5817 —חתונה גדולה באיכות ולא בהוצאות, וההכנה הרוחנית לבנין עדי עד

B"H, 2 MarCheshvan, 5718

Brooklyn.

Greetings and blessing!

After the longest interruption, your letter of 27 Tishrei arrived, and in it too I found no reason or explanation for your interruption in writing all this time. This also raises the concern that during all this time you have not published anything on spreading the wellsprings (for surely you would have sent the clipping here, as was your custom in the past), and likewise regarding your participation in the farbrengens of Anash and in the affairs of Anash in general. Perhaps you will make up for this in your next letter.

I hope that, as you write in your letter, the wedding, at a good and auspicious time, will not be postponed beyond the month of Kislev, which comes upon us for good.

As for what you write about the expenses involved in making a large wedding,

— the reason for straining oneself with special expenses in order to have specifically a large wedding, etc., is not understood at all, when what matters is that it be a wedding great in quality; especially according to what our Sages say on the verse משתה גדול "a great feast" (Bereishis 21:8; Bereishis Rabbah, ch. 43), that the Great One of the worlds would be there. That is to say, this should be evident in all the details of the wedding, and above all in everything concerning the groom and bride in preparing for the wedding and in their decisions for the future: that the Great One of the worlds agrees with them. And this is what brings the Shechinah to dwell between them (איש ואשה זכו שכינה ביניהן "husband and wife, if they are worthy, the Shechinah is between them," Sotah 17a). It is understood that this involves no material expense [apart from setting aside money for tzedakah, and that is no expense at all, since the Holy One, blessed be He, promises עשר בשביל שתתעשר "give a tenth so that you will become wealthy" (Taanis 9a), and ובחנוני נא בזאת "and test Me now with this" (Malachi 3:10), etc.]. As for what the world calls greatness (in the language of Chassidus, וועלטישע הנחות "worldly conventions"), with a great to-do, etc., it is not worthwhile, for several reasons.

I hope that just as you are making plans regarding the material side of things, all the more so, and a fortiori, you are making preparations regarding the spiritual side. For marriage was established by the Men of the Great Assembly under the name בנין עדי עד "an everlasting edifice" (the blessing "Who fashioned man," Kesubos 8a). If, for a dwelling for a limited time, about which you write, people take so much interest in the details, how much more so for a dwelling of decades, how much more so for a dwelling for all the days of a person's life on earth, and how much more so for an everlasting edifice, for the soul is eternal; and this is easy to understand.

Awaiting good news in all the above.

Summary

This letter tells a groom that a wedding should be great in quality rather than in expense: its greatness is that G‑d is present and the Shechinah dwells between husband and wife. And as marriage is an everlasting edifice, the spiritual preparation for it deserves far more care than the material plans.