Dating Jewish Style – The Search for a Soul Mate
In the previous Morasha classes onmarriage, love, and Taharat HaMishpacha & Mikvah,we presented the goal – a life-long marriage built on love, trust, caring, and personal growth, and we presented tools to achieve that goal.We saw that Jewish marriage is the essential life-long pathway for individuals to reach their ultimate potential. In this context we can now approach dating and pre-marital relationships.From a Jewish perspective, dating is not a recreational sport; it is reserved solely for those mature and serious enough to be looking for their life-long partner. Of course it can be fun. But whether you’re 20 or 90, the fun is merely part of the means towards reaching the goal – marriage.
With an understanding of soul mates, a working model of love, and the goal of marriage in mind, dating takes on a whole new look. In this class we will explore the male-female relationship and how Jewish guidelines in this sphere shape how dating can become more meaningful and fulfilling.We will also gain insight and tools to help discover and marry one’s ezer k’negdo – soul mate. In doing so, we will explore the following questions:
- What is Judaism’s attitude toward sexual desire?
- What stance does Judaism take on intimate physical relationships before marriage?
- How can we best maintain our objectivity and avoid the emotional turmoil of dating?
- How can we prepare ourselves to date for marriage?
Class Outline:
Introduction. What are You Dating For?
Section I. The Nuclear Power of Desire
Part A. The Ultimate Purpose of Desire – To Reveal God’s Unity
Part B. For Better or Worse
Part C. Desire is Holy
Part D. What You Lose, What You Gain
Part E. Can I Take it for a Test-Drive?
Section II. Fragile: Do Not Touch
Part A. Protecting the Commitment
Part B. Maintaining Objectivity
Part C. Keeping it Special
Part D. Fostering the Spiritual Side
Section III. Preparing to Date for Marriage
Part A. Preface to Dating – Who am I?
Part B. Wanted: My Soul Mate
Part C. Keep Your Eye on the Ball
Part D. Physical Attraction a Must
Part E. Being Realistic
Part F: How Do I Know When it’s Right?
Introduction. What are You Dating For?
Recently my mother asked me to clarify what I meant when I said I was dating someone, versus when I was hooking up with someone, versus when I was seeing someone. And I had trouble answering her because the many options overlap and blur in my mind. But at one point, four years ago, I had a boyfriend. And I know he was my boyfriend because he said, “I want you to be my girlfriend,” and I said, “O.K.”
He and I dated for over a year, and when we broke up I thought my angsty heart was going to spit itself right up out of my sore throat. Afterward, I moved out of my mother’s house in Brooklyn and into an apartment in the EastVillage, and from there it becomes confusing.
So, a few days after the chat with my mom, when I found myself downtown drinking tea with my friend Steven, I asked him what he thought about dating. He has a long-term girlfriend, and I was curious how he viewed their relationship.
“The main thing,” he said, “is I don’t mind if she sleeps with other people. I mean, she’s not my property, right? I’m just glad I get to hang out with her. Spend time with her. Because that’s all we really have, you know? I don’t want her to be mine, and I don’t want to be anybody’s.”
I sucked my teeth and looked over at the next table, where two men sat opposite each other. One looked over his shoulder and gave me a closed-mouth grin.
Steven explained that it’s not a question of faithfulness but of expectation. He can’t be expected not to want to sleep with other people, so he can’t expect her to think differently. They are both young and living in New York, and as everyone in New York knows, there’s the possibility of meeting anyone, everywhere, all the time. (Marguerite Fields, “Want to Be My Boyfriend? Please Define” from May 4, 2008 – Winner of the Sunday Styles national essay contest)
This New York Times essay describes a relationship of desire without parameters. Many people today are happy to date and remain in informal relationships, claiming that they need not be “legally bound” to show their love for their partner. Within such a context, sexual intimacy is entirely misplaced. And it comes at a great cost to everyone involved.
In contrast with the modern notion of “recreational dating” displayed above, dating within a Jewish framework refers to the active search for a soul mate, another person with whom to build a life and a family. Judaism maintains that there is a broad qualitative difference between a relationship with commitment and one that is not. Applied correctly within the context of marriage, sexual relations are a powerful unifying force; misused and abused within a casual setting, they are not only counterproductive but actually emotionally and spiritually destructive.
In this class we will explore the nature of sexual desire and how it can be harnessed for creative expression within a relationship. Once we understand how this power should be used, we will be in a better position to see how it is currently being abused in the modern world. In the process we will explore what we can do to avoid the dating pitfalls that are so prevalent today.
Section I. The Nuclear Power of Desire
If you ask someone, “Is nuclear power good or bad?” they may answer: “It depends on how you use it. It can wreak massive destruction, or it can revolutionize our modern energy crisis.” Everyone agrees on one point – Nuclear energy’s massive potential can only be harnessed under very special conditions.
Sexual desire is not unlike nuclear energy in that it is a powerful force with enormous potentialfor either magnificent creativity or devastating destruction. In this section we will discuss Judaism’s understanding of the purpose of desire – how, if used correctly it can be positive, and how, if misused it can be negative.
Part A. The Ultimate Purpose of Desire – To Reveal God’s Unity
To understand how desire can have such opposite effects, we need to understand the goal of Judaism, which can be summarized as:
1. Devarim (Deuteronomy) 6:4-5 – The goal of Judaism is to recognize God’s Oneness. We reach this state of oneness by loving with our whole heart’s desire.
Hear O Israel, God is our Lord,God is One. And you shall love God your Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your resources… / שמע ישראל יקוק אלהינו יקוק אחד: ואהבת את יקוק אלהיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך:Everything wrong with the world, all anguish, strife and pain, is a result of our inability to perceive the perfect oneness that unites us – the Oneness of God. On a personal level, when we search for our soul mates – a desire to feel perfect completion – we are also yearning to reveal God’s perfect unity between us. This is because on a spiritual level love creates unity, as the verse beckons us to reveal God’s oneness via love, “And you shall love the Lordyour God…” The ultimate expression of our love and identification with God will fix the world and reveal His total unity, thus perfecting creation, as the prophet says:
2. Zechariah (Zachary) 14:9 – Our love for God will be reflected in a world with multiplicity, all bound by His Oneness.
And God will be King over the entire world – on that day God will be One and His Name will be one. / והיה יקוק למלך על כל הארץ ביום ההוא יהיה יקוק אחד ושמו אחד:Like soul mates, we will see our very individuality as part of God’s Oneness, and He will relate to us as a part of His Oneness.
3. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Made in Heaven, pg. 8 – Love creates one from many.
The Hebrew word for love, ahavah, has the same numerical value as the Hebrew word echad meaning “one.” In its deepest sense, love takes two people and makes them into one.This background gives us the basics to understandinglove and desire.
Part B. For Better or Worse
As we mentioned, desire is like nuclear energy. When used correctly, it can bring the whole world to perfection; misused, it can reap massive emotional destruction. Should this sound like an overstatement, let us consider the following:
1. Talmud Bavli, Sotah 17a – The appropriate union of man and woman brings God’s Presence.
Rabbi Akiva taught: When a man and woman are worthy of it, God’s Presence is found between them. When they are not worthy, a fire consumes them. / דריש ר"ע איש ואשה זכו שכינה ביניהן לא זכו אש אוכלתן.The male-female relationship, in the proper context, is a conduit for the expression of God’s Presence on Earth. Under the wrong conditions, it hides this Presence. Relationships can sour into consuming conflagrations that leave only destruction and pain in their wake, similar to nuclear power unchecked. (On a personal level, anyone who has been “used” in a relationship or has suffered a breakup may easily relate to the emotional damage he or she experienced, at least the first time it happened.)
2. Rashi to Sotah 17a – Male and female are only separate because God is not between them; when He is, they are one.
“The Presence is between them” – For God divided up His Name and placed it between the two of them. The letter yud is in the word ish (man), and the letter hay is in the word isha (woman). (Together, yud and hay form one of the Divine Names.) When they are unworthy a fire consumes them – For God removes His Name and they each remain “fire.” [Man and woman in Hebrew each consist of alef and shin, which together spell aish, or fire; as well as a third letter, yud in ish and hay in isha – ed.] / שכינה ביניהם – שהרי חלק את שמו ושיכנו ביניהם; יו"ד באיש וה"י באשה. לא זכו אש אוכלתן – שהקב"ה מסלק שמו מביניהן ונמצאו אש ואש.[איש ואשה, אש ואש]
What we experience on an emotional level as perfect bliss, unity, and fulfillment is a reflection of our revealing God’s perfect unity between us. This is what we call true love, drawing us close as we take pleasure in perceiving the Godly qualities in our partner.
The division of God’s name, however, is caused first by the unchecked passion that is liable to overtake us. It can ultimately blind us from truly perceiving the Godly qualities in our partner, focusing us only on ourselves. With time this is experienced as heartbreaking disconnection, emptiness and insensitivity to love – the division of God’s name, for we have taken God out of the picture. Ultimately, we either experience the pleasure of God’s unity or the pain of its absence.
Now we can understand the simple “emotional principle” which explains when desire is productive and when it is destructive. Desire will produce either true connection or separation.The question we must ask ourselves before entering any relationship is: which of the two will my desire produce? Often, our intellect knows the right answer. Our goal is to gain the emotional courage to be able to heed that voice, to reserve our desire for forging true and lasting love with a soul mate.
In order to work, a relationship needs “safety parameters” to channel the nuclear energy of desire into creative expression.
3. Rabbi Dr.Joseph Breuer, Rav Breuer’s Essays, pp. 245-6 – Desire builds love and oneness when channeled properly.
As long as a Jewish husband [and wife] observes the Divine marriage code, he will love his wife. For his love will not then be one of fleeting passion or passing attraction, but it will be that of true love which is a joyous mutual devotion, a joint realization of common ideals of life. And in the course of their married life – “surrounded by a hedge of roses” (Sanhedrin 37a) of ever-reoccurring shy and sacred restraint – this love will find perpetual bridal rejuvenation. Each year will add strength and intensity to this love, for such love receives in equal measure as it gives…So long as you retain it, your marriage will remain forever young, for God will continue to dwell in your marriage…Here again we see desire channeled correctly brings a unifying force to a couple.
Part C. Desire is Holy
We saw in the class about marrying our soul mates that when the Temple was destroyed and its cherubs revealed to the world, the non-Jews at the time confused this expression of God’s desire for closeness to the Jewish people (as the cherubs were embracing each other) with lust. The Jewish outlook, however, saw beyond the physical façade of desire and grasped the purity of its spiritual root. In this regard, not much has changed. Today, the world is just as confused about how to handle desire.
1. Rebbetzin Tehilla Abramov, The Secret of Jewish Femininity, pp. 30-33 – Viewing marital relations as a spiritual experience makes it rise above the classic dichotomy of hedonism vs. asceticism.
The proliferation of clinics, specialists, manuals, and counselors all offering the “secret” to problem-free intimate relations attest to the difficulty modern society has in finding the proper balance within the realm of sexual relations.The difficulty in building a balanced approach is an outgrowth of Western society’s historic inability to come to terms with the issue of sexuality. Throughout history, we see two basic approaches:
- The worship of physical pleasure epitomized by the hedonism of Greek society. The pursuit of beauty and material enjoyment is looked on as an end in itself;
- The condemnation of sexuality epitomized in the asceticism of the early Christians. Sex is viewed as an expression of man’s sinful nature.
Why hasn’t Western man been able to rise above this unhealthy dichotomy? Because he operates from a materialistic perspective. This is the common point uniting the above approaches. Greek hedonism embraces materialism; Christian asceticism rejects it.
In contrast, Judaism works from the view that the world is Godly, that God has vested it with an aspect of His creative potential. When we proclaim “Hear Israel, God is our Lord, God is One,” we are not merely negating the existence of a second divinity; we are emphasizing how His transcendent Oneness pervades and permeates every aspect of the Creation. If this is true regarding the world at large, it must surely be true of the union between man and woman.
The Jewish sources however give us boundariesin order to use the volatile power of desire in a way that leaves people feeling not only innocent, but elevated and fulfilled.
2. Ramban, Iggeret HaKodesh, Chapter 2 – Marital relations are holy.
Know that the act of union is a holy and pure matter when carried out in the proper manner, at the proper time, and with the proper intentions. A person should not think there is anything degrading and unbecoming to the act of union, God forbid. / דע כי חבור זה הוא ענין קדוש ונקי כשיהיה הדבר כפי מה שראוי ובזמן הראוי ובכוונה הנכונה. ואל יחשוב אדם כי בחבור הראוי יש גנאי וכיעור ח"ו.There are two major differences between the Jewish and non-Jewish approach to desire. Firstly, there are clear parameters on how to harness it, as opposed to the unchecked license it is given in the world at large. Secondly,in contrast to the view that desire is a physical force, Judaism understands desire to be a spiritual force that when harnessed correctly can produce oneness.
Part D. What You Lose, What You Gain
Let’s get practical. How does today’s rampant unbounded involvement in intimacy affect the participants?
There is a heavy emotional price to pay for intimacy before marriage. Do we ever ask ourselves, is it worth the price?
About 20 percent of adolescents lost their virginity before their 15th birthday – and one in seven of the experienced 14-year-old girls has been pregnant, according to a report released yesterday by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy…“teachers looking at a class of 13-year-olds can't assume they're in a state of latent innocence.” (Based on Adolescent Behavior before Fifteen, May 20, 2003.)
By the time a person is a young adult, the question is not whether or not they have experienced physical intimacy, but rather what is the “appropriate” number of partners before marriage – 10, 15, or 20 – and whether they can be concurrent. (Based on Casual Relationships, April 3, 2005)
This context of social openness contributes to the failure of marriages. We dull our sensitivity to the holiness of love with our soul mate. It would be naïve to ignore the fact that this loss of innocence affects future relationships.
1. Dr. Lisa Aiken, Guide for the Romantically Perplexed, pg. 71 – Sex outside marriage is a misappropriation of a spiritually powerful tool.
Judaism teaches that the desire for physical closeness and its full expression was part of the divine plan to attract men and women to each other, and later deepen their relationship as husband and wife. A couple’s souls unite when they have physical relations…[O]utside of marriage, it might seem emotionally or physically satisfying, but it creates a form of spiritual havoc.From the Jewish perspective, there is no such thing as a one-night stand. Once a couple has been physically intimate, their souls are forever affected by the union. Despite the societal push for people to be totally casual and uninhibited about sex, provided they are protected against disease, Judaism considers this attitude and behavior damaging. Animals may discard or use one another to satisfy their primal drives, but at least they ultimately propagate their species. The way singles use each other ends up fostering self-indulgence while simultaneously leaving scars.
2. Ibid., pg. 73 – Premarital sex creates emotional baggage.