After the jump find an essay I wrote on the Jewish perspective of Love and Dating…The actual Jewish traditions of dating are probably a little too conservative for me to actualy apply purely to my real life. But I think there are some fabulous lessons to be learned…and everytime I find myself led astray and lost due to the actions of some imperfect boy and his perfect ploy…This stuff kinda helps…Also where this info came from – Rabbi Shlomo Shulman, Gila Mendelson and Mrs. Levitan from Israel…I’m telling myself not to worry…I’ll go back to being funny and cynical soon…Once I get past this slight relapse of a quarter life crisis…
On Love and Limerence: A Jewish Perspective
What is love? We think we know. We’ve seen it portrayed through all types of media – novels, movies, TV. We’ve heard anecdotes and witnessed relationships, like those of our parents. But in my twenty five years of time spent on this earth I still feel completely unsure as to the true nature of the word and the emotions, responsibilities, goals and intrinsicalities that accompany the state of being in love. So in the next few pages what I would like to accomplish is a discussion on the Jewish perspectives of love and relationships; It’s historical beginnings, basic tenets, and also its difficulties and shortcomings from both a societal and personal perspective.
My personal favorite story of love in the torah is that of Yaakov and Rachel (maybe I’m biased because my name is Rachel, but I digress). As the story goes, Yaakov was sent away from his home to flee his brother Esau after he had deceived him. Yaakov was sent to the house of his mother’s brother, Lavan, in Haran. En route to Haran, Yaakov stops at a well that is plugged by a giant stone. Sheppard begin to gather around the well to wait for enough men to arrive in order to remove the stone so that they can water their flocks. Yaakov inquires as to the whereabouts of Lavan. As he is doing so, Lavan’s younger daughter Rachel appears sheparding her father’s flock. What happens next seems like a scene out of any good romantic fairy tale – “It was as Yaakov saw Rachel, the daughter of Lavan, his (Yaakov’s) mother’s brother and the flock of Lavan, his mother’s brother—Yaakov approached and rolled off the stone from the well and he watered the flock of Lavan, his mother’s brother.” ** Note: He moved the stone all by himself!
Yaakov then returns home with Rachel to meet Lavan. After a month of working for Lavan, Yaakov wants to discuss a fair salary for his work. “Yaakov loved Rachel and he said: ‘I will work seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.’” So Yaakov has asked for Rachel’s hand in marriage as part of his compensation, but the working seven years thing is somewhat quizzical. Doesn’t that seem somewhat excessive? Next, “Yaakov worked for seven years for Rachel, and they were in his eyes like a few days in his love for her.” So Yaakov does indeed work the seven years for Rachel. What is difficult to comprehend is the statement that follows – “and they were in his eyes like a few days in his love for her.” What? For a couple so passionately in love wouldn’t it seem like every day would feel like seven years? Shouldn’t these seven years have felt like forever? How could they have passed so quickly in his mind?
The solution to this problem lies in the fundamental answer the Torah is trying to teach us about what love truly is. The famous rabbi Eliyahu Lopian gives an example in his work Lev Eliyahu about the common misconceptions of love in today’s society. He gives the analogy of a man ravenously eating fish who exclaims, “I love fish!” But we know that the man doesn’t actually love fish. What the man does in fact love is himself and the way the fish makes him feel when he eats it. The same is true for all material things we claim to love. And in today’s day and age it can also be reflective of how we feel about people. In today’s society love of oneself can be disguised as love of another. This is not true love. Rav Lopian describes this love as a “physical” love – a love of oneself and the “excitement and status and pleasure that their beloved provides for them.” The Torah on the other hand describes a “spiritual” love as that between Yaakov and Rachel. Yaakov’s wish to marry Rachel stemmed from his desire to give to her. Now we can look back and understand that those seven years he spent working “in his love for her,” was a means of giving to her in the most selfless way possible. Yaakov wanted to give himself because he knew that giving is what in fact creates love. And he knew that that giving would found a strong marriage and that is how the time sailed by. It is no coincidence that the Hebrew word for love – ahava comes from the root of the word hav – “to give.”
The story of Yaakov and Rachel teaches us a lot about the essence of love in its most true form. But in today’s society the idea of love at first sight seems anachronistic at best. People don’t fall in love at a passing glance. So the question posed is how does one go about finding their Yaakov or Rachel? And how does one distinguish love from lust, infatuation or limerence? The Jewish tradition has set forth guidelines in order to distinguish these easily confused states in a logical, practical and controlled manner that seeks to mitigate emotional investment in ill-fated relationships.
To begin with in the Jewish tradition love is thought of as a conscious and controlled decision, not a state that’s merely fallen upon. When searching for a partner it is stressed that objectivity and clarity be used to assess the relationship. Factors such as background, education, similar goals and values, personality, family and friends; things that really define ones character. Things that are external or superficial are put off as unimportant (unlike what seems to be valued in secular society). Religious Jews exemplify these ideals in the virtue known as tsnius. Tsnius meaning modesty or “secret” refers to the idea that the body should always be tastefully covered. The underlying idea is that true beauty lies not in what is openly flaunted for all to see but in what is hidden. The human body is merely a vessel for the soul, which unlike the exterior is sacred and where beauty truly lies. In this sense Judaism rejects the notion that true beauty or attractiveness is determined by how close a girl approaches an ideal, arbitrary and subjective standard put forth by society. Rather it is the totality of the person, the combination of personality, charm, wit, sensitivity, kindness rather than merely image that reflects beauty.
Judaism also beseeches the notion of friendship before relationship/marriage. In this sense it requires that a relationship completely lack physical contact before marriage. This includes all forms of touching even that of a greeting handshake. Why limit contact so rigorously? It is believed that it is easier to maintain control up to the point of physical contact because once this boundary is crossed self-control and restraint becomes ever more difficult to control. It is believed that only after marriage should physical contact come into play. Physical contact that happens prior to this point has the possibility of being insincere, distorting objectivity and can result in a loss of control and hurt feelings. Also if physical contact is the end goal of a date it lowers the value of more important aspects of an initial or growing relationship such as intellectual conversation and overall rapport. It is also at the point of premature physical contact where the difference between love and limerence becomes blurred. Whereas love is a mutual feeling that requires working with and giving oneself to another person, lust and limerence can be easily confused with these ideals once a physical relationship has developed.
The Jewish approach stresses many factors that in an ever growing secular society have been dismissed in exchange for instant gratification, and preservation of a subjectively acceptable “image.” That’s not to say that there aren’t individuals secular individuals who uphold these values, but many of us have become jaded and could use a lesson in humility and giving before we try to find meaningful relationships in someone else. It’s also not to say that this system employed by religious Jewish communities is without its problems. For example, banning male-female contact completely before marriage could rush two people into a marriage in order to be able to consummate a physical relationship instead of actually being truly in love.
Other problems exist to. Awhile back I was listening to my favorite radio show on NPR – This American Life. This show portrays stories of everyday Americans doing everything from the mundane to the extraordinary. Each week the show has a different theme. This particular show was entitled Matchmakers and highlights the story of Chaya Lipschultz an orthodox woman living in Brooklyn. The story fits under the theme of Matchmaking not for an obvious reason, but because Chaya has donated one of her kidneys to a stranger and has since made it her life’s mission to try and get others to make such an ultimate, selfless sacrifice as she has done to save another human beings life. At one point in the story Chaya is asked her age. She at this point gets extremely upset and refuses to answer the question. When asked why she says it’s because she isn’t married. We can assume Chaya is middle aged. The point is Chaya, as a single middle-aged woman. She goes on to talk about not merely being left out of her community as a result, but essentially she has been shunned and pitied as well. Not exactly something I’d be proud of if I was a member of that community – leaving out a member who’s doing such good things in the world. But it has become so engrained in the Jewish tradition that marriage is the natural state of being that individuals of adult age on their own aren’t respected. The prospect of marriage also seems to have time limitations. As women get older (even to the point where in a secular society they’d still be considered young) they are cast aside as undesirable and it becomes even more difficult for them to find a partner or carry out a normal life as a single person.
Although the Jewish perspective and communities have some flaws in the way they go about dating and finding true love it does set forth a most logical and genuine approach when it comes to looking for ones soul mate. It highlights that love is about giving, not about getting as Yaakov taught us long ago. It also teaches us that love is not something that falls into ones lap, but rather something that needs to be constantly worked towards and that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. So if you’re out there looking for love, open your eyes and see what you might find.
Brief References:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=347
Rabbi Shlomo Shulman’s Parsha views for Genesis 28:10-32:3
Various lectures from Neve Yerushalayim (seminary in Har Nof, Israel)
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