After the story happened, they asked R’ Yitzchok Elchonon why he put his foot down, and why he was so determined to ensure that the chuppah be held outdoors. Especially, that he was new to his position as the town rov and it was the perfect chance for him to establish his position?
He responded that in Shir HaShirim the pasuk compares Klal Yisroel to nuts: אל גינת אגוז ירדתי – “I went down to a garden of nuts”. Chazal explain that Klal Yisroel are compared to nuts for two reasons: 1) By most fruits, when a person picks up the fruit, it’s easy to tell if the fruit is good or bad, normally one can tell from what it looks like outside. Nuts, however, have a hard shell around them, and it’s hard to tell if the nut is good or bad, until the shell is removed. 2) If there is a pile of nuts, and one removes one of nuts from the bottom of the pile, the whole pile will collapse.
R’ Yitzchok Elchonon explains, Klal Yisroel and the minhogim of Klal Yisroel have these two aspects. Some minhogim look pointless and don’t seem to be important – we don’t know what’s inside, however, we make sure to keep them, as we don’t know what truly lies behind the minhag. Secondly, if we stop keeping even one little minhag, the entire pile will start to collapse. If Klal Yisroel treat even one minhag lightly, it may cause them to start slacking in other minhogim and in the performance of Torah and mitzvos in general. Therefore, R’ Yitzchok Elchonon explained, to help upkeep minhag Yisroel, he felt it was important to put his foot down.
