111111111111.1rC6r2e-c 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.