“Blessed are You ... Who created joy and happiness, groom and bride, gladness, jubilation, cheer and delight, love, friendship, harmony and fellowship.... Let there speedily be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of happiness, the sound of a bride1 and the sound of a groom, the sound of exultation of grooms from under their chuppah, and youths2 from their joyous banquets. Blessed ... Who gladdens the groom with the bride.”
Ten Expressions of Joy Bring About the Complete State of Joy
Ten expressions of joy are cited in this blessing: joy, happiness, gladness, jubilation, cheer, delight, love, friendship, harmony and fellowship. The number ten denotes a complete state, for, as known, man possesses ten soul powers: three intellectual — chochmah, binah and daas; and seven emotional — chessed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, yesod and malchus.
Thus the content of the blessing is that bride and groom merit total and complete joy, joy that is commensurate with the complete number ten, joy that is so all-encompassing that it permeates all of man’s ten soul powers.
[The idea of “ten” being a complete number is derived from the Torah, for the Torah contains the “Ten Commandments.” The world as well was created by “Ten Divine Utterances.” So, too, a person’s soul contains ten soul powers.]
Five — A Complete State That Transcends Nature
The number five is also alluded to in this blessing:3
The word “sound” is repeated five times: “the sound (kol) of joy and the sound of happiness, the sound of a bride and the sound of a groom, the sound of exultation of grooms.” As all the words of our Sages are extremely precise, [including the number of times a word is repeated,] the number five is evidently related to a wedding as well.
This will be better understood by first prefacing with the fact that the Torah, too, is related to the number five, for in conjunction with the giving of the Torah, “sound” (kol) is also mentioned five times:4 “And it was on the third day, when it was morning, that there were sounds [of thunder] (kolos, in the plural, i.e., two sounds) ... and the sound of the shofar ... and the sound of the shofar [got louder] ... and G‑d responded with a “sound” (kol, i.e.,the sound of His voice).”
From the fact that the word “sound” is mentioned five times with regard to both the Torah and a wedding, our Sages ascertain that there is a connection between Torah and a wedding, which is, that “Whoever causes groom and bride to rejoice merits Torah.”5
We must understand the significance of the number five:
Kabbalah and Chassidus explain that the number five alludes to a level that transcends the world:
The world is composed of four general components: fire, air, water and earth. The world also contains four general types of creations: inanimate, vegetative, animal and man. Torah, however, relates to the number five, as Torah is loftier than the world.6
The number five is therefore also mentioned at a wedding, since a wedding also affects matters that transcend the world by reuniting the soul-halves that are “part of G‑d above.”
[Moreover, Kabbalah explains that within the spiritual realm there exist four worlds: Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, which is to say that existence as a whole numbers four.
Therefore Torah and the Jewish soul — which is also composed of five levels (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chaya and Yechidah) which are higher than the four worlds — relate not to four but to five.]
“Who Gladdens the Groom With the Bride.”
The blessing concludes: “…Who gladdens the groom with the bride.” However, the previous blessing states, “…Who gladdens the groom and bride.” We must understand the reason for this difference:7
In the blessing which concludes “…Who gladdens the groom and bride,” the groom precedes the bride. However in the blessing concluding with “who gladdens the groom with the bride” the opposite is the case, for the main aspect of joy relates to the bride and G‑d gladdens the groom with her.
We find this difference in a number of other places as well. For example, our Sages customarily use the expression “the joy of groom and bride,” with the groom preceding the bride. However, in the Prophets, we also find contrary expressions; for example, “as a groom rejoices over his bride.”8 Here, as well, the main aspect of joy centers around the bride, and the groom rejoices over her. This would indicate that the bride is loftier than the groom. However, when the groom precedes the bride, as in the expression, “the joy of groom and bride,” this suggests that the groom is loftier than the bride. Who is loftier than whom?
Presently, the groom precedes the bride, but in the Time to Come, in the times of Mashiach, “the female shall encompass the male,”9 as it says, “A woman of valor is the crown of her husband,”10 i.e., the woman will be loftier than the man, and the bride will be loftier than the groom.
The explanation of the difference between the present era and the Time to Come will be explained at length in Volume II, in the section that addresses the differences in the character and nature of male and female.