejoices us.

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