The Jewish “Blessing of Virginity”

Extract

In October, 1933, I contributed a lengthy article to this Journal entitled “Maimonides on Listening to Music” in which I gave a translation of the Responsum 129 from his Pe'er ha-dor (Lemberg, 1849), in so far as it touched upon listening to music. The latter portion of this responsum dealt with another point, a custom, the “Blessing of Virginity”, which took place at the house of a bridegroom. It might have been intended as a religious ceremony (so far as the Seven Benedictions are concerned, although they should have waited until after the actual wedding), but I have been unable to trace the provenance of the custom. Here is the request together with the response of Maimonides:—

Request: “Please instruct us about the so-called ‘Blessing of Virginity’ which runs ‘[Blessed art thou] who in Eden didst plant the Nut-tree’. For [there is a custom for] a company consisting of the wedding party of the bride and bridegroom and their friends to assemble in the bridegroom's house, [when] a celebrant takes a wine-cup, pronounces the customary Benediction over wine, and the Benediction over spices, and then he pronounces this so-called, i.e. new-fangled Benediction— ‘Blessed art thou.…’ And note that this new-fangled Benediction fixed by our Rabbis in the Talmud also contains the Divine Name, i.e. ‘Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who…Blessed art Thou 0 Lord…’. Please tell us whether the recital of the Benediction is merely a custom or actually orthodox and obligatory.