looking in from outside

In my life, I haven't seen much luxury, and neither do I have a craving for it. The first 15 years I spent sheltered behind the impenetrable iron curtain which very effectively kept any items of luxury out of the country and from the collective awareness of the populace. When the curtain became penetrable and fell in one swift motion, material desires were brought to the country with equal precipitousness, but by then I had already been immunized against blatant consumption.

I have never spent leisurely weeks in a resort in the South Sea, nor have I owned sports cars, yachts or second homes. I don't eat caviar, abalone or bluefin, and can count my nights in five-star hotels – in the Middle East where they were surprisingly affordable – on the fingers of one hand. I have never flown business, let alone first class, and I've been in the first-class compartment of a train only twice.

The first time was in France, returning to Grenoble from Paris. The advance fare in first was only a fraction dearer than a regular second class ticket. The value was similar, too. I couldn't see much of a difference in the ride. It was bumpy and wicked fast. There were no free drinks or newspapers. In stark contrast, my second first-class experience was memorable, as nice as it was unexpected.

With a friend I was traveling from Rome to Florence on a second-class ticket but without a reservation. We entered a car that looked too nice to be for us and indeed, there was a big 1 on the door. We got into the next car, which was marked with a 2. It looked as nice as the first and we were unsure, but with the train starting to move, we sat down and enjoyed the ride. Only when the conductor approached to check the tickets did it occur to us that the 2 counted the car not the class, which was still first. It took a joint rush of innocent smiles, wild gesticulation and ignorance of the language to keep us in our seats.

This morning, I boarded a train to go up to Manchester for a friend's wedding. Manchester would be playing Liverpool in the FA Cup later that day and the train was full of supporters, clad in the traditional red (of either team). Beer was the refreshment of choice, flags flew with scant regard for passengers absorbed in books or conversations, and passionate discussions flared combustiously.

I didn't notice any of this. I was secluded in the relative shelter of a first-class carriage, wondering why it was crowded, why people were standing, why some didn't get a reservation despite shelling out for railroad luxury. The lad I approached on the way from the station, clad in a dark suit and with the same invitation in his hand that I had in mine, told me the reason for the crowding of the train and later served as a knowledgeable interpreter of a ceremony that would otherwise have made little sense to me.

My friend hails from a very traditional and firm Jewish family, and her parents organized the wedding in strict adherence to ritual and rules. There were numerous rabbis in attendance and many more orthodox suits and black fedoras. Everyone wore a kippa. Before the ceremony started, men were invited to share a glass of whiskey in a side room, but only if their heads were covered in respect of God. That I didn't own a kippa didn't hold me back. Commemorative skullcaps, red like the kosher Côtes du Rhône that would later be served and with the wedding details inscribed on the inside, were handed out to unprepared guests and made a magnificent souvenir.

The ceremony itself followed sacred customs to the dot, as my guide explained to me. Underneath the canopy symbolizing their new shared home, the bride circumambulated the groom seven times, inspecting him or weaving a tight cocoon of possession or simply doing footwork in order to get the guy, and accepted the ring slid halfway down her strong finger by a rabbi who held up a glass of wine. In front of two official witnesses and incomprehensible to everyone, a contract was solemnly read in Aramaic by a religious authority who could make sense of it. No one I asked understood it, though some claimed there was a passage about twenty goats in it, the price to pay by the groom to renege on the marital vow. If that's valid during a probation period only or for all eternity – infinity, as the math-affine groom would later insist – I don't know and no one told me.

Seven blessings were then spoken by assorted honoraries, straight from the Talmud and free of any adaptation. The groom responded by sipping the wine and broke, all done, the glass with a ferocious stomp. The congregation erupted in cheers of well-wishing. The smashing of the glass commemorates the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, a reminder that no joy is absolute, but also, with tenuous logic, a symbol of the irreversibility of marriage. Much as broken glass cannot be unbroken, a marriage cannot be undone. Or at least it shouldn't. Good luck to the happy couple. "Mazel tov", everyone shouted.

We retired into one of the side rooms to light refreshments and more whiskey, while the married couple were led to another room to have time to discover each other. In more innocent times, this was the moment of physical truth. Now the moments alone probably helped them process and eventually shed a bit of the gravity and seriousness of the ceremony. The rest of the afternoon would be lighter.

It started with dancing. Ignoring the laden tables, nearly everyone rushed near the stage to romp. "You'll like it", my knowledgeable friend had said, "but man and woman will probably dance separately." Indeed they did, and not only that. Women were sequestered in an enclosure made of two-meter-tall dividing walls. At some point, the mother of the bride came over to chide some men who had climbed the stairs to the stage to get a better view of the men's dancing and to take pictures. This also gave them a theoretical and partial view of the women's pen, which was utterly unacceptable. The dance was much like the stomp that a Syrian friend of mine had always enacted during parties in Salt Lake. The boundless energy of complete happiness created ecstasy, legs flailing, coats flying, and kippas hanging on for dear life.

After the dancing, the wedding became any old wedding – in a good way: food, chats and speeches filled the rest of the afternoon. With a punctuality that even I found peculiar, the whole affair ended a little before six. I changed from my jacket into a warm winter coat and hurried back to the station. A few minutes later and I sat in the Pendolino back to London. The football fans were either still celebrating in the local pubs (one of the red teams won) or had already returned. The car was empty and quiet. The train was faster than the one out and made me feel queasy with its bold leaning into curves for maximum speed. I had a comfortable seat and service was great: Drinks and newspapers and free wireless, and time for me to research the finer point of the ceremony that hadn't revealed themselves to me. But I never figured out what the point of the whiskey was.