Just married!

In several hours, I’ll be on a flight to St. Kitts for my honeymoon. Sue and I were married yesterday. We were honored to have my mother preside, in her capacity as rabbi. These words were read at the ceremony before the traditional Jewish wedding blessings or sheva brachot:

Ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take…It is indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together, we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…

It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.

–Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season