Moishe Houws Dessert & Discussion: How Do We Date? 4.16.18

Bereishit Rabbah 68:4

Genesis Rabba (Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית רַבָּה‬, B'reshith Rabba) is a religious text from Judaism's classical period, probably written between 300 and 500 CE with some later additions. It is a midrash comprising a collection of ancient rabbinical homiletical interpretations of the Book of Genesis

(4) [The following dialogue, one of many, is reported in the name of R. Yosi ben Halafta, one of the Mishnah’s most prominent sages, and an unnamed Roman woman of rank.] Rabbi Yehudah bar Simon began: "God returns the solitary ones homeward" (Psalms 58:7).

A Roman Matron asked Rabbi Yosi ben Halafta, "In how many days did God create the world?"

He said, "In six, as it is said, 'Since six days God made...' (Exodus 20:11)

"And since then," she asked, "what has God been doing?"

"God sits [on the Heavenly Throne] and makes matches: the daughter of this one to that one, the wife [i.e. widow] of this one to that one, the money of this one to that one," responded R. Yosi.

"And for merely this you believe in Him!" she said. "Even I can do that. I have many slaves, both male and female. In no time at all, I can match them for marriage."

R. Yosi, "Though this may be an easy thing for you to do, for God it is as difficult as splitting the Sea of Reeds." Whereupon, Rabbi Yosi took his leave.

What did she do? The Matron lined up a thousand male and a thousand female slaves and paired them off before nightfall.

The morning after, her estate resembled a battlefield. One slave had his head bashed in, another had lost an eye, while a third hobbled because of a broken leg. She said to them: "What do we have here?" and they each said to her: "I don't want this one" [with whom you matched me."

Immediately, she summoned R. Yosi and she brought him to her and said: "Your God is not like our god, and your Torah is true, pleasing and praiseworthy. You spoke wisely." ...

Exploring Lifespan Development, Laura E. Berk, page 37

"In the male, the cells from which the sperm arise are produced continuously throughout life, so a healthy man can father a child at any age after sexual maturity. The female is born with a bank of ova already present in her ovaries, though new ova may arise from ovarian stem cells later on (Virant-Klun, 2015). About 350 to 450 female sex cells will mature during a woman's childbearing years (Moore, Persaud, & Torchia, 2016b).)

Excerpts from Attached.

The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find -- And Keep -- Love, by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

p. 25-29; p. 268-272

THE CODEPENDENCY MYTH

... Today's experts offer advice that goes something like this: Your happiness is something that should come from within and should not be dependent on your lover or mate. Your well-being is not their responsibility, and theirs is not yours. Each person needs to look after himself or herself. In addition, you should learn not to allow your inner peace to be disturbed by the person you are closest to. If your partner acts in a way that undermines your sense of security, you should be able to distance yourself from the situation emotionally, "keep the focus on yourself," and stay on an even keel. If you can't do that, there must be something wrong with you. You might be too enmeshed with the other person, or "codependent," and you must learn to set better "boundaries."

The basic premise underlying this point of view is that the ideal relationship is one between two self-sufficient people who unite in a mature, respectful way while maintaining clear boundaries. If you develop a strong dependency on your partner, you are deficient in some way and are advised to work on yourself to become more "differentiated" and develop a "greater sense of self." The worst possible scenario is that you will end up needing your partner, which is equated with "addiction" to him or her, and addiction, we all know, is a dangerous prospect.

While the teachings of the codependency movement remain immensely helpful in dealing with family members who suffer from substance abuse (as was the initial intention), they can be misleading and even damaging when applied indiscriminately to all relationships...

....

THE "DEPENDENCY PARADOX"

... Once we choose a partner, there is no question about whether dependency exists or not. It always does. An elegant coexistence that does not include uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability and fear of loss sounds good but is not our biology. What proved through evolution to have a strong survival advantage is a human couple becoming one physiological unit, which means that if she's reacting, then I'm reacting, or if he's upset, that also makes me unsettled. He or she is a part of me, and I will do anything to save him or her; having such a vested interest in the well-being of another person translates into a very important survival advantage for both parties.

Despite variations in the way people with different attachment styles learn to deal with these powerful forces -- the secure and anxious types embrace them and the avoidants tend to suppress them -- all three attachment styles are programmed to connect with a special someone...

Does this mean that in order to be happy in a relationship we need to be joined with our partner at the hip or give up other aspects of our life such as our careers or friends? Paradoxically, the opposite is true! It turns out that the ability to step into the world on our own often stems from the knowledge that there is someone beside us whom we can count on -- this is the "dependency paradox." ... How can we act more independent by being thoroughly dependent on someone else? If we had to describe the basic premise of adult attachment in one sentence, it would be: If you want to take the road to independence and happiness, find the right person to depend on and travel down it with that person. ...

....

EPILOGUE

....

Even the two of us, having thoroughly studied the science behind adult attachment styles, occasionally find ourselves falling back into familiar patterns of thinking when we hear a certain love story or watch a romantic movie that pushes all our old buttons.

...

We allowed some deeply ingrained misconceptions to influence our thinking. The first misconception is that everyone has the same capacity for intimacy. We've been raised to believe that every person can fall deeply in love... and that when this happens, he or she will be transformed into a different person... Regardless of what they were like before, when people find "the one," they supposedly becoming adoring, faithful, supportive partners -- free of qualms about the relationship. It's tempting to forget that, in fact, people have very different capacities for intimacy. And when one person's need for closeness is met with another person's need for independence and distance, a lot of unhappiness ensues. By being cognizant of this fact, both of you can navigate your way better in the dating world to find someone with intimacy needs similar to your own (if you are unattached) or reach an entirely new understanding about your differing needs in an existing relationship -- a first and necessary step toward steering it in a more secure direction.

The second common misconception... is that marriage is the be-all and end-all. Romantic stories tend to end there, and we are all tempted to believe that when someone gets married, it's unequivocal proof of the power of love to transform; that the decision to marry means they're now ready for true closeness and emotional partnership. We don't like to admit that people might enter marriage without having these goals in mind, let alone the ability to achieve them. We want to believe... that once married, anyone can change and treat his/her spouse like royalty (especially if two people are deeply in love with each other).

In this book, however, we've shown how mismatched attachment styles can lead to a great deal of unhappiness in marriage, even for people who love each other greatly. If you are in such a relationship, don't feel guilty for feeling incomplete or unsatisfied. After all, your most basic needs often go unmet, and love alone isn't enough to make the relationship work....

The third hard-to-shed misconception... is that we alone are responsible for our emotional needs; they are not our partner's responsibility.... Instead of recognizing that someone who blatantly disregards our emotions is not going to be a good partner, we accept this attitude. Again, we must constantly remind ourselves: In a true partnership, both partners view it as their responsibility to ensure the other's emotional well-being.

...

We believe that every person deserves to experience the benefits of a secure bond. When our partner acts as our secure base and emotional anchor, we derive strength and encouragement to go out into the wold and make the most of ourselves. He or she is there to help us become the best person we can be, as we are for them.

Excerpts from I’M AN ‘OLDER’ SINGLE ORTHODOX WOMAN. I AM NOT YOUR CRISIS. By Alisa Ungar-Sargon

https://www.heyalma.com/im-older-single-orthodox-woman-not-crisis/

...

Equality in singlehood isn’t an issue with which I expected to take umbrage. Growing up I was more involved with my Barbies’ weddings than in any imaginings of my own. I did, however, nebulously expect to be married by the age of 21. I expected to have a home and a family in an Orthodox Jewish community — in New York, Chicago, or even Israel, where I spent some time growing up. I expected to host big Shabbat dinners with many guests, having many conversations, with many people who wouldn’t shut up. I expected to have to make decisions regarding which educational institutions to bestow my perfect children upon.

Now, though, I’m closing in on 30 and whatever formless anticipations I had for my life no longer apply. Or rather, they shouldn’t.

Despite having two degrees, respectable employment, bills in my own name, and a decent CV of published articles, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve failed. At times my life feels like it’s boiling down to how deliberate I can make my successes if I never get married. Admittedly, this could be because of certain relatives I choose to see often, whose idea of a blessing is to say, tearfully, repeatedly, “I hope to dance at your wedding.” Or because society at large — secular and religious alike — values finding “The One” in everything we do. My inability to ensnare a man is a failure in both circles. I’m drawn to the secular because there’s a space there for people like me, people whose lives are no less valuable than those who are married. The ultra-Orthodox sphere does not offer that same assurance.

...

Now seven years out of YU, my Facebook feed is filled with babies. So many babies. All of the babies. Many of my former female classmates are now mothers. They’re raising children, creating families with their significant others — many of whom went to YU as well. They’re continuing the legacy and traditions of Judaism, allowing the religion to pass on through their generation. They are replenishing the population with their children. They are part of communities that value them as parents now.

I became a writer because in the back of my mind it was a career that could be done from home, while I watch my children. Typing a story while I stir a pot, or whatever it is that multitasking domestic goddesses do. Ultra-Orthodox teachers encouraged me and my high school classmates to do so. If you must work, make sure it’s in a field that could prioritize childrearing. I heard one discourage the brightest student in her year from becoming a doctor because “that’s not a career for a Jewish mother.” Hope she wasn’t meant to cure cancer.

So what becomes of unmarried women whose focus on their careers was meant to be a smoke-and-mirrors illusion because outwardly focusing on boys was considered cheap? What happens when the career you thought would be secondary to raising a family, secondary to being accepted fully into your community, becomes the focus of your life?

Amidst the disappointment and the implication that I’ve failed because I haven’t found a man to take me in and care for me, I like focusing on what other single women decided to do with their time. I take pleasure in the accomplishments of my fellow singles — their creativity, their education, their research. I seek out their company and enjoy the atmosphere we create together, how we support one another. In a community that places more value on a unit than on the individual, and more value on the male component of that unit than on the female counterpart, my peers remind me that I can look elsewhere for encouragement.

No one’s primary definition should be their relationship to other people. Being a wife, being a mother, inherently means more about what you offer others than what you offer yourself. I hope to fulfill both roles someday. At the same time, I hate seeing women silence their potential for developing their own self in service of family.

Should I find myself reaching such milestones in due time, should I reach a point where I no longer have to decide whether I want to give a genuine thank you or burst out laughing when I hear the phrase, “Please God by you” yet again, I hope to remember what I learned from being single this long. My value comes from my actions, not my relationships. And my voice deserves to be heard.

Excerpts from Don’t Blame The Heartbroken WASP For Using Anti-Semitic Tropes — Blame Her Editor, Danielle Tcholakian, April 2, 2018

https://forward.com/opinion/398015/dont-blame-the-heartbroken-wasp-for-using-anti-semitic-tropes-blame-her/

The Washington Post published a personal essay by a woman who had two relationships with Jewish men fail and now no longer wants to date Jewish men, and a lot of people are very mad. The essay is rife with seemingly accidental anti-semitism, including a cocktail the writer is “determined” to create, named “A Jewish Man’s Rebellion,” which will be garnished with bacon. Oy vey, bubbeleh.

...

But I’m less mad about this woman’s apparently heartbreak-induced anti-Semitism than I am that the essay was published by an editor who I can only assume was looking for hate clicks. The writer is a freelancer; I am, too. The life of a freelancer is basically endlessly pitching ideas in the hopes that one will be accepted and you will be a couple hundred dollars closer to making your rent that month.... We rely on editors to tell us, hopefully gently, “I don’t think this quite hit the mark.” Especially when we write personal essays, we really need editors who will prevent us from embarrassing ourselves. Every time I have pitched anything personal, it has been sent with a vaguely panicked message along the lines of, “Can you read with a careful eye as to whether I am being a bigot or a monster or an idiot? Thank you!!!”

This woman had two failed relationships with Jewish men who happened to end up with Jewish women after dating her. For a while, every guy I dated married the woman he dated after me and I declared to all my friends, every shopkeeper I encountered, and pretty much any human who made the error of sitting near me that I was cursed. “All my exes marry the woman they date after me!!!” This highly unscientific conclusion was based on approximately three men. I am still grateful that I was not writing personal essays at this stage in my life.

Heartbreak, especially when paired with feeling jilted, makes a person feel crazy, in my experience. It is much less upsetting to tell oneself, “These relationships did not work out because of something that has absolutely zero to do with my personality or behavior.” Truthfully, a lot of relationships don’t work out because of things that don’t really have to do with your behavior or personality. Compatibility is a weird sort of witchcraft, some sort of strange ephemeral thing that somehow makes you less annoyed by one person’s annoying traits than you are by most other humans’.

Who among us hasn’t had a relationship end and made some grand declarations, come to some very simplistic conclusions about HOW I WILL DATE GOING FORWARD based on an experience with one complex individual? Here are some of mine:

I will never date a youngest sibling
I will never date a man who is competitive about sports and games
I will never date a man who sleeps on a mattress on the floor
I will never date a man who cares more about his appearances or clothes than mine
I will never date a man who makes me feel bad about myself

I have broken all of these vows, multiple times over. They were almost all completely stupid, except for the last one, which I think might be impossible to keep because generally by the time someone is making you feel bad about yourself, you really, really love them and love is like heartbreak in that it makes us kind of blind and dumb, so you can’t really tell what’s happening until you look back in the rearview mirror a year or so later and think, “Wait, why was it so hard for that person to be kind to me when I was feeling low?” (Also, lots of men are competitive about sports and games, but I still maintain that you should seek the nearest exit if your boyfriend throws a literal child’s tantrum, full-on body on the ground-style, if he loses a game of kickball. Just some friendly advice from me, a woman who has been mistakenly over-indulgent of such behavior, to you.)

My point is, I don’t actually think the writer of the Washington Post essay is anti-Semitic. I think she is hurt and casting about for an explanation that will include some sort of lesson that will prevent her from ever being hurt again, and I understand that response to having an aching heart. Landing on the lesson “Jewish boys date non-Jewish girls as a rebellion and then marry Jewish girls” might be a comfort, but it’s undermined by a lot of the data that is awkwardly shoehorned into her essay. Jews are more likely to intermarry, according to a book; 44 percent of American Jews had a non-Jewish spouse as of 2013, according to the Pew Research Center. All this points to that age-old adage: He just wasn’t that into you.

...

Excerpts from The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm, pages 9-12

Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one 'falls into' if one is lucky? This little book is based on the former premise, while undoubtedly the majority of people today believe in the latter.

...

Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable....

A second premise behind the attitude that there is nothing to be learned about love is the assumption that that the problem of love is the problem of an object, not the problem of a faculty. People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love -- or to be loved by -- is difficult.

...

See end of source sheet for the introduction from The Art of Loving.

Excerpt from Recap of Interview, ON RELATIONSHIPS – BRENÉ BROWN AND ALAIN DE BOTTON

http://taylortheis.com/relationships-brene-brown-alain-de-botton/

Alan: "[Growing up in his 20's] I thought personal happiness came from finding one very special person, from whom there would be an ecstatic sense of communion. She and I would meet, it would be wonderful, all sense of loneliness, loss, and drift would be healed, it would be a sort of secularized version of meeting with a deity. Love is this sort of magical communion where I see into their soul, they see into mine. There are no secrets and there is no more loneliness. I’ve realized that there is a kind of beautiful intolerance. So both beautiful, but really kind of negative. It’s the breeding ground of a certain kind of impatience, and that’s kind of dangerous, and that helped me a lot in my personal relationships. I think it made me a slightly more patient, more humble person to be around."

Brene: "Love will never be certain, but after collecting thousands of stories, I’m willing to call this a fact: A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all men, women, and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong."

Brene: "When these needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We grow numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick. There are certainly other causes of illness, numbness, and hurt, but the absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering."

Brene: "When I’m tired or stressed, I can be mean and grumpy – especially toward Steve. If I truly love Steve, and oh man, I do, then how I behave everyday is as important, if not more important, than saying 'I love you' everyday. When we don’t practice love with the people we claim to love, it takes a lot out of us. Incongruent living is exhausting."

Alan: "[Discussing Marcel Proust's view on love] All of us cannot be understood by another human being perfectly. There is an area of loneliness inside everybody, and to blame someone for not understanding you fully is deeply unfair. Because first of all, we don’t understand ourselves, and even if we do understand ourselves we have such a hard time communicating ourselves to other people. Therefore to be furious and enraged and bitter, that people don’t get all of who are, is a really kind of cruel piece of immaturity."

Recap from Taylor Theis: "Alain’s view of a kind of balance in a relationship, between knowing as much as you can about a person, and accepting that the other person has complexities that you can only support and sympathize with, is incredible. Brené follows that up by affirming that you need to exercise your love and support through actions, rather than words or halfhearted gestures. She also advocates that everyone is wired to love and be loved - it’s in our nature."

Brené Brown: 3 Ways To Connect With Your Partner Today

How to nurture and grow your connection to the one you’re with.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/improve-your-relationship-brene-brown_n_4899335.html

I was once asked whether you can love your partner and still cheat on him or her. Reflecting on my research, I concluded that though you may feel love, you’re not practicing love when you betray someone — and that is what’s important. Professing love is easy. Practicing love takes courage.

I believe that love is not something we give. It’s something we cultivate, by allowing our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be seen, and honoring the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, and affection. The visuals that go along with love — rainbows, hearts, cherubs — don’t reflect what I’m describing. Love requires tenacity and grit. It’s work. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. So when people say, “Love shouldn’t be this hard,” I think, “Why not?” We get so much from our most important relationships — it makes sense that we have to invest a lot of time, effort, and some serious self-reflection into them.

The Dare

Craft your own definition.

Talk with your partner about what love means to you both. That way, you’ll be more accountable for helping to cultivate it in your home.

Ask for what you need.

Every day I tell my husband, Steve, that I love him. But sometimes, when I’m tired or anxious, I can get blamey and critical. It’s easier to lash out at the people we love than to ask for support and TLC. But now when I’m stressed, I’m trying to remember to say, “I need some extra sleep. Can you tuck in the kids tonight?”

Say you’re sorry.

Shame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection poison the groundwater from which love grows. So when we’ve acted in ways that don’t reflect the love we feel, we need to own it, apologize, and listen to how our actions affected others. Making amends is an important way to practice love.

The New York Times, The 36 Questions That Lead to Love

Modern Love

By DANIEL JONES JAN. 9, 2015

UPDATED: You can now hear the essay “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” read by the actress Gillian Jacobs in Modern Love: The Podcast. Look for the “play” button below or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music. To try the 36 questions described below, download our free app for your phone, tablet or other device.

In Mandy Len Catron’s Modern Love essay, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This,” she refers to a study by the psychologist Arthur Aron (and others) that explores whether intimacy between two strangers can be accelerated by having them ask each other a specific series of personal questions. The 36 questions in the study are broken up into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one.

The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. To quote the study’s authors, “One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.” Allowing oneself to be vulnerable with another person can be exceedingly difficult, so this exercise forces the issue.

The final task Ms. Catron and her friend try — staring into each other’s eyes for four minutes — is less well documented, with the suggested duration ranging from two minutes to four. But Ms. Catron was unequivocal in her recommendation. “Two minutes is just enough to be terrified,” she told me. “Four really goes somewhere.”

Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Set II

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set III

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

Jewish Women's Prayer Book Sources:

See end of source sheet for column from The Washington Post.

Introduction from The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm: