Life cycle events are important. They are what connect us to our past and point us, with hope, even in sad times to the future. This weekend we hosted an aufruf at CKI for a bride and bride. There was such joy in the room. An aufruf is a simple ceremony when we shower a couple with blessings and with candy. Their new life should be sweet. Joyous. Happy. People called out blessings of health, laughter, joy, parnasa, friendship, love. There were three generations there. Both brides glowed and smiled broadly. While the marriage equality logo has been on the CKI website since before I arrived at CKI 12 years ago, it was a first for CKI to have a bride and bridge stand on our bimah. It should be just standard, so I was just going to do the blessings and not make a big deal out of it. It should be no big deal. At the very end of the service, one of our Zoomers unmuted and said, “Rabbi, isn’t this our first bride and bride?” Uh, oh I thought. But no, after confirming that indeed it was, she responded. “Don’t you always teach that we should do a shehechianu for something new?” Yes, yes I do. So we did. Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and enabled us to reach this very joyous moment. It was powerful. It was perfect. It was just right. It connected all of us to their upcoming nuptials, to our ancient tradition made relevant and new and to generations come and gone.