Engagements are a great celebration in Jewish life and there are actually several traditional types of Jewish events marking and celebrating an engagement. You might limit your engagement parties to traditional Jewish types, or you may opt for a women's only shower or a shower for men and women in addition to your engagement party.

The L'chaim and Vort

The Hebrew word L'chaim literally means “to life.” It is the phrase Jewish people say when drinking a toast. Often just a few days after a couple gets engaged they will have a L'chaim, an informal get-together for family and close friends, to announce and celebrate the engagement and share their immediate joy with others. This can be a great opportunity for the bride and groom's families to spend some time with each other, get to know each other, and celebrate the engagement and their new connection together.

In Yiddish, the language of Eastern European Jewry, the word vort literally means “a word” and refers to a larger engagement party that is usually held several weeks or months after the L'chaim. The vort gets its title from either the fact that the bride and groom are giving their word to marry each other, or that this is a meal at which words of Torah and mazel tov, good wishes, are spoken on behalf of the new couple.

The L'chaim and vort are optional parties of recent vintage and are not demanded by Jewish law. Many couples have engagement parties at which family and friends get together, people bring gifts, and the couple's engagement is celebrated. Titling the celebration with its more traditional Hebrew or Yiddish name is not essential but can serve to connect the celebration to Jewish tradition and set a more meaningful and historic tone. If you do use either name, make sure to make a note on the invitation explaining the meaning of the party's title. People who are unfamiliar with such Jewish nomenclature and practices will be intrigued and interested.

Tanaim: To Sign or Not To Sign?

In Judaism, weddings are a unique balance between holy, spiritual, and emotional moments on the one hand and business transactions on the other. One ancient businesslike custom is to sign a document called the tanaim. The tanaim, which literally means “conditions,” is a contract the two families enter into, essentially agreeing to go through with the wedding on the appointed wedding date.

Though in the past tanaim were usually signed at such a party often many months prior to the wedding, in recent times most couples who sign tanaim do so at the wedding itself. This is due to the fact that tanaim are indeed binding contractual agreements and to break them would be a violation of one's solemn word. So as not to risk violating such a contract and still keep older traditions alive, the tanaim are often signed just before the wedding ceremony when the danger of reneging is almost nil.

Nevertheless, in some Jewish communities, tanaim are indeed still signed at an engagement party a long time before the wedding. Even in communities where this is not true, the bride and groom can elect to sign tanaim at their engagement party. Though it comes with the risk of binding oneself in a powerful way (and may contain a specific monetary penalty for not going though with the wedding), signing tanaim at the engagement party does imbue the party with a much more profound significance and a heightened sense of commitment and trust.

Another option might be to create your own tanaim and sign them at the engagement party, something in your own language as a personal commitment, followed by a poetic reading of it. You could even follow this with a traditional breaking of the plate by the mothers, friends, or family and distribute the pieces as a memento of the occasion.