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Yesterday my 5-year-old grandson Yisroel Meir Levine ask me the following question.
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"Zaidie, why do they break a plate and a g;ass at a Chasanah?"</div>
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A google search yields</div>
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<span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">The <b>breaking</b> of the <b>glass</b> holds multiple meanings. Some say it represents the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Others say it demonstrates that marriage holds sorrow as well as joy and is a representation
of the commitment to stand by one another even in hard times</span></span></div>
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I told him about the destruction of the Temple.</div>
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(I did not give him the cynical reason that I have heard, namely, "This is the last time that the chosson gets to put his foot down!"<span id="π">π)</span></div>
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<span id="π">I had no idea why the mothers of the chosson and kallah break a plate as part of making tenaim.</span></div>
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<span id="π">A goggle search yields <br>
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<span id="π"><a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tenaim-the-conditions-of-marriage/" id="LPlnk">https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tenaim-the-conditions-of-marriage/</a><br>
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<h3>An Old Ceremony</h3>
<p>From the 12th to the early 19th century, tenaim announced that two families had come to terms on a match between their children. The document setting out their agreement, also called tenaim, would include the dowry and other financial arrangements, the date
and time of the <i>huppah</i> [the actual wedding ceremony], and a <i>knas</i>, or penalty, if either party backed out of the deal.</p>
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<p>After the document was signed and read aloud by an esteemed guest, a piece of crockery was smashed. The origins of this practice are not clear; the most common interpretation is that a shattered dish recalls the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and
it is taken to demonstrate that a broken engagement cannot be mended. The broken dish also anticipates the shattered glass that ends the wedding ceremony.</p>
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<p>In some communities it was customary for all the guests to bring some old piece of crockery to smash on the floor. There is also a tradition that the mothers-in-law-to-be break the plateβa symbolic rending of mother-child ties and an acknowledgment that
soon their children will be feeding each other. After the plate breaking, the party began.</p>
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Does anyone have any more insight into the reason for breaking a plate?</div>
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YL<br>
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