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In ancient times, couples demonstrated their new status in different ways. One early rabbi held that the change in status
from single to couple happened when the couple began living together by establishing a home.
The Chupah is symbolic of this early view. It also reminds us of Abraham's and Sara's tent which, according to tradition,
was open on all four sides so as to welcome visitors from all directions. Thus, the Chupah symbolizes the warmth, openness,
and hospitality of the home the couple will create together.
Since any cloth that covers the bride and groom constitute a Chupah, a custom developed of draping a Talit (prayer shawl)
over the couple to suggest their becoming elements of a single household.
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Talmudic authorities likened a wedding to the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Just as God symbolically married the
Jewish people at Sinai, the wedding day is seen as a microcosmic parallel event for the bride and groom.
Jewish mystics teach that the Chupah at Mount Sinai was the Tabernacle (also known as the Ark of the Covenant) in which
the contents of the revelation would be kept. Likewise, for the bride and groom, their life together would begin under a
similar "tabernacle" made of tapestries on top of beams and poles. It is rumored that while standing under the
Chupah, some couples, with their eyes closed and spirits open and properly focused, have been able to see where they stood
when Moses came down from the mountain top with the Torah.
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Clearly today's marriage canopy derives from ancient practice. It's quite likely that che Chupah originates with the carriage,
carried by four poles, in which a bride arrived at the wedding. Such covered litters date to the time of King Solomon. Another
theory holds that the Chupah is only a medieval innovation to keep the bride and groom dry in case of rain during the ceremony
which, by custom, was held out-of-doors.
Another Talmudic source sees the marriage canopy as an element almost as old as the world itself. The Divine Presence,
in the Garden of Eden, it is said, personally blessed Adam and Eve under a Chupah and challenged them to "Be fruitful
and multiply.":
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