Jewish Brides - Sheva Brachot?

I don't get it.

I understand people not wanting God mentioned in their wedding based on their beliefs. But I don't understand wanting a BLESSING that doesn't mention God.

The problem (or good thing?) about Judaism is even if you're not religious, it's part of your culture. I cannot imagine not having many of the Jewish elements in a wedding because of the culture, regardless of how non-religious I am... and I'm only slightly more religious than FH.

Basically, I love the idea of having the blessings read in Hebrew, and he doesn't mind it. This is something cultural for me. But he doesn't want the traditional "bless them-garden of Eden-creation" translation. I know there are beautiful translations out there that take the basic idea behind it, without the religiosity.

Check out the "very modern version" of the seven blessings here:

http://www.themodernjewishwedding.com/jewish-wedding-readings/

I tend to agree with PK that it doesn't make much sense to edit a blessing to not include the word God since it is, of course, a blessing. But to each his own I suppose.

Thanks 8815! That is one version I was looking at, but I am hoping to get other versions I've maybe missed.

And I do agree that it seems stupid to get rid of the word God entirely. Granted, you can just say "bless blah blah etc" without saying "May God bless....". I've seen interpretations about unity with the earth, but that was a little too far. It's no God or get rid of it entirely, which to me says not a Jewish wedding. All we'd be left with is the chuppah and glass breaking.

I think it's totally understandable that a Jewish couple might want a blessing from the tradition without the G-d part -- there's an entire Jewish movement for Jews who aren't sure about the whole theism thing, it absolutely makes sense.

We're in sort of a similar position? We're religious, FI is of the more mystical persuasion and I'm of the more practical, and the people we're choosing to read the blessings in English are not Jewish and not particularly religious. Our rabbi told us what she usually does is: the couple can ask the people they want to read the blessings in English to write their own blessing on a particular theme. The seven themes, as she interprets/translates them, are nature, creativity, human moral sense, partnership, community, love, and wholeness/peace.

But reading Sheva Brachot in hebrew, you will hear Adonai. How is that different than saying G-d?

He really doesn't care about what's said in Hebrew - it's more like that's the element of keeping the culture, which for some reason he's fine with.

Kay, I really like that interpretation of what each one stands for. For a small fee extra, our officiant will write a ceremony for us, so maybe I can just give her those guidelines to write a translation and run it by us.

I was going to suggest the same as 8815. FH and I are both Jewish by heritage but not very active so we are doing some modernized versions of things as well to better represent our values and equality. Do you have to have the translation read out loud? Or is that something that you want? Let me know if you find something!

We're going the write our own route. Instead of 7 blessings, we're going to make 7 promises to each other. It's a close enough tie to the Jewish tradition, but removes the religious overtones.

We did talk about not doing a translation at all, but I like the idea of at least having the last few read because of how many non-Jews or non-practicing Jews will be there. It's kind of taking the place of the impersonal vows to me, then we'll recite our own vows after. Maybe, like you Jac, we'll incorporate 7 promises to each other after it's read in Hebrew, or just have a short explanation beforehand of what the seven blessings represent.

I love that idea Jac! And OP, I haven't even thought about it that way (in place of vows). We will be reading our Ketubah which will be our "in place of vows". But if we weren't, I think we would do something like what you are talking about.

LDwed, I like the idea of the Ketubah in place of vows, too. FH wants a short ceremony so I told him we could do one or the other to keep it short. I don't think we'll have a formal Ketubah, anyway, since he also didn't want a rabbi officiating. We found a wonderful Jewish woman locally who is ordained and speaks Hebrew at least.

I do the seven blessings all the time, but I do it in a totally different way. I use it as part of the recessional and it doesn't mention God at all. Then we break the glass, and at that point, the couple and I are literally in the middle of their community, four or five rows back from the altar space.

I was surprised at how much I liked some of the Ketubah texts! They felt traditional, not religious, which is what I'm after. At least the reform ones. Your officiant sounds like the perfect compromise for what you and your FH are looking for! We would probably have done something like that (if we could find one) if this opportunity hadn't fell in my lap.

I wish I lived near you, Celia!

LDwed, that's what I'm going for - fairly traditional without the overt religious quality. She definitely is working out well so far since I can't have my childhood rabbi do it.