Beyond Breaking the Glass: A Spiritual Guide to Your Jewish Wedding by Nancy H. Wiener
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Reviewed by Amy Weiss, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA
In this revised edition of Beyond Breaking the Glass, Nancy Wiener updates her informative guide to Jewish weddings to reflect changes that have occurred within the more liberal American Jewish communities and the larger United States society since the book’s original publication one decade ago. According to Wiener, the evolution in how rabbis, especially those associated with Reform Judaism, have addressed interfaith and same-sex marriages prompted the updated version. The guidebook, and its title, serves two purposes. First, it is meant to aid engaged couples in understanding the spiritual significance of marriage or the period “beyond breaking the glass” (xiv). It also represents the diversity in Jewish wedding traditions across time and space. Couples, provided with a multitude of examples, can choose to borrow or modify various wedding customs, especially those “beyond breaking the glass”
