Rituals
Sheva Brachot
Lifecycle Rituals
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Origin 200 to 600 CE
The seven blessings recited over a cup of wine at the wedding, moving from creation through the making of humanity to the joy of the couple and ending with a vision of gladness returning to the streets of Jerusalem, the sequence deliberately widens from two people to the world. The same seven are repeated at festive meals held for the couple on each of the seven days after the wedding, provided a quorum is present and at least one person was not at the previous meal, which builds an obligation on the community to keep showing up. The blessings are recited in Hebrew in traditional practice and often in translation elsewhere; liberal rites reword the gendered language and some rewrite the sixth and seventh blessings entirely for same-sex couples.
Facts
Function
Stage of Life Marked Practice
Who Performs ItAll adherents of the tradition 3 ObligationObligatory 1Tradition: Judaism FrequencyOnce, or at a turning point in a life 1 At the wedding, and at meals for the seven days that follow Solitary or CommunalPerformed by a gathered group 1 Form
Implements and Materials Origins
Origin Period Place of Origin Historical OriginThe seven blessings are recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, recited over wine at the wedding meal and again each evening of celebratory meals through the week that follows. 2 Meaning
Literal MeaningHebrew for seven blessings, naming both the blessings recited under the wedding canopy and the week of celebratory meals that follows, at each of which the same seven blessings are repeated in the new couple's honor. 1 Attributions
PurposeThe Babylonian Talmud records the sheva brachot as the seven blessings recited over the couple at a Jewish wedding and again at festive meals during the week that follows, extending the marriage's celebration beyond the ceremony itself. 2 Text
Source TextThe Babylonian Talmud sets out the text of the seven blessings recited over wine at a wedding feast, praising creation, the couple and the restoration of Jerusalem, the same formula still recited at Jewish weddings and festive meals afterward. 2 Learn More
Seven Blessings Over the Cup
The Sheva Brachot, the seven blessings, are the sequence of benedictions recited over a cup of wine as part of the Jewish wedding. They move outward from the couple to creation itself: praising God for the creation of the world and of humanity, for making humankind in the divine image, and then for the joy of the bride and groom, closing with a prayer that their gladness be like that of Eden and that the streets of Jerusalem again resound with the voices of the joyful. The blessings are drawn largely from the Talmud's tractate Ketubot, which sets out the marriage blessings, and they root the private happiness of two people in the widest possible frame of creation and national hope. They are recited again, over wine and after a festive meal, at each of the celebratory gatherings held on the seven days following the wedding, which take their name from them.
Talmudic law (tractate Ketubot 7b-8a) requires a minyan, a quorum of ten, for the blessings to be recited at the wedding itself, and specifies that at each of the celebratory meals held on the following six days the blessings may be repeated only if at least one panim chadashot, a new face who was not present at the wedding or a previous meal, joins the gathering, a rule that in practice shaped the sheva brachot week into an extended, rolling occasion for the wider community to share in the couple's joy rather than a private family affair. Non-Orthodox and egalitarian communities have in recent decades increasingly counted women within the minyan for this purpose and revised some of the blessings' language, departures traditionalist authorities do not accept.
A Talmudic Text, and a Week That Follows It
The seven blessings recited under the chuppah are fixed in the Talmud, in the tractate Ketubot, where their wording and their number are set down essentially as still used today, giving the sequence a documented textual history stretching back roughly a millennium and a half rather than being a later custom of unclear age. What is less widely known is that the wedding day recitation is only the sequence's first appearance: Jewish law extends the same seven blessings across a full week following the wedding, recited again each time the couple eats a festive meal in the company of at least one new guest who was not present at an earlier meal that week, a requirement of new company that historically kept the celebration expanding outward through a community rather than repeating for the same closed circle.
Who recites the blessings, and in what order, has varied by community and period: distinguished guests or rabbis are commonly honored with individual blessings passed around the table rather than one person reciting the entire sequence, a distribution of honor that has no fixed rule beyond local custom. The final blessing's vision of joy returning to the streets of Jerusalem is read by most commentators as a deliberate widening of the ceremony's focus, from the two individuals being married outward to the fate of the whole people, a movement the blessings' sequence is generally understood to be constructed around rather than an incidental closing flourish.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Kept in Breslov Hasidism. The seven blessings are said under the canopy and repeated at meals through the following week.
Kept in Chabad-Lubavitch. The seven blessings are said under the canopy and repeated at meals through the following week.
Kept in Haredi Judaism, where the halakhic standard is the strictest and the most stringent opinion is ordinarily followed. The seven blessings are said under the canopy and repeated at meals through the following week.
Kept in Hasidic Judaism. The seven blessings are said under the canopy and repeated at meals through the following week.
Kept in Modern Orthodox Judaism, alongside full engagement with secular study and with the state. The seven blessings are said under the canopy and repeated at meals through the following week.
The seven blessings are said under the canopy and repeated at meals through the following week.
Conducted By
Found In
The seven blessings are recited as part of nissuin.
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition
Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.), Macmillan Reference USA, 2007View the Source 2. The Babylonian Talmud
Anonymous (multiple authors), Soncino Press, 1935Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ketubot, on the marriage blessingsView the Source 2. The Babylonian Talmud
Anonymous (multiple authors), Soncino Press, 1935Ketubot 7b-8a, the text of the seven blessingsView the Source 3. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History
Ismar Elbogen, translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin, Jewish Publication Society and Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993Elbogen, Jewish LiturgyView the Source Shulchan Aruch
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