Wish me a mazal tov — this past weekend, my younger son got married!

Talk about timing.

This is what I said to the couple at Shabbat dinner, the evening before the wedding.

Approximately 25 hours from now, the two of you will stand under the huppah. To you, my future in-laws, I wish you a heartfelt mazal tov, along with the recognition that our families and our futures are now woven together like the strands of hallah.

I love our kids. I love what, and who, they are to each other. I love that they found each other. I love the way they look at each other. Speaking as a father, I love my son with a deep passion, and I like him, and I respect him and admire him. I love your daughter — not only for who she is, but for who my son has become, and is, because of her. They are one heart, and one soul, in two bodies.

Speaking to my son: Approximately 25 hours from now, in the final moments under the huppah, your foot will come down on the glass, and it will shatter. The two of you will eventually take those broken pieces of the glass, and you will transform those broken pieces into art. Those broken pieces will become the mezuzah that will hang on the doorway of their home, guarding the boundary between their inner lives and the outer world.

This shattered glass is the most famous ritual act of the Jewish wedding. Like all good rituals, it is an outward manifestation of an inward reality. It is the confirmation that the world is broken because the ancient temples in Jerusalem were destroyed.

You will not have to break the glass for us to know that the world is broken.

On this Shabbat, let us affirm that our family has close members whom this conflict very much affects. We pray for the safety of our cousins…

We believe that out of the brokenness will come beauty; that out of the brokenness will come hope; that out of the brokenness of our world will come redemption.

That is what makes real the final blessing that we will say tomorrow night — the seventh blessing of the wedding ceremony.

Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who creates happiness and joy, groom and bride. Exultation, delight, amusement, and pleasure, love and brotherhood, peace and friendship.

Soon, Adonai our God, may the sound of happiness and the sound of joy and the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride be heard in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem — the rejoicing of bride and groom from beneath the huppah, and youths at their banquets.

Blessed are you Adonai who makes the groom rejoice with the bride.

That was the vision of the prophet Jeremiah. He saw the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and he offered that vision of hope — that a place of destruction would again become a place of rejoicing.

What does it mean to be married at this time, in this season, and at this moment of Jewish history?

It is my pious hope that the love that we celebrate this weekend will flow and grow between the two of you; that your love will become an expression of faith and gratitude for all that God has given us.

We made kiddush; we raised our glasses; we shouted l’chaim! To life!

Yes, the wedding was beautiful, and joyful — surrounded by family and friends, some of whom have been part of our lives for more than a half century.

As it should have been.

There is a Jewish teaching that speaks of two processions — a funeral procession, and a wedding procession. Which of those processions merits the right of way?

The answer: the wedding, because life and joy takes precedence over death and sorrow. Because the wedding is the epitome of hope.

But here is what really got me.

The hora. The iconic, standard dance at every Jewish wedding.

As we danced and sang the equally iconic “Hava Nagilah,” there was that moment when we came to the words: “Uru, achim, b’lev sameach!” “Rise up, brothers and sisters, with a joyful heart!”

It was not only my imagination — that my fellow revelers did not only sing those words, but in a way that I had never experienced before — that we actually shouted them.

We shouted them — defiantly, offering them to each other, and to our people, and to God — not only as words of a song, but as words of a prayer.

Uru, achim. We, my brothers and sisters — we will arise.