Dear Rabbi:

I'm know a couple who doesn't want wine or grape juice used for the wedding blessings. What's your opinion about this? Is there a good and honorable substitute?

with appreciation, Rabbi C

Dear Rabbi C:

a. I have had occasion to serve a congregation that often used a cluster of large purple grapes for all "wine-"related blessing moments due to the number of recovering alcoholics in that "bunch."

b. Pomegranate juice could be a lovely option - adding the nuance of blessing the couple to live mitzvah-centered lives. Rabbinic tradition imagines a perfect pomegranate having 613 seeds, equal to the number of mitzvot that the Rambam (Maimonides) enumerates as derived from the Torah. Pomegranates appear in the Torah as one of the seven species with which Israel is blessed [Deuteronomy 8:8]. The Song of Songs twice uses pomegranate imagery [4:3, 6:7]. Pomegranates represent Torah and mitzvot, and also fertility - the ovarian symbolism of the pomegranate is something that I often use in menopause rituals to mark the transition from seeds of fertility to seeds of wisdom.

c. All that said, since the principle of l'faneynu (the unique nature of the case or "who" is before us) would apply in both halachic or integral halachic paradigms, my first question is, why no wine or grape juice? Diabetes? Allergies? Past or present issues or trauma about substance abuse in the family? A toddler who died choking on a grape? The motivation can be your guide to what and whether to lobby as a symbolic examplar for the "traditional wine or grape juice" or work toward a blessing symbol adaptation for this couple. Also, what range of gender is present in your couple? Same sex men/women, heterosexual, or somewhere else in the spectrum of possibility? I ask because wine has so many nuances, for example: A text to consider before agreeing to change such a major symbol in a Jewish ritual:

"Young women are like vines. There is a vine whose wine is red. A vine whose wine is abundant and a vine whose wine is sparse. Rabbi Judah said: 'Every vine has its wine.' "[Niddah: 64b]

In other words, blood is the wine of fertility.

Since wine in numerous parallel analogies represents the life force and hope/blessing for fertility, for example this is self-evidently drawing on the blessing Abraham received when the blood of circumcision is drawn and doorway to male fertility is made open, imho, there are compelling reasons to hold onto wine/grape juice/grapes so the meaning embedded within our tradition remains within known symbols (though these days in many places we do have to teach the meaning of our religious symbols.). 

Every ritual we do where a symbol is changed, IMHO, educates those present in a variety of ways that must be weighed on a balance where the tradition is on one side of the scale with kavod - or shall I say kaveid, "weighted" in its favor and then our reasons for changes get placed on the other side of the scale, one by one until, sometimes, the scale tips in favor of a significant change for a one-off occasion or with intent of the evolution of a tradition within our communities and then in ripples across the spectrum of Jewish and perhaps human practice (depending upon the subject). 

with blessings from my heart to yours,

R'Goldie