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In iiove With,
DE TROIT JEWI SH NE WS
A staff-wide investigation
of love in its
many splendors.
LLJ
52
cob wept aloud
when he saw
Rachel at the well.
Then he toiled for 14
years to win her
hand in marriage.
Their story is one
of the few in the
Bible, if not the only,
in which love is de-
picted as instanta-
neous, almost anarchic.
Love at first sight is a phenomenon
lumped into the category of romantic love,
the kind that induces a simultaneous sense
of dread and euphoria before it gives way
to the sobering demands of reality. It is the
kind that is" suspect in traditional Jewish
thinking.
"Some of the more traditional commen-
tators have a problem with lust," says Rab-
bi Aaron Bergman of Beth Abraham Hillel
Moses. "They want to keep it on a pure kind
of level. The fact that Jacob was willing to
work, in essence, for 14 years for Rachel,
is an extremely romantic idea."
The rabbinic authorities, he continued,
"wanted to contain sexuality in certain
measures, within marriage. Sexuality is
considered the most powerful force and is
considered to be God's most powerful gift.
From a Jewish perspective, you're sup-
posed to be married. In Genesis, the first
human beings created were male and fe-
male. Marriage was the ultimate unit."
Romantic love, echoes Rabbi Maurice
Lamm in The Jewish Way in Love and
Marriage, is that which is "primarily a pre-
marital or extramarital association." Love
may be sparked by sexual attraction but
must be nurtured by mutual respect based
on shared values.
"Judaism is suspicious of powerful dri-
ves that cannot be disciplined, regarding
`blind' decisions as nonethical. It considers
ecstasy temporary and undependable in
terms of long commitment, unless it can
be transformed into everyday acts of love,"
Rabbi Lamm writes.
Judaism, however, does not frown on sex
for its own sake.
"Even in talmudic times, there's an idea
that a woman is supposed to have pleasure.
There's a sense that partners should be at-
tracted to each other, that there had to be
something genuine between them, not just
talmudic study," Rabbi Bergman explains.
The notion of romantic love, however,
did not gain real potence in the Jewish
imagination until Jews began to emigrate
to the United States en masse, says Uni-
versity of Minnesota Professor Riv-Ellen
Prell, a teacher in the Program in Ameri-
can Studies department.
The seed had been planted in Haskalah,
the Enlightenment movement of the late
18th century, however. Jewish intellec-
tuals were railing against arranged mar-
riages of very young men, arguing that they
stunted emotional and sexual growth. The
immigrants who landed on American
shores from 1880 to 1924 encountered an
individualistic place rife with "liberated"
attitudes that stoked the fires already be-
gun in Europe.
"The stage was set for the idea
that love is what it means to be
modern, that people are entitled
to love the way they're entitled to
education. Arranged marriages
come from the notion that it is not
individuals who marry but fami-
lies who create a relationship with
one another through the conduit
of two people who marry," Profes-
sor Prell says.
Freedom from societal strictures
had a particularly profound effect
on women immigrants who began
to see marriage as a contract based on love,
not economic survival, she says.
"The fate awaiting most women in Eu-
rope at the turn of the century was
arranged marriage. The chance to make
your own marriage, the ideology of romance
and the possibility of economic improve-
ment was tremendous."
In the early 1920s, Jewish immigrants
also encountered a nation struggling with
its notions of gender relations as a nascent
youth culture grew through the mass pro-
duction of automobiles and the movies.
"Jewish immigrants were thrown into
that world, a very exciting world. They
o v e
they come from good stock and are psy-
chologically stable as well as physically at-
tractive.
The point is, it brings objectivity to an
otherwise purely subjective experience —
blind dating.
"Of course, the two of them have to be
willing, and have a desire, to have a rela-
tionship with each other. A lot of prelimi-
nary work is done in advance," says Rabbi
Steven Weil of Young Israel of Oak Park.
Even if couples meet through a friend,
teacher or co-worker, they are still expect-
ed to refrain from sexual contact until mar-
riage.
The rationale behind the prohibition is
not that sexual impulses are evil, but that
sexual temptation draws attention away
from the qualities that are much
more essential to building a solid
Rabbi Steven Weil:
Rabbi Aaron Bergman:
relationship, Rabbi Weil explains.
"Sexual, intellectual
"A sense that partners should be
and emotional aspects
"In order that the focus of the
attracted to
_.of love."
each other."
courtship is intellectual, emotion-
al and psychological, rather than
physical, in order to facilitate that,
there's a law that prevents the
couple from being in seclusion
with each other," he says.
Yichud, or "alone," is off-limits
to courting couples but is empha-
sized as a central principle in mar-
riage. The idea refers to the ritual
immediately after the wedding
ceremony in which the newlyweds
are alone together for the first
time, but it also carries symbolic
meaning: The couple becomes one,
as spouses, parents and lovers. Yachad,
which means "together," is related to the
word Yichud, implying a fusion of two in-
dividuals.
"Part of becoming one is sexual and in-
tellectual and emotional, but to de-em-
phasize either of those three categories is
JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER
going to hamper the ability to become one,"
Rabbi Well says.
Rabbi Lamm writes, "Yichud is symbolic
thrive in a vacuum; to paraphrase Hillary
Rodham Clinton, it takes a village to en- of that complex of ideas and sentiments
that ties love to home, to the efforts of rais-
sure lasting love.
The shadchan, or marriage broker, the- ing a family and to the daily work required
to maintain the ideal of shalom bayit, peace
oretically knows the villagers and is able
to "screen" prospective partners to ensure in family living." ❑
were inventing themselves as Americans
through issues of romance and love," Pro-
fessor Prell says.
Despite the political and sexual experi-
mentation that appealed to immigrants or
their sons and daughters, family is still cen-
tral to the Jewish marriage model.
Jacob knew this intrinsically, Rabbi
Lamm believes, noting that Jacob could
not have acted on his desire for Rachel if
she hadn't come from a community that
shared his religion and ethics. In fact, she
was a cousin, assuring him that she was
"heir to the value system of his grandfa-
ther, Abraham, and could understand the
uniqueness, mission and obligations of the
Jew."
Romantic love, in other words, cannot
Judaism views
romance as a
province of marriage.