A Few Thoughts about Kallah This Erev Shabbos ....

Kallah ... the bride. She's likened to the Sabbath Queen and immortalized in the Erev Shabbos hymn "Lecha Dodi".

Chossen (Chattan) ... the groom; I know it's stretching the point somewhat, so it's kind of tongue in cheek, but if you remove one of the "s" from "chossen" a word that is the "ashkenazified yiddishfied" adaptation of the Hebrew "chattan" ... what remains is the English word "chosen."

May all "banot Yisroel" regard their spouses as especially chosen for them, each and everyone!

Related, a more serious thought: a woman's presence, that of Kallah, transforms the apartment, condo, the house, into a home! When she is there, so too dwells the "shechinah". Should she leave, everything returns to its previous status; the home that it had been regresses to its earlier status, that of an apartment, condo, house.The "Kedusha of the home," I believe, follows on the heals of the Kallah; so do we welcome on the seventh day the arrival of the Sabbath Queen-not a Sabbath King-but Queen whose beauty of soul and self ignites the Friday night "nerot" bringing light wherein otherwise there would be darkness ... (and I bet you thought it was the matchbook that sparked that flame.)

"Bo-ee Kallah, Bo-ee Kallah" pages 318-319, Artscroll siddur

Alan Busch