The INSIDER Summary:The Jewish celebratory dance called the horah involves dancing around in circles.At weddings, the bride and groom are lifted on chairs in the middle of the circle.It's all for the entertainment of the married couple.If you've ever been to a Jewish wedding, you've probably witnessed what, to an outsider, might be a strange dance.Everyone gathers around the bride and groom and dances around the couplein a circle. At some point, someone brings in some chairs for the couple to sit on, and a fewof the stronger guests hoist them up into the air as peopledance around them.There are really two things going on here.One is the circle dance, called the horah, a type of Israeli folk dance that originally comesfrom Romania. The other thing, lifting up the bride and groom, is all about singling them out for celebration and having fun ' and it's not technically part of the horah dance.Traditional horah dances don't necessarily involve lifting people up on chairs.The story of traditional Jewish dancing is a weird one. The Torah (otherwise known as the Old Testament) and Talmud (another foundational Jewish text) reference dancing on different occasions. Dancing is an important component of celebratingspecific life occasions 'like weddings and bar and bat mitzvot'as well as holidays.But the exacttypeof Jewish dances differed after the Romans exiled the Jews from the land of Israelin 70 CE. From then on, the types of Jewish dances evolved, according to the International Encyclopedia of Dance, with different traditions according to different cultural expressions.Yemenite Jews carried on intricate dances, many of which are still practiced today. Hasidic Jews developed dances that displayed ecstaticfervor in celebration of God. Andan influential 12th-century rabbi calledMaimonides noted that"a Jewish bride in Egypt executed a sword dance, as was the habit in Muslim society when entertaining wedding guests of both sexes."The contemporary Israeli horah comes from Romania(which itself stems from an ancient dance from Greece), and wentthrough a few changesin the 1880s, according to the encyclopedia. Baruch Agadati, a legendary Israeli folk dancer and filmmaker, established the dance in its current form by the 1930s.The dance itself, though, involves stepping around and jumping in a circle. It's usually performed to the song "Hava Nagilah," and ittypically occurs during holiday celebrations and personal milestones.All this to say, the dance doesn't necessarily include lifting people up on chairs.Dancing for the bride's entertainment is an important part of the wedding.The chair thing is a separate component, part of a Jewish tradition of making the bride happy on her wedding day.There are numerous Jewishmitzvot' or commandments' related to weddings, which are discussed at length in the Talmudic code of Jewish law.In one section, the Talmud makes a reference to dancing "before the bride." The exact meaning of that phrase is argued over, but one of the ways it's practiced today is by dancing before the bride and groom to entertain them.Or, put simply, it's all for fun.The question, of course, is how to entertain the bride. One rabbi cited in the Talmud was said to lift up the brideand put her on his shoulders, but other rabbisdiscouraged that practice because it appears to objectify the bride.So when exactly did entertaining the brideturn intolifting the bride and groom on chairs' The answer, Jewish dance scholar Judith Ingber told INSIDER, "is lost in the mist of time." But over the years, she's noticed that people have become practical about it."I have seen chairs for religious brides and grooms with small woodpecker handles on the chair seats," Ingber, the editor of "Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance,"wrote in an email. "They can literally hang on as they are hoisted up and carried aloft in a kind of dizzying turning and lifting."ForOrthodox Jews, the chairs also provide a functional purpose.Orthodox Jews generally don't have men and women dance together. Instead, they dance in separate groupswith what's called amechitza ' a sort of (often portable) partition wall ' between then. If the bride and groom are lifted up on chairs on their respective sides of the mechitza, they can see each other during the dancing.That's also where the handkerchief comes in. The couple could connect to each other by holding either end of a handkerchief over the mechitza. The handkerchief also plays thematic roles in Jewish marriage ceremonies as a part of a ritual that seals the marriage contractand, in some Hasidic communities, as part of a different kind of wedding dance.In the past few decades, picking up people on chairs during Jewish weddings has become part of pop culture, whether in "Fiddler on the Roof" or in the season five finale of "New Girl." It alsoisn't just a wedding thing anymore' the chair thing is often donefor a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah. It's a way for the guests to express their joy about the person being celebrated.Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Hackers and governments can see you through your phone's camera ' here's how to protect yourself
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