Mass weddings

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"“The Omnipresent,” said a Rabbi, “is occupied in making marriages.” The levity of the saying lies in the ear of him who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all the wondrous combinations of the universe, whose issue makes our good and evil."


Rabbi Jose bar Chalafta, and his remark was made to a lady, possibly a Roman matron of high quality, in Sepphoris. Rabbi Jose was evidently an adept in meeting the puzzling questions of women, for as many as sixteen interviews between him and “matrons” are recorded in Agadic literature. Whether because prophetic of its subsequent popularity, or for some other reason, this particular dialogue in which Rabbi Jose bore so conspicuous a part is repeated in the Midrash Rabba alone not less than four times, besides appearing in other Midrashim. It will be as well, then, to reproduce the passage in a summarized form, for it may be fairly described as the locus classicus on the subject.

"“How long,” she asked, “did it take God to create the world?” and Rabbi Jose informed her that the time occupied was six days. “What has God been doing since that time?” continued the matron. “The Holy One,” answered the Rabbi, “has been sitting in Heaven arranging marriages."–"Indeed!" she replied, “I could do as much myself. I have thousands of slaves, and could marry them off in couples in a single hour. It is easy enough."–"I hope that you will find it so,” said Rabbi Jose. “In Heaven it is thought as difficult as the dividing of the Red Sea.” He then took his departure, while she assembled one thousand men-servants and as many maid-servants, and, marking them off in pairs, ordered them all to marry. On the day following this wholesale wedding, the poor victims came to their mistress in a woeful plight. One had a broken leg, another a black eye, a third a swollen nose; all were suffering from some ailment, but with one voice they joined in the cry, “Lady, unmarry us again!” Then the matron sent for Rabbi Jose, admitted that she had underrated the delicacy and difficulty of match-making, and wisely resolved to leave Heaven for the future to do its work in its own way."

The moral conveyed by this story may seem, however, to have been idealized by George Eliot almost out of recognition. This is hardly the case. Genius penetrates into the heart, even from a casual glance at the face of things. Though it is unlikely that she had ever seen the full passages in the Midrash to which she was alluding, yet her insight was not at fault. For the saying that God is occupied in making marriages is, in fact, associated in some passages of the Midrash with the far wider problems of man’s destiny, with the universal effort to explain the inequalities of fortune, and the changes with which the future is heavy.

Rabbi Jose’s proverbial explanation of connubial happiness was not merely a bon mot invented on the spur of the moment, to silence an awkward questioner. It was a firm conviction, which finds expression in more than one quaint utterance, but also in more than one matter-of-fact assertion. To take the latter first:

"“Rabbi Phineas in the name of Rabbi Abbahu said, We find in the Torah, in the Prophets, and in the Holy Writings, evidence that a man’s wife is chosen for him by the Holy One, blessed be He. Whence do we deduce it in the Torah? From Genesis xxiv. 50: Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said [in reference to Rebekah’s betrothal to Isaac], The thing proceedeth from the Lord. In the Prophets it is found in Judges xiv. 4 [where it is related how Samson wished to mate himself with a woman in Timnath, of the daughters of the Philistines], But his father and mother knew not that it was of the Lord. In the Holy Writings the same may be seen, for it is written (Proverbs xix. 14), House and riches are the inheritance of fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.“"