Why Do We Give a Plain Gold Wedding Ring

Historic Treasures — Episode 51: "Why Do We Give a Plain Gold Wedding Ring" (ט' במנחם אב תש"פ)

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel Archives. This coming week is Tu B'Av, Chamisha Asar B'Av, and Chazal tell us there were no greater days for Israel than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur. So everybody has the question: Yom Kippur we all know is the holiest day of the year, but how can you compare what happened on the fifteenth day of Av to Yom Kippur?

So many things happened on the fifteenth of Av. One of the things that happened on the fifteenth day of Av is that this is the time when people make shidduchim — this is a time that boys used to look for girls, and it's a time of marriage.

Now it says that there was a matrona — there was a queen — who didn't believe in G-d, in the Creator. So she says, "What does the Holy One, Blessed be He, do all day? He sits and makes shidduchim — He's a matchmaker." She says, "That's nothing, I can also do the same thing." So she took boys and girls and she matched them up. She said, "You see, they got married, and I can do what He does." After a few months they got into fights, they got into machlokes, arguments, and they divorced. After that she understood, "Ah, now I know what G-d does all day." G-d sits and makes a shidduch — it's something; he comes from one end of the world, one upbringing, she comes from another upbringing, and now they have to live together and get along and live together until one hundred and twenty. Only G-d can do that — people cannot do that. Now she understood what G-d does.

Now it reminds me — and I think I mentioned this once before — it reminds me that one of the letters mentions there why a chosson gives the kallah a plain ring, not a diamond ring. So it says this: because she should not have her mind on the twenty-thousand-dollar diamond ring. But the letter mentions there that the reason the chosson gives a plain ring, a cheap ring, a hundred dollars' worth, is because, chas v'shalom, if a diamond ring falls on the floor and it breaks, you can give it to a professional and he can fix it — a professional can look at it and see exactly where it was broken; it doesn't look broken, but he can find the spot. But when a plain ring falls on the floor and it breaks, you can't tell the difference. Meaning, the letter says, that later on in life, people have children, people go through different problems, and there might be a difference of opinion — I wouldn't even call it that — they should always think back to the night of the wedding, that it was the happiest time of their lives. This is why you give a plain ring, not a diamond.

Now, therefore, to make a shidduch is very important, very holy — it's like a Yom Tov. I build a family — the Frierdiker Rebbe once said that a shidduch is such a holy thing that it's a pity that it was given over into the hands of young people. But how else can you build a world if not with young people? You can't build it through older people — you have to build with the young people. But it's a pity — if the young people would realize what a shidduch is: to take two people, one from one upbringing and the other from another upbringing, and they get together and they work together and they build up a bayis in Yisroel. This is very important — [unclear] — this is why marriage is like shalom between husband and wife, and even if you have to say something which is not one hundred percent true, he did it — why? Because it's worth it for the sake of shalom.

Now, here I heard once — I guess from a mashpia — he says, you know, there are thirty-nine melachos, thirty-nine prohibitions. "Do not light a fire on Shabbos" is one of the thirty-nine — there is a possuk, don't light a fire. So the question is, why did it single out fire from all the other ones? Why is fire different? Either you should mention all thirty-nine, or none — but why fire? There are a lot of mefarshim on this, but this is only a vort.

So it says that usually people get married — everybody's busy the whole week: telephone, a car, he goes to work, she goes shopping, they have children, she feeds the children, they go to simchas, to weddings — they're busy, they're not together all the time. Come Shabbos, especially now when you have to quarantine, and also on the long Shabbos day, they're both home the whole day — there's no car, there's no telephone, there's no shopping, there's nothing. So they might get into a fight, they might get into an argument — fire means anger. So the Torah wants to tell you a svara: don't make a fire on Shabbos, because Shabbos is a time to be together — that's important. The Torah has a special svara for that — that's only a vort.

Now, this teaching of shalom bayis has to start before the marriage, not [only] when you get married, and I will tell you a personal story. Baruch Hashem, my wife and I, until one hundred and twenty, I would say ninety-five percent of the time we have guests on Shabbos — it happens very, very seldom that we don't; usually we do. So a couple, a Baltimore couple, called us up, and they wanted — could they come for Shabbos — for sure, even though I had other guests already. I was married maybe a few months at the time. So I came home from shul, I have guests here, and I wait for them — they're not here yet. How long can I wait? So I was waiting for a while, and we made Kiddush, we went to wash, we made challah, and we started to eat fish. I mean, we couldn't wait — I usually wait for everybody, but I was already late, I couldn't wait.

And while I'm saying this — we ate fish because the meal calls for eating fish on Shabbos. This has nothing to do with the story, but since I mentioned fish, I want to mention something it says in Talks and Tales — why do we eat fish on Shabbos? Because [the word] dag, fish — daled is four, gimel is three, three and four is seven, the seventh day — [so we] eat fish. And I heard once from a [unclear] Chabad that they have a minhag to eat the fish with their hands, and I think it comes from the Baal Shem Tov. They say — I don't know why with the hands — because it says the fish was given with hands, meaning that the baalabatim [common people], they want to touch the fish, they want to touch it since it's a mitzvah chaviva, so they want to touch the mitzvah. That's what it originally was for. I heard that the Baal Shem Tov also ate fish with his hands — I don't know, but that's what I heard.

Anyways, so we started the fish. All of a sudden, after the fish, the young couple comes in, they sit down — he made Kiddush, then they went to wash. Now, when I was young — I was then eight, nine years old — I remember my father's father, Avner [?], used to cover the challah; he didn't want the challah knife on the table, so many times I would take away the challah knife from the table. So I took away the challah knife.

Anyways, they made Kiddush, they went to wash. The husband opens up the challah cover, and there's no knife. So — they weren't allowed to talk because they had washed — he motions to her, meaning, "bring the knife." Then she motions to him, "you bring the knife." And then he motions again, and she motions again. And I saw that this marriage is going to be a problem and it's not going to work, because they both — anyways, I saw that, but I ran to the kitchen, I took a knife, and I gave him the knife. He took the knife, he cut the challah, and he gave her a piece of the hamotzi.

And then he says to her, "I learned in yeshiva about this — the mashpia told me that I am the baal habayis, so you better listen to me." That's why. So she says, "I learned in Mishnah that women are equal, so why should I get the knife — you get the knife." And also she said she heard that the husband is the head and the wife is the neck — wherever the neck turns, that's where the head goes. So — who says you listen to me?

Anyways, it was like this. Why did this happen? Because people — they give the message, but they don't give the right message. He's right — it says [unclear] — and she is right, women are equal, the Rebbe speaks about it, but they have to explain it. So that's why it becomes a problem. And that's what the Rebbe said to Rabbi Twerski once — that when people don't grow up in a home where they saw their parents keep Shabbos, they should at least go, more or less, every Shabbos, or more Shabbosim — they have to have a role model, that this is the family that I'm going to follow. They should be ready. I mean, it's good to learn — I hear lectures, and everybody goes to lectures, they learn, which is important, of course they learn Tanya — but when it comes to actually getting married and living as husband and wife, they don't know, they don't know how to do it.

So this is something that we have to know — that we should teach them beforehand how to have shalom bayis. Next week we're going to continue our second program about the wedding, about marriage and shalom bayis. Thank you.