Sheva Brachot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sheva Brachot (Hebrew: שבע ברכות ) literally "the seven blessings" also known as brachot Nesuin (Hebrew: ברכות נישואים ), "the wedding blessings" in Halakha (Jewish religious law) are blessings that are recited for the bride and the groom in a Jewish Wedding ceremony under the chupah over a second cup of wine (called the Cup of Blessing).

These blessing are also recited as part of the festive meals that continue for a week after the wedding. They are said over a cup of wine after the Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals). It is a common custom for these blessing to be divided among honored guests. If multiple people say the blessings, the cup is passed to the person saying each blessing.

In Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, these blessings are said only if a minyan is present. On weekdays their recitation also requires the presence of at least one person who was not present for any previous Sheva Brachot of the couple. On Shabbat there is no need for a new guest, since the Shabbat itself is considered a new guest. New guests are referred to as Panim Hadashot - new faces.

If both the bride and the groom were previously married the period of celebration is abridged to three days.

Under the chuppah the blessing over wine comes first; at the meal table it comes last. We are not certain who composed the benedictions; the text is recorded in the Talmud (K'tubot 7b/8a) but its origin is probably several centuries earlier. Though the Sheva Brachot are a stylistically harmonious whole, they are a mosaic of skillfully interwoven Biblical words, phrases and ideas.

From the Jewish Encyclopedia:

" At the time of the Geonim (as occasionally to-day in the East) these seven blessings were uttered twice—once in the house of a relative of the bride, whither the latter had been taken from her father's house on the evening before the day of the wedding, and once in the house of the groom."

The first blessing is "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who created everything for his Glory". The phrase is connected to Talmudic incidents in which the Sages said this phrase after failing in attempts to replace the people who baked the Showbread and the people who compounded the incense in the days of the Temple of Jerusalem. It reflects both grace to accept what one cannot change and recognition that everyone has unique and irreplaceable talents as keys to a harmonious marriage.