{"id":33666,"date":"2025-10-21T17:29:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=33666"},"modified":"2025-10-21T17:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:30:12","slug":"to-life-marriage-and-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/21\/to-life-marriage-and-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"TO LIFE, MARRIAGE AND WINE"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nI had an op-ed, “To Life, Marriage and Wine,”<\/a> in the Wall Street Journal<\/em> on Saturday. Here’s the essay:<\/p>\n

I convinced my wife to go to synagogue, which is a hard sell. My come-on was the wine. The first Saturday of the month, our synagogue passes out free bottles of Israeli kosher wine to married couples celebrating anniversaries that month.<\/p>\n

Two friends recently called to say they were separating from their spouses. I look for reinforcement for the institution of marriage wherever I can find it. Alice and I stood on the bimah (altar) with eight other couples while congregants sang along to \u201cSiman Tov and Mazel Tov\u201d (good luck and congratulations). Rabbi Joshua Skoff announced the winner in the anniversary derby, a couple celebrating 55 years of matrimony.<\/p>\n

\n

Everybody read from the supplementary prayer booklet: \u201cThese couples have come to the synagogue to give thanks for the institution of marriage and for their mutual love and devotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Bert and Alice, Oct. 22, 1978. Columbus, Ohio<\/p><\/div>\n

One married man had a gray ponytail. There was an accountant in a suit and an obstetrician in a red pantsuit. The Torah portion was from Genesis. The rabbi noted that because Adam and Eve sinned, we are all going to die, which makes things interesting because if we lived forever we\u2019d never get around to doing anything: \u201cWhy would you diet if you can put it off for 500 years?\u201d<\/p>\n

Our marriage-boosting interlude ended with: \u201cMay it be God\u2019s will that these married couples continue to live to a ripe old age together in happiness, lightening each other\u2019s burdens, and reaping a harvest of joy from the seeds of love they have sown in the hearts of their family.\u201d<\/p>\n

To life. And free wine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I had an op-ed, “To Life, Marriage and Wine,” in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. Here’s the essay: I convinced my wife to go to synagogue, which is a hard sell. My come-on was the wine. The first Saturday of the month, our synagogue passes out free bottles of Israeli kosher wine to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33666"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33670,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33666\/revisions\/33670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}