Sarah-Tehiya Litman, 21, whose father and brother were murdered by terrorists on Friday, and who was supposed to get married to Ariel Bigel on Tuesday, has announced that the wedding will only be postponed by nine days – and that the entire nation of Israel is invited. The wedding will be held at Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem.
The invitation-announcement is preceded by the phrase – "Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, for I have fallen but I have gotten up" (Michah 7:8).
"This evening, instead of wearing the bridal dress, I will sit on the floor with a torn shirt," Sarah told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot Tuesday. "But very soon, we will marry in a large and happy wedding. We will go on and be happy as Father and Netanel always were. We will not be crushed."
"This will be the million-person wedding," the couple said. "Multitudes will come to make us happy."
Her groom-to-be Ariel, said Sarah, has become a father for her orphaned siblings before he became a husband. "Now he will fill the space left by my father and brother. My angel in white has a difficult mission."
Ariel said that the couple's bond is being tested but has only grown stronger as a result of the loss. "When I see Sarah-Tehiya's mother, how hard it is for her without her husband, I understand what it means to be a husband and how much support people get from their partners."
The family was headed out from home in Kiryat Arba to Meitar, where their in-laws-to-be live, to hold the Shabbat Hatan – the Sabbath celebration for the groom before a wedding – on Friday. On the way, an Arab terrorist waylaid the car which was being driven by Sarah-Tehiya's brother Netanel Litman, killing him and his father, Rabbi Yaakov Litman, and wounding his brother Dvir.