Providing Courage and Strength to Groom and Bride
It is customary1 in many Jewish communities2 that groom and bride do not go alone to the chuppah but are escorted by two men and their respective wives.3 The men stand to the right of the groom, while their wives stand to the left of the bride. These couples, known as shushvinin (attendants, or unterfihrers), are the ones who escort the bride and groom to the chuppah.
The reason for the shushvinin is to encourage and strengthen groom and bride and help them overcome their shyness and heightened emotions at the occasion of their chuppah. Thus the Alter Rebbe writes:4 “Groom and bride require shushvinin to escort them as it is impossible for them to go alone because of embarrassment; they are in need of someone who will assist and support them.”
This is why the shushvinin consist of married couples and not unmarried individuals, for only married couples who have lived together in peace and harmony can encourage and strengthen the groom and bride when they are about to get married.5
Shushvinin Assist in Achieving the Desired Result
It is understandable, however, that just like all other wedding customs, this custom is also related to the inner concept of what a wedding accomplishes:6
A wedding unites and draws together two opposites — man and woman — as well as uniting and bringing together the two halves of the soul that up until now had been split apart (as explained above at length in the “Introduction to Marriage”). The shushvinin not only encourage bride and groom but assist them in drawing close and uniting with each other as well.
Bringing man and woman closer together and getting them to bond is no simple task; it is extremely difficult and requires a special aptitude.
For by their essential nature and characteristics, man and woman are not alike and even the opposite of each other.7 [Their spiritual dynamics are also essentially different, for as explained in Kabbalah, “man” represents the aspect of the soul, and “woman” represents the aspect of the body, and the distance between body and soul is vast.]8 So different are man and woman that our Sages say:9 “It is as difficult to match them as the Splitting of the Sea.”
Uniting and drawing together the inner dimension of their relationship — their mutual soul — also requires special powers, for the acquisition of kiddushin involves the physical act of placing a ring on the bride’s finger; and how can this mere physical act accomplish such a profound unity of the Divine soul?
A married couple is needed to assist in accomplishing these awesome tasks. A married couple have already experienced the unification of man and woman themselves and are therefore able to assist bride and groom to be able to unite and meld their holy soul into one entity.
The Kvatar at a Bris
We will accordingly understand the custom and role of a kvatar at a circumcision, a custom similar to that of shushvinin:
It is customary that the child who is about to undergo the bris is carried by a married couple to the location where the bris is to be performed: “The wife holds the child ... and her husband takes it from her ... and brings it to the place where Eliyahu’s Chair (Kisei Shel Eliyahu) is located,” i.e., to the place of the bris.10
It is brought in sacred writings that the kvatar couple is shown great honor, the couple dons their Shabbos finery, and the husband is called to the Torah.11
We may say that the same reasoning applies here as it does to a wedding:
A bris accomplishes the unification of opposites: The physical body of a Jew becomes sanctified with the sanctification of mitzvos,[which can only be done if a person has a soul]; a bris accomplishes the “commencement of the sacred soul’s entry [into the child].”
A husband and wife team is chosen to assist in connecting these two opposites, as they themselves represent body and spirit and they assist in enabling this connection of opposites to take place: the connection of the holy soul and the physical body.