My daughter unexpectedly rang me last from Jerusalem last night.
Mazeltov, she said.
Oh, I said, on what?
Your daughter just got engaged, she said……
I've known for a few months that their engagement was on the cards, and likely to be announced very soon. But they hadn't decided the exact date between them, so I was still taken by surprise last night.
Even knowing she was going to be engaged was really very different from hearing it's actually happened. They sounded so very happy when I spoke to them. I know it sounds totally Mills and Boon, but the best I can do to describe that is to say that their voices were tremulous with happiness....
Before I knew B, I always thought I would probably never think any young man good enough for my daughter. The funny thing was that from the moment I met him, I really, really liked him. He's modest and humorous, very bright, and has always shown so much thoughtfulness and care for my daughter.
They're exactly the same age, 20. Almost to the day. OK, she's a day older. She was born on 1st January 1986 and he was born on 2nd January 1986. I'd never have thought of her marrying so young. But they met just after they turned seventeen. It was a sort of eyes-across-a-crowded-room-thing. He'd come as part of a youth group that was losing their funding to seek the support of a group that she was attending. He's a debating champ, and he made a speech which seems to have gone over the heads of most of those present. But she got what he was saying, and laughed at all his jokes. They stayed talking to each other, and stayed more or less inattentive to everyone else, for the rest of the evening. The next day, his best friend told her afterwards, he was like a man transformed.
So they've been going out together for over three years. For the last two, they've both been studying in Jerusalem. I wrote about being with them last Chanukah here and here.
We heard last week that she's got a place on a Fine Art degree course at the Cambridge School of Art. He's going to be reading history at Cambridge University. So they'll be able to go on studying together for the next three years.
And the wedding will be in London, at the end of their first year there, in the summer of 2007.
Meanwhile, apart from being happy, I'm trying to get my head round all sorts of things that still sound unreal. Like getting used to saying my daughter's fiance, my future son in law, my mechutonim.
I love that Jewish religious tradition and culture actually rejects what's implied by the terminology of in-laws. Because in Hebrew and Yiddish, you call the parents of your child's spouse your mechutonim. That means the married-to ones. There are no mother-in-law jokes in traditional Jewish humour. The nearest equivalent jokes are about the relationship of rivalry and sometimes hostility between the two mothers-- mechutonista jokes. That's even alluded to at traditional Jewish weddings, where there is a broiges tanz, a mock feuding dance, between the two mothers where they dance with a chollah, the bread which is blessed on the meals of Shabbos and special occasions. It ends with a reconciliation coda in which the two families dance in threading lines together, to demonstrate the interlinking of the two families.
Oh, and the other thing I'm still getting my head round is that it's my role to organise and make the wedding... Whoaaa...
I'll be doing a flying visit to Jerusalem for Shavuos, where they're going to have a modest celebration on the Motzei Shabbos. So if you know me personally, and you'd like to be there, just let me know....
Congratulations, Judy, to you and your daughter! I hope it all works out really well. :)
Posted by: Lucy | May 18, 2006 at 11:14 AM
Mazal Tov! What great news!
May they be zoche to build a 'bayit ne'eman b'yisrael'.
Posted by: treppenwitz | May 18, 2006 at 02:33 PM
Mazal Tov to the whole lot of you!
Posted by: Paul M | May 18, 2006 at 03:26 PM
Mazal tov, Mazal Tov, MAZAL TOV, Judy. Wishing a lifetime of Yiddishe nachas to you, your daughter and her chassan, and your machetonim.
Yankev
Posted by: Yankev | May 18, 2006 at 06:06 PM
Congratulations Judy! What wonderful news. Hope you'll not be too busy to keep posting, but I'll not hold my breath .....
Posted by: Huldah | May 19, 2006 at 07:54 PM
Mazal tov Judy!
That's wonderful.
May they and you have every blessing.
Best,
Inna
Posted by: Inna | May 20, 2006 at 06:53 AM
Fantastic news! I'm so glad things worked out. Mazal tov! Where will the wedding be held?
Posted by: Lisa | May 20, 2006 at 08:03 PM
Mazel Tov and best wishes to the happy couple!
Posted by: Ben-David | May 21, 2006 at 01:23 PM
Mazel tov, Judy.
Aston Kwok (Sydney, Australia)
Posted by: Aston Kwok | May 23, 2006 at 06:02 AM
Mazal tov Judy - great news! PG by us ...
Posted by: Jonathan Hoffman | May 27, 2006 at 10:56 PM
Is the issue animal rneent? I think there's a halachic debate about whether it is permissible to use animal rneent in making soft cheeses. suggests that it is okay, but I believe some versions of kosher mozzarella are made with vegetable rneent instead (because some people adopt a stricter stance toward animal rneent). And animal rneent is what makes mozzarella melt in the wonderful way it does.
Posted by: Beirawan | November 23, 2012 at 04:48 AM