Amber, my wife, and I got married on Oct. 1, 1994. We are very happily married. This is actually a funny engagement story.
In July 1993, at the time of our engagement, Amber was living in Washington, D.C., and I was living in Los Angeles. Before Amber flew out to Los Angeles on a Friday to visit me for a few days, I told her to bring a nice dress because we were going to a fancy restaurant on Saturday night. Since we had been talking about getting engaged for a few months, I was trying to make her think that I would propose marriage at dinner on Saturday night. I had another plan in mind.
On Friday night, we had Shabbat dinner together by ourselves. After lighting the Shabbat candles, saying kiddush over the wine and Motzi over the challah, I handed a knife to Amber and asked her to cut the challah in the middle. I knew she would think it was strange to cut the challah in the middle, rather than simply cutting a piece from one of the ends. However, I also knew that she would not ask me why she was cutting the challah in the middle for fear of a long answer involving Torah, Talmud, Maimonides and perhaps even Woody Allen.
As she cut into the challah, the knife stopped cutting when it touched something inside the challah. Earlier in the day, I discreetly removed a small piece from the bottom of the challah, placed a small gray jewelry box in the center of the challah, and reattached the piece of challah. She screamed and said a rat was in the challah. She looked inside the challah again and took out the gray jewelry box. She opened up the box and took out the ring.
We stared at each other for what seemed like hours but was probably only seconds. I asked her to marry me and she said “yes.”
She kept the jewelry box which has a knife mark on the top — a sign to remember our engagement.