Under the Chuppah

My husband is working on his recovery from a nasty hospital experience by doing his favorite thing, creating.  He’s a builder you see.  Not by profession but by love.  Our home is filled with objets d’arte that he created from his lively imagination and lots of graph paper.  We have tables of many shapes.  We have stair decor and  a stunning fireplace mantel.  It’s almost infinite actually but he’s taught me to use that word more carefully so I moderate my exuberance with the word almost.

Our children and grandchildren also have been beneficiaries of his talents.  So, for example, a married grandson’s family has a “one of a kind” netilat yedaim stand and one son-in-law  has a magnificent shtender in honor of his smicha.  In every home, in Israel and America, there are his unsigned original pieces.  He brings beauty to our world and makes himself happy simultaneously.  Nice work if you can get it!

His latest project which is endowed with infinite (using the word correctly now!) love is a chuppah which is near completion and ready for the delivery to the shul in Michigan  There, God willing, our grandson Benji will join his bashert Erica under her grandfather’s (z”l) talit surrounded by Sabba’s chuppah.  The planning and design brought joy to my husband.  What greater gift can he present to this amazing young couple than the actual chuppah where they will recite their vows!  Where they will recite the cherished words, “Ani l dodi v dodi li ”   I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.

Erica is so perfect a match for our Benji.  Like him she is mellow, calm, hard working, and committed to all things Jewish.  Benji is a special guy.  Just ask his grandmother!  From the beginning he showed a rare flexibility to life, never one to make a fuss.  He was one of Camp Ramah’s youngest arrivals, starting life at camp at two weeks old.  This might have sent many babies into a rage of colic and night time screaming fits but Benji just went with the flow while his mother worked and he, the fourth of five brothers, assumed correctly, that life at camp would be fun so let’s get started.

I can honestly say that I’ve never seen Benji get angry.  As someone who personally gets angry with tremendous regularity it’s hard for me to even imagine someone who lives life so calmly that getting agitated is virtually an unknown commodity.  But, that’s Benji, one of the world’s nicest people.

How lucky that these two met at college, graduated and decided to get married.  Why wait?   Really!

So along came a thrilling job for Sabba.  Build their very first home, the chuppah for their wedding.  And may the joy under the chuppah mirror the joy of their lives together. May the love and care of making the chuppah reflect the love and care that they share and may their lives be blessed with goodness, health, happiness and children and grandchildren who will give them the glorious happiness that Sabba and I feel right now!  Mazal tov Erica and Benji.