Why Is a Glass Broken at the End of a Jewish Wedding?
The Talmud tells where the gesture comes from, the codes of law link it to Jerusalem, and each community has its own way of doing it. The full picture, sources included.
Contents
At the end of the chuppah, the groom breaks a glass underfoot and the whole gathering shouts "Mazal tov!". It’s one of the best-known gestures of a Jewish wedding, among Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike. But where does it come from, and what does it mean? Here is what the texts say, and what belongs instead to popular tradition.
What the Talmud Says
The Babylonian Talmud (tractate Berakhot, 30b-31a) records two wedding stories. Mar, son of Ravina, sees the sages at his son’s wedding give themselves over to overflowing joy: he brings out a precious cup, worth 400 zuz, and breaks it in front of them. Rav Ashi, who headed the academy of Sura (died 427), does the same at his son’s wedding, with a cup of white glass. The guests, the text says, grow serious.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
The Talmud ties these stories to this verse: even at the height of joy, one keeps a measure of restraint. The text does not mention the Temple. The link with Jerusalem came later.
The Memory of Jerusalem
In the Middle Ages, Tosafot, the Talmud’s medieval commentators, write about Rav Ashi’s cup: "This is where the custom of breaking glass at weddings comes from." Custom compendiums from the same period, such as the Kol Bo, give the gesture the meaning we know today: remembering the destruction of Jerusalem, even on the happiest of days.
The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 560:2) asks the groom to keep a sign of mourning for Jerusalem: a little ash on his head, where the tefillin sit. The Rema, who adds Ashkenazi customs to it, notes that in some places a glass is broken instead, at the moment of the chuppah. Many grooms recite, just before, the verse "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget" (Psalms 137:5).
In the Sephardi tradition, Rav Ovadia Yosef (Halikhot Olam, vol. 2) explains that glass is used precisely because, unlike fired clay, broken glass can be melted down and remade. The gesture thus also expresses the hope that Jerusalem will be rebuilt.
A Popular Explanation: Warding Off Evil Spirits
Another explanation circulates: the sound of the breaking glass is said to ward off evil spirits, drawn by so much happiness. It doesn’t come from a legal text but from popular tradition. The historian Jacob Lauterbach (1925) traces it to a medieval German custom: the groom would throw the cup against the synagogue’s north wall, the side from which, according to the prophet Jeremiah, misfortune was said to come. Rabbis rarely cite it today.
A Modern Reading: A Bond That Cannot Be Undone
You’ll also hear, especially at more recent ceremonies, that a broken glass cannot be glued back together, just like the commitment made under the chuppah. This image doesn’t come from the classical sources, but it resonates with many couples. It says the opposite of the Sephardi reading above: one stresses what cannot be undone, the other what will be rebuilt.
The Gesture, in Practice
- When? In most communities, at the end of the chuppah, after the seven blessings. In Israel, some do it earlier, between the kiddushin and the reading of the ketubah.
- What glass? Today, a simple, thin glass, wrapped in a napkin or a small cloth pouch to contain the shards.
- Who breaks it? The groom, with a decisive stomp. In some weddings today, the couple breaks it together.
- And then? The gathering shouts "Mazal tov!" and the celebration begins.
What Comes Next: The Sheva Brachot
The seven blessings, the sheva brachot, are recited once under the chuppah. They are said again after the wedding meal, at the end of Birkat Hamazon, and then generally at the festive meals of the following seven days, under two conditions: a minyan (ten men) and at least one guest who hadn’t yet attended — the "new faces" (panim chadashot).
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Sources
- Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 30b-31a (Mar son of Ravina, Rav Ashi).
- Tosafot on Berakhot 31a.
- Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 560:2, and the Rema’s gloss.
- Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 62 (the sheva brachot).
- Rav Ovadia Yosef, Halikhot Olam, vol. 2, p. 204.
- Jacob Z. Lauterbach, ‘The Ceremony of Breaking a Glass at Weddings’, Hebrew Union College Annual 2 (1925).
About — Written by the Tov.events team, who build the tools Jewish families — Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, secular — use for their simchas.
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