by Tony Rucinski, Coalition for Marriage
Most of the couples Rabbi Shlomo Levin MBE married were already living together. When he asked them what marrying would change, their answers varied, but they almost always came back to one idea – commitment.
He led South Hampstead United Synagogue in London for forty years, and was a study partner of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I spoke to him to find out what those couples taught him. You can watch the first part of our conversation here:
The couples told him marriage was “a step change in the relationship”, bringing “a new level of commitment, and of obligation, and of responsibility” and the sense that “I can no longer walk away from this easily”. The change came, he says, in the act of standing together under the wedding canopy and exchanging vows. Marriage is “the only word in society that actually captures” that kind of permanent commitment, which is why, he says, other forms of relationship want “to borrow the word”. But when I asked whether the union of a man and a woman needs its own distinct title, he said, “I do agree with that”.