[Avodah] several questions

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "kennethgmiller at juno.com" _kennethgmiller at juno.com_ 
(mailto:kennethgmiller at juno.com) 


>  3. What is the purpose of the bride wearing a heavy veil (dech
> tikel)  [--RET]

Why wear a veil at all? I always thought it had something to do  with 
Yaakov not realizing that he was marrying Leah. If so, a heavy veil makes  much 
more sense than a see-thru one.

Akiva  Miller





>>>>>
Picking  UP the veil, or rather, having the groom place the veil on  the 
bride himself, comes from the scurvy trick that Lavan played on Yakov.   The 
bedeken ensures that the chasan sees the kallah before the ceremony and  
makes sure there has been no substitution.
 
But we see here -- from the fact that Leah was heavily veiled when Yakov  
married her -- that the custom of having the bride veiled at the wedding is  
very ancient indeed, and originally not even (exclusively) a Jewish  custom. 
 The reason for it?  Don't know, but I can speculate.   What I said before 
(my guess): to avoid having the riffraff stare at the kallah,  avoid an ayin 
hara.  Also maybe, to protect the maidenly shyness and  modesty of a demure 
young girl, who is unaccustomed to being the cynosure of so  many eyes.
 

--Toby Katz
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