A Guest Post By Mrs. G

I recently had the honor of attending quite an unusual affair. It was a wedding in Jerusalem. That in itself was not unusual – there are weddings in Jerusalem all the time. What was unusual – I think- was the guest list. Every guest at the wedding aside from the Rabbi and his family, had never met the chassan and kalla before the night of the event (or at least not until this trip to Israel). All the guests 'follow' the bride and/or groom on twitter – and that was how they knew each other. The whole wedding was organized, from afar, over twitter. This seemed to be an amazing thing and references to twitter were made from beginning to end. The Twabbi officiated and the Twittnesses twittenessed….The whole thing was one long twitter success story and the wedding that took place at the beautiful location, in the manner that it did all because of Twitter. And isn’t that amazing?

I would like to argue that while twitter was the medium – it was not the reason the wedding was so beautiful, it is NOT the reason that the guests attended a wedding of someone the never met, it was NOT the reason the wishes were heartfelt and the chuppa was so moving, it was NOT the reason behind the success story.
Years ago I attended a wedding. WAY before twitter. The bride and groom knew one family in the neighborhood. The wedding took place in their home. None of the guests knew the bride and groom – and if I remember correctly there was something like a 2 day warning to those guests to attend. The catering was all done by the people of the neighborhood- the chuppa was moving the guests were enthusiastic and the event was a success. Some of the main aspects of these two weddings were the same – but wait then there was no twitter – so how did it happen?

I would like to argue that it was the Jewish people that were behind it. The Jewish people who love each other, come through for each other and in a perfect example of true Ahavas Yisroel, help pull together a wedding for a couple. The guests may not have ever met the bride and groom , in reality or in the virtual world of cyberspace – but when there is a simcha to be made – they come through to make it a Simcha in every meaning of the word.

Mi k’amcha yisroel!