Moetzi Shabbat and Sunday on the Jewish calendar is the 17th of Sivan. And why am I telling you this? Well because, my husband Avraham and I will be celebrating our 46th wedding anniversary.
We were married on 17th of Sivan 5727 corresponding to June 25th 1967, at the Young Israel of Chomedey in Chomedey, Quebec. For those who do not know where Chomedey is, it is a suburb of Montreal.
Believe me, when I write that back then it never occurred to me that we would be blessed with 3 amazing kids, 2 daughters and a son, 2 super son-in-laws, 13 precious Sabra grandchildren, 6 who are 10th generation Israeli, make Aliyah and live on a Sephardic yishuv.
Oh yes, another fact that I would have never believed would happened is that I would have a pet dog. Truthfully, I am a little afraid of dogs I don’t know, but for the last 18 years Rocky and now Patches, have been part our family and good friends. Rocky passed away 3 years ago.
Our wedding was almost put on hold, because of the 6 day war in Israel and shuls were not allowing weddings to take place.
Our wedding was a real princess wedding. You know the kind with all the trimmings. I am posting in green, because that was my color scheme. Being the only daughter I was the princess of the family. Sometimes I think that my mother a”H planned my wedding, to make up for her wedding having to be just a chuppah in the Rabbi’s study.
My parents were married in Montreal in 1943. A few days before their wedding date, my father a”H, who was a soldier in the Canadian army was called up and received his orders to be deployed 72 hours later to Europe to fight in the war.
They didn’t know what to do. The time was during the nine days in Av, when weddings do not take place.
After asking a she’la [question] to the Chief Rabbi in Montreal, the answer was that they must get married before my father left and that he [the chief Rabbi] would do the ceremony. The ceremony was arranged for the next day. Their wedding was supposed to take place 3 weeks later.
24 hours after the ceremony, my father was deployed to Europe for three years.
My mother told me that a couple of days after my father left, the store where she bought her wedding dress called to say that her dress was ready and she told them to give it way. She didn’t want to see it finished.
My parent’s engagement pictures. Being the 9 days, the Rav wouldn’t allow them to take a wedding picture.
So much water has passed under the bridge since that wonderful rainy Sunday evening in June.
May we be blessed to dance at the weddings of our grandchildren and to welcome great-grandchildren.
Miriam
