Weddings: The Soul’s Joy

Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, in his Kedushat Levi (Likkutim, pg. 108, #3) offers an interesting insight into the tears shed at a wedding:

“The soul suffers when it is placed in this world. It has left a place of perfect happiness, rejoicing and fulfillment only to arrive in this world of struggle. That is how the Sages explained a baby’s cries when it leaves the womb. All the tears at a wedding are the cries of the souls that will arrive in this world as a result of this marriage.

I would like to suggest an alternative approach: There are special moments in life when the soul experiences a joy similar to that of the time it spent under God’s Throne, before it entered this world. There are times when our soul has so much clarity that it feels the same happiness it felt when it was still in a perfect place. There are moments when the soul realizes that this world is also the only place where it can grow, develop and achieve its purpose, and that path is wide open before the soul. When one soul meets its other half, and feels whole for the first time, and senses that now it can, and will, thrive, the soul rejoices. That is the joy experienced by the bride and groom standing under the Chupah.