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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi Julia Neuberger

Good morning.

I wish we had some musical accompaniment today, as back in 1858 this was the day Felix Mendelssohn’s famous Wedding March was played, at the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Victoria with Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia. Since then, it has been played millions upon millions of times. Mendelssohn became a celebrity composer, a professing Christian whose grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, was a distinguished Jewish philosopher.

Mendelssohn’s wedding march, is now played at Jewish weddings as well as Christian ones, and is a frequent overture at classical music concerts, almost a classical ‘top of the pops.’ Hearing the first few notes, we all know what is to come. And many of us can hum it or sing it, and love it- one of many famous works by that great composer.

But Mendelssohn’s own complex relationship with his Jewish antecedents and relatives is mirrored in the complications of Princess Victoria’s relationship with her English siblings and cousins. And that was even worse for her daughter, also called Viktoria, who loved all things English and hated the worsening relationship between the two countries during and after the First World War.

You can be a German princess and still be a bit British, a Christian composer but also a bit Jewish, a proud Brit with German connections, a proud Scot with English cousins, and so on.

Teach us to understand, God, that we all have many different identities, and we should value them. And let us remember, when we hear that proud loud wedding march, that its composer combined many identities within his brilliant talent, and so can we.