... after the glass was broken? If you are a man, did you purposely stomp on your wife's foot? If not, then watch out!
According to OnionSoupMix, the rabbi in her shul recommended that the best way to start off a marriage is to stomp on your wife's foot right after the glass is broken. Why? To send the message that you are the boss and mashpia and that she is to be submissive. This, according to her rabbi, is an important halacha (and possibly should done even if the bride is a niddah -- but hey, it surely isn't touching derech chibah [in an affectionate manner]).
Personally, my first thought on reading her post is that the rabbi must surely have been joking -- no sane person could possibly think that the best way to start a marriage is by stomping on your bride's foot in public right under the chuppah to tell her that he's the boss, but OnionSoupMix seems to believe that the rabbi was serious.
Anyone else ever heard of this stupidity? I've love to believe that this is just some lone nut (if he's even serious at all) or is he actually pulling this from some authentic source?
The Wolf
18 comments:
I had thought to call my rabbi and ask him about this, but it really is too dumb for me to do that.
As someone who is too respectful of their wife to even write a post with the labels "marriage, stupidity" I can't imagine this being a valid minhag. It sounds like Xtian fundamentalism, not Judaism.
With lubavitch you never know. They have a very, very different understanding of how Judaism works. Sociologically, they're not really "Orthodox," and I don't mean only the messianism (but that's part of it). Their men put on tefillin (and on other people too!), but they have own institutions, terminology, shuls, communities, etc. and keep moving farther and farther away from the mass of people under the Orthodox umbrella. Biologists would say they're approaching a speciation event; it'll probably happen when they're not counted for a minyan, perhaps in the next decade or so. Most non-Lubavitch Orthodox people are not aware of just how "weird" Lubavitch is to Orthodox eyes because they go to pains to avoid making it clear. Onionsoupmix is just a tiny window into the weirdness. If you endeavoured to explore that rabbit hole you'd see it's very deep indeed.
Solomon Maimon writes about this custom in his autobiography (c. 1888), as does Pauine Wengeroff (c. 1908), but neither accounts for the halachic validity.
Wolf,
Yup. I once had a rabbi (not going to mention his name - and he is no longer alive) with chassidic leanings (and it wasn't chabad) who told his talmidim to step (not stomp) on the kallas foot after the wedding.
When he was mesader kedushim, he made sure to loudly whisper this message into the chasans ear.
if he were my mesadeir qidushin, i would've stepped on the rabbi's foot instead. ;-)
No, that's stupid. Everyone knows you're supposed to punch her in the kisser.
I heard of this stupidity once - only I heard that this is supposed to be done in the yichud room. The marriage in question did not last and the husband then proceeded to refuse to give a get until he received a significant sum of money. Guess the same rov that paskened for him that he is permitted to demand money before giving a get also taught him this minhag.
My father is a follower of a (now-deceased) well-known Brooklyn Rabbi and author (not Lubavitch), a learned, though very ascerbic, stern man. My mother told me that my father came home from a shiur one night and todl her that this rabbi said that a father should hit his kids for no reason every so often, just to let them know who's boss.
I think I found the source of this very important halacha / minhag.
http://www.islamonline.net/iol-english/dowalia/society-7-2-2000/society2.asp
See the last paragraph of the link
wtf?? Never heard of that one.
This minhag has old kabalistic provenance; it's mentioned in the sefer חסד לאברהם by מהר"א אזולאי (circa 1650).
(Though as someone mentioned, it's step, not stomp, and to say that this is an important halachah -- even when the bride is a niddah is, well, a particularly perverse type of hyperbole.)
!!! I am speechless. Had orthodad attempted to make that the first thing he did after we got married, I would probably have made stomping a spike heel right back onto his foot the first thing I did after the Chuppah.
Not to mention that he's maybe got broken glass on the bottom of his shoe... !!!
heh heh... ok, at least this was good fodder for a top ten list...
I am (or at least was-post babies) the physically stronger person in our marriage. I will have to ask my husband if he didn't stomp on my foot for fear of being thrown off the bimah, lol.
Wonder what the yichud room is like after your you stomped your wife's foot?
See my comment on the post above, if it posted, I'm not sure.
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