Timing

On the 4th day of Cheshvan 5782, according to Jewish reckoning, and Sunday, the 10th of October, 2021, according to secular reckoning, in the city of Rhinebeck, New York, Sarah Bayla, child of Moshe and Chava of the Myers family and Yehoshua Yaacov, child of Yitzchack Eizick Yeshaya and Leah of the Adler and Grossman family confirm in the presence of witnesses a lovers' covenant between them and declare a partnership to establish a bayit ne’eman b’yisrael, household among the people of Israel.

The Covenant 

The brit, the agreement into which Sarah and Josh are entering is a holy covenant like the ancient covenants of our people, made in faithfulness and peace to stand forever. 

It is a covenant of protection and hope like the covenant Hashem swore to Noach and his descendants, saying

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between Hashem and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth. That,"Hashem said to Noah," shall be the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh" (Gen. 9:16–17).

It is a covenant of devotion, joining hearts like the covenant David and Yehonatan made, as it is said,

And Jonathan's soul was bound up wit h the soul of David. Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself (1 Sam. 18:1-3).

It is a covenant of mutual lovingkindness like the wedding covenant between God and Zion, as it is said,

I will espouse you forever. I will espouse you with righteousness and justice and loving kindness and compassion. I will espouse you in faithfulness and you shall know God (Hos. 2:21-22).

Provisions of the Covenant

The following are the provisions of the lovers' covenant into which Sarah Bayla child of Moshe and Chava, and Yehoshua Yaakov child of Yitzchack Eizick Yeshaya and Leah now enter:

Sarah and Josh commit to building a world together, in community, that reflects their shared values of love, equity, and selflessness.  

I will build this world from love (Psalm 89:3)

Without community, there is no liberation –Audre Lorde

Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone –Mariame Kaba

Sarah and Josh promise to treat their family as a site of exploration and growth; to love and respect who they become.

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction –Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Any love that depends on a specific cause, when that cause is gone, the love is gone; but if it does not depend on a specific cause, it will never cease — Pirkei Avot 5:16

Sarah and Josh will continue to laugh and dance with one another freely and unabashedly.

Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with songs of joy (Tehilim 126:2)

He who is full of joy is full of love —Baal Shem Tov

Happiness is something you pursue. But joy is not. It discovers you. It has to do with a sense of connection to other people or to God. It comes from a different realm than happiness. It is a social emotion. It is the exhilaration we feel when we merge with others. It is the redemption of solitude –Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l

Sarah and Josh commit to having faith in the home that they have built for themselves and to always return to it with sincere intention.

Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment... dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love–which is to transform us –bell hooks

Sarah and Josh promise to always find love in the spaces of their marriage that prove challenging. 

I counter whatever ‘doesn’t work’ in love with the affirmation of what is worthwhile. This stubbornness is love’s protest: for all the wealth of ‘good reasons’ for loving differently, loving better, loving without being in love, etc., a stubborn voice is raised which lasts a little longer: the voice of the intractable lover –Roland Barthes

Sarah and Josh commit to making each other always feel seen and heard.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread” – James Baldwin

and the future is being decided

the future is being practiced

the future is being planted

in this breath

and this breath

and this breath

so i breathe in

noticing the gift i too often take for granted

not knowing how many breaths i have left

i want to spend them

being

Love

-adrienne maree brown

Sarah and Josh promise to have the confidence to embrace the love they show for one another and to safeguard their vulnerability.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and the courage to accept the love in return –maya angelou

All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable position, to be a possible, if not a probable, loser of what you most want. Let’s leave it like that –Tennessee Williams

Sarah and Josh commit to treating their own bodies and souls with the tenderness they show one another.

A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else –Haruki Murakami

The body is a vessel of the soul, through which the soul functions (Sefer HaChinuch)