A chuppah, also huppah, chupah, or chuppa, is a canopy under which a Jewish couple stand during their wedding ceremony. A chuppah symbolizes the home that the couple will build together. While a Jewish marriage is still considered valid in the absence of a chuppah, a chuppah is still considered a basic requirement for a Jewish wedding.
Chuppah Ceremony 1
One symbol from the Jewish tradition is this chuppah or canopy under which we are standing.
The design and the four chuppah bearers were all chosen to reflect your philosophy, values, and personal connections.
The four poles rooted to the ground connect us to our heritage, keep us focused on our goals; the sides open to the world free us for imagination, discovery, and play.
The cover protects us and keeps us safe; the open sides leave us vulnerable and accessible.
So too may your union be a safe haven, freeing you both and opening you to each other and the world.
Dear family and friends, BRIDE and GROOM have invited all of you under the chuppah today as a symbol of warmth, family and togetherness.
Chuppah Ceremony 2
The chuppah represents the bond of love between the two of you, the shelter of care and respect that will keep you warm during the sudden chills that Life often springs upon us.
The chuppah also represents the Rainbow Covenant of Life, the covenant that God made with Creation at the time of Noah, and which he signed with a rainbow as an eternal reminder of the inseparable bond between God and creation.
The rainbow is made up of all the primary colors of the universe, each distinguished and unique.
It isn’t a blending of colors, for this would in fact rob it of color leaving only white, but rather a harmony of color – each maintaining its uniqueness and yet somehow working together with all the others to create something more wondrous than any one color is on its own.
So it is with love. Each of you is unique; each of you has your own coloring, your own backgrounds, your own dreams, feelings and truths. You do not love in order to erase your uniqueness, but to enhance it.
Through love we learn to work in harmony with another to create a rainbow of possibilities that our world might be a brighter and more holy place.
May the Source of Life, the Fountain of all Being, find living expression in the love between BRIDE and GROOM, and may they forever uphold the chuppah of peace that we set above them this day.
And let us say: Amen.
