Before there were men and women there was a man and a woman, and they got
married. And even before that there was the Kabbalah of marriage -- the
cosmic bonding of the divine masculine and feminine energies emerging from the Infinite Light to generate existence, a world, and life.
There are two central marriage narratives in the Torah. In the first human
marriage, Adam and Chavah (Eve) are initially created as "a single,
two-faced body." The single being is split in two -- a man and a woman --
creating the essence of sexual tension: a primal memory of original oneness,
countered by the strangeness of otherness and difference. The shadchan is
G-d: He personally beautifies, perfumes and bejewels the bride and presents her
to the groom. Like every groom, he's apprehensive; he wants to keep his options
open. Married, he sees the light. "This is it!" he proclaims. "A bone of my bone,
flesh of my flesh... Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and cleave
to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."
To become one. If man and woman would have simply remained the
"single being" that they initially were, there would have been no
alienation, no mystery, no reunion, no marriage. If they would have been initially
created as two distinct beings, the gap of difference would have been
insurmountable -- there would be no way for them to become truly one. It is
their intrinsic oneness, coupled with their acquired distinctiveness and
difference, that is the secret of marriage, of creation, of life.
The second narrative is the story of the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. Here
the focus is on the search: the particular qualities to be sought in a spouse;
the many pathways along which Divine Providence leads two destined souls, born
in different cities and cultures, along the story line of their reunion; the "love at first sight" that blooms at an initial meeting, and its grounding and deepening after marriage; the insight (3,600 years before Freud) that in his wife a man finds solace over the loss of his mother.
It is primarily from these two narratives that our grandfathers and
grandmothers -- more than a hundred generations of them -- have drawn the
wisdom, enchantment and devotion they invested in the Jewish marriage. The
following 30 essays and stories are but a scratch of its surface.
Insights & Essays:
Tzimtzum
based on the writings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Man & Woman
by Tzvi Freeman
Whom to Marry
by Yanki Tauber
Why Do We Fall in Love?
by Simon Jacobson
The Monthly Marriage
by Manis Freidman
Love at Second Sight
by Yossi Goldman
The Mikvah
by Rivkah Slonim
The Grammar of Love
by Yizchak Ginsburgh
Love at First Sight: Five Biblical Examples
by Yizchak Ginsburgh
Moses vs. Freud
by Yisroel Susskind
The Loving Friends
by Yaakov Brawer
A Bouquet of Roses
by Chana Weisberg
Bachelors in Heaven
by Yanki Tauber
The Jealous Lover
by Yanki Tauber
I Love You More Than You Love Me
by Yanki Tauber
Love, Marriage & Hakafot
by Yanki Tauber
Souls in the Rain
by Yossi Jacobson
Are You Happily Ever After?
by Moshe Wisnefski
What If You Mess Up?
by Manis Freidman
A Friend's Divorce
by Jay Litvin
Stories:
Waiting
by Jay Litvin
Uncle Irv
by Jay Litvin
Mikvah Time
by Roni Leob Richter
A Joke Made in Heaven
by Yrachmiel Tilles
A Pittsburgh Miracle
by Miriam Sokal
A Rebbe Goes Shopping
by Yrachmiel Tilles
A Jew in Brooklyn
by Aaron Dov Halprin
A Dialogue on Intermarriage
Rabbi "Gershon Abrahamson and "Juan"
The Beautiful Bride
from the Chassidic Masters
The Man who Mistook his Wife's Foot for his Own
From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe:
Partner
Ring, Round and Roof
The Mathematics of Marriage
The Dancing Maidens of Jerusalem
Yes and No
The Intimate Estrangement
Readings:
Adam and Eve
Genesis 1:27; 2:7-25
Isaac and Rebecca
Genesis 24:1-67
From the Writings of our Sages
selected excerpts from the Talmud and Midrash
Arranged Marriages
by Shlomo Yaffe
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