Week before wedding

Asked by Don · February 8, 2004 · Other

Question

In the previous post on this subject(of the chosson and kallah not meeting the week of the chasunah) you wrote "No clue where it came from. Whatever the he and the her want is OK.". Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in his book Made in Heaven puts the source for this custom in Yoreh Deah 192:1. The mechaber states that a women may see dam due to desire. The Cochmas Odom states the same in 115. I'm not suprised that you could not find this on the web, it's not the best source for jewish minhagim.

Answer

Answered by Aaron Abadi

The web is the best source for Customs, since most come from our non-Jewish neighbors. I remember Rabbi Kaplan, I stayed at his house for Shabbat. He was a brilliant man. He was a Sephardi from Turkey. (believe it or not) The custom of not seeing each other for a week could have started for a good reason by a Rabbi, or it could have been borrowed from our neighbors. In either case, it is not applicable today. Whatever the reason was, we don't know it, nor have a need for it. Maybe they used to fight before the wedding, so they figured if they made it till a week before, let's keep them apart. Who knows?! It doesn't make a difference. AA