SOLDIER WEARING A SWORD AT A WEDDING 1970
QUESTION: At a recent marriage a military officer was to be married in full dress uniform, which includes the wearing of a sword. Should this be permitted?(From Vigdor W. Kavaler, Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania .)
ANSWER: There has been a wide variety of customs as to what was the proper garment for the groom to wear at his wedding. The Mishnah in Sotah IX: 14 speaks of the fact that both bride and groom wear a crown, but that this custom in time of persecution was abolished. Maharil , in the fourteenth century in Mainz , describes a wedding in detail and speaks of the groom wearing ashes on his head as a mark of mourning for Jerusalem , and also wearing the sargenes (i.e., the kittel). In fact it was the custom in Eastern Europe (a custom still followed by many Orthodox people) to consider the wedding day, if not as actually a time of mourning, as at least a time of repentance. This is based upon the Talmudic idea(j. Bikurim 65d and Isserles , Even Ha'ezer 61:1)that for the bride and groom the wedding day is a day of repentance like the Day of Atonement . Therefore, the bride and groom fast until the wedding ceremony and, therefore, in Eastern Europe (according to some customs) the bride wore a shroud under her wedding gown and the groom wore a kittel, the white, shroud-like garment of Yom Kippur . A more general Custom, widely observed, was for the groom to wear a talit,a custom generally based upon the juxtaposition of the verses in Scripture (Deut. 22:12,13) where the verse:“You shall put fringes upon your garments,” comes right before the verse:“If a man takes a women to wife.” More romantically explained, the origin of the custom of the groom’s wearing a talit derives from the fact that the bride makes him a gift of his first zalit(since unmarried men do not wear the full talif), and that the four sets of eight threads in the fringes total thirtyWo, which is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word lev, Which means“heart.” However, practically speaking, the groom’s alit was an essential part of the wedding ceremony, since before the