The Rabbinic Scene

One plus one equals three.

RABBI KASRIEL SHEMTOV SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

A

JARS BRINGS IN IA

rabbi was once asked to
join a forum to discuss
marriage for a teen-age
audience. The forum in-
cluded a priest, an educator and
the rabbi. Each stood up and de-
livered a passionate speech on
the significance of marriage, its
sanctity and its beauty.
The rabbi thought to himself,
`This is going in one ear and out
the other. These kids aren't di-
gesting any of this."
He decided on a different ap-
proach. "Listen guys, we're talk-
ing about marriage: when you
should do it and how you should
do it. But let me ask you a ques-
tion: Why get married at all?
Who needs the whole ceremony?
Just find someone you like and
move in with him/her!"
He caught their attention —
to hear such words from a beard-
ed rabbi.
"C'mon! What's
wrong with that?"
the rabbi asked
with feigned seri-
ousness.
"Well you just
can't do that; you
need, uh, 'commit-
ment,' " the brave
ones ventured.
"You need a whole ceremony
for that? Just say you're corn-
mitted."
"That's not enough. You need
something real, a contract," they
countered with increased emo-
tion.
The rabbi was amused, watch-
ing these teen-agers whole-
heartedly trying to show him the
light. Eventually they gave up.
"All right rabbi, tell us."
"Why? Because God — our cre-
ator — gave basic mandates to
humanity, rules to live by. Don't
steal. Don't murder. One of those
fundamental commands is that
man and woman should seek
each other and get married."
"Do you get it? Marriage is
God's idea, not ours. It's a God-
ly institution. It's not for anyone
else to think of other ways to
`make a commitment,' to 'make
a contract' or to live together."
The key to a successful mar-
riage is learning to actually sense
that sanctity, that Godly dimen-
sion. It takes more than love to
create an eternal bond.
When we introduce the holy
into our lives, we connect with
a transcendent force that makes
the joint entity of a marriage
partnership far greater than the
sum of the two partners. In mar-

riage at this level, one and one
truly equals three.
We need to dedicate our lives
to eternal values and connect to
a presence higher than ourselves.
To do this we must acknowledge
God, who created us as two
halves of one soul. This instills
within us a commitment to each
other, to our families and to our
other relationships.
While writing this column, I
often thought of my grandmoth-
er back in Russia. As a girl living
under the Stalinist government,
her fiance was exiled to Siberia
for defying communist decrees
forbidding Jewish education for
children.
His exile occurred just prior to
their marriage, so she went
along. They were married in this
cold, miserable place that was de-
void of love or human compas-
sion.
The night before
the marriage the only
way she could fulfill
the laws of mikvah
was by breaking the
frozen surface of a
lake and immersing
in the icy water be-
neath. She was ab-
solutely determined
to keep this mitzvah that her
mother, her grandmother and all
her ancestors had observed for
thousands of years.
Whenever she retold the sto-
ry, she would always end by say-
ing, "It was so cold, you cannot
imagine it."
When I first heard this story I
was awed. "Wow! What incredi-
ble commitment, strength of
character and devotion."
But what does this tell us here
in America today?
After some thought it occurred
to me. My grandmother traveled
thousands of miles to be with her
fiance and at the most critical mo-
ment of preparation for marriage,
she realized — with awe and re-
spect — the Godly component in
their union.
For such an awesome endeav-
or to succeed, you must have the
full participation of the "Third
Partner — God," without which
there is no marriage. Only on
such a foundation can we build a
healthy relationship of love, re-
spect, trust and joy.
And it will be a lasting rela-
tionship. Even through difficult
periods in life when the normal
interests and pleasures that
unite man and wife may wane,
the marital bond and the hus-
band-wife relationship is perme-
ated by a joint commitment to
God. It is a constant, undimin-
ished, firm foundation.

It takes more
than love to
create an
eternal bond.

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Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov is vice
president of the Michigan
Jewish Institute.