Last week I had the privilege, along with many members of our Pittsburgh Jewish community, to attend a wedding.
In Chabad tradition, the chuppah stood outdoors. In a very Pittsburgh moment, the mid-March sky began to flurry. Snow fell softly around us, settling into what felt like a scene out of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Men stood on one side, women on the other. The groom waited. The bride emerged on the arm of her mother, both wrapped in furs, composed and radiant. Around them, prayers continued.
Two things stayed with me. The first was the cross-section of our community gathered in one place. Secular Israelis stood beside Lubavitch rabbis. A track coach spoke with educators from our day schools. People unaffiliated stood alongside those who fill our synagogues every week. Children moved easily between groups. It felt like a living portrait of Jewish Pittsburgh, layered and connected, held together by something deeper than sameness.
The second moment came beneath the chuppah. We all know about the breaking of the glass. We’ve heard that even in our greatest joy, we hold memories of sorrow. This time, we paused before it. A full moment of silence. Together, we prayed for Am Yisrael. For the chayalim. For those fighting not only for Israel, but for something larger in a world that feels increasingly unstable. The rabbi then shared that the bride’s mother has a favorite niggun, “Ani Ma’amin.” He reminded us that Jews sang this melody in cattle cars on the way to Auschwitz. There, in a parking lot near the airport, as openly proud Jews, we sang: “Ani ma’amin b’emunah shleimah b’viat hamashiach. I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah.”
Standing there, with snow falling around us, the moment carried weight. It is one thing to learn Jewish history. It is another to feel it in real time. The moment held both fragility and strength. It acknowledged what is broken without surrendering to it.
Moments later, the glass shattered and we shouted “mazel tov.” Shattered glass and simcha, side by side. Not a contradiction, but a truth that has shaped Jewish life across generations.
We are in a time of shattered glass. War in Israel. Rising antisemitism. Violence that feels closer than it should. In Pittsburgh, the memory of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is not distant. It remains present in the way we come together and in the care we show one another.
Yet life continues to unfold in the most human ways. We gather. We sing. We marry. We bring children into the world and teach them who they are.
Soon, we will sit at our Pesach tables and tell a story that insists, in every generation, that survival alone is not the goal. We are here to live with purpose, to carry memory forward and to hold onto hope. That night, under a snowy sky, offered a quiet reminder of something enduring.
This is who we are. We remember. We rebuild. We continue to rejoice. PJC
Casey Weiss is head of school at Community Day School.