On Celebrating Love in the Shadow of Hate

Recently, my wife and I married in an intimate ceremony on the terrace of the beautiful Capital Jewish Museum. We knew from the moment we entered the museum and met its lovely, welcoming staff last year that it would be the perfect place to celebrate the simcha of finding a lifelong partner and forming a multicultural Jewish family together. The themes of the Museum felt fitting for a day on which we were to formally take our place as a couple in the tapestry of Jewish life in Washington, DC. We were excited and honored to embark on our journey there.

What we could not anticipate was the tragedy of May 21st that would impart an additional, somber dimension of meaning to this milestone. The terrible news of that evening led us to reflect on the uncomfortable dissonance between love and hate created by these two events’ close proximity in time and place. When we heard about the shooting, our hearts broke and cried out in grief along with so many others in the Jewish and DC communities, but as we sat with this grief we began to feel a profound sense of connection to Sarah and Yaron. After all, we could see so much of ourselves and our own aspirations in them: a young couple preparing to set out on their lives together, committed to the belief that the world can be better and that we all have the power and responsibility to shape it.

After the initial shock passed, we couldn’t help but harbor a deep anger at the injustice inflicted on them by an act of hate. Sarah and Yaron, soon to be engaged themselves, deserved to rejoice in the loving moment of their union just as we were about to do. And we couldn’t shake our unease at celebrating the merriment and brightness of a June wedding with the shadow of this injustice cast over the occasion.

As with any newlywed couple, we’ve been asked many times about the details of our wedding. While I was proud to tell inquirers that the Museum was the venue, I dreaded the occasional reply of, “is that where the shooting happened?” I did not know how I could put into words the weight of the simultaneously overwhelming joy and sorrow these conversations brought me. In the final days of preparations, I wondered what mix of emotions I would be overcome with when I arrived that morning.

I was surprised, when I rounded the corner to enter the building, passing the memorial outside, to find, foremost among myriad sentiments, a deep gratitude filling and humbling me. In every moment throughout the day, the smiles on the faces of the Museum staff and volunteers who greeted me, the loved ones who came to celebrate with us, and our rabbi created an atmosphere of warmth and tranquility befitting the occasion and affirmed the holy value of our milestone.

The ceremony was everything we wanted, and it suited us perfectly as a couple. It was ours, but it was not, and could not be, entirely ours. The dedication of the ceremony to Sarah and Yaron and a bracha for peace offered by my mother in honor of their memory addressed our need in these moments to acknowledge what has happened and refuse to turn away from it even as we seek to turn to a better next chapter.

At its core, marriage is an act of defiance against the natural tendency of the world toward disruption, instability, and unpredictability. Our marriage is not unique in this, but under the circumstances we felt a heightened poignancy to our commitment to each other to defy life’s challenges and sorrows together, and to radiate love outward from within our sacred bond. During our moments of yichud following the ceremony, I thought of Sarah and Yaron’s spirits together with us, b’yachad. In each day of our marriage, we hope to embody their commitment to each other and to find in their example the strength to bring love into the world despite the brokenness that deprived them of theirs. May their memories be for a blessing.