This
raises a thorny question: If the selection of a mate is preordained,
why is it necessary to go through the elaborate charade of selecting
a suitable mate? And why do so many marriages fail?
The
Talmud responds to a similar point of predestination by saying,
"Everything is known to God, yet free will is given to man."
God knows what we will do and how things will work out, but it is
still up to us, to arrange our own lives. Only after all of the
arrangements have been made can we say confidently that this is
what God had originally ordained.
So
finding your mate doesn't mean that your marriage will be trouble-free.
Marriage, like everything worthwhile in life, requires dedication,
effort and energy (Like our free will). Even when two people are
meant for each other, it is possible for them to ruin their marriage.
That is why Judaism permits divorce
How do you know if you have found your true mate? Should you hold
off on marrying someone for fear that the person you want to marry
might not be your true mate, and there might be a better match out
there waiting for you? The traditional view is that you cannot know
who your true mate is, but once you get married, the person you
married is by definition your true mate, so you should not let concerns
about finding your true mate discourage you from marrying someone.
It
is a privilege to be getting married because you are tasting God's
Oneness by loving another human being, by bringing children into
the world. Is there a higher revelation than little children?
The Talmud (Sotah 2a) states a very unusual statement:
Rabbi Yehuda taught that 40 days before a male child is born, a
voice from heaven announces whose daughter he is going to marry,
literally a match made in heaven!
Who
hears the announcement? Two friends or relatives of the "him
and her" somehow subsequently hears the announcement and gets
the erg to match them at the appropriate time.
The
Sages ask a Question, why does the heavenly voice have to announce
the soulmates, 40 days before birth? Why not latter i.e. at their
Bat/Bar Mitzvah, what is the hurry?
The Sages answer very nicely; every child has 3
so-called supervisors, mother, father and God. Now typically the
parents know about 60 - 70% of their child's desires. However they
don't really know what the child's inner needs are, nor don't they
know what his/her real deep feelings are. Only God knows, simply
because God made that child. Now the Torah and medical science both
say, a baby prior to the last 40 days before birth, does not have
the status of a baby, it's only the last forty days when it's roughly
completed and obtains the status of a so-called child; hence at
that point the parents obtains the status of parents.
Keeping that in mind, God has to announce the soulmates
40 days prior to birth - when the baby does not have the status
of a child, hence the mother and farther aren’t parents yet.
So God knockoff their soulmates before the parents step-in. Simply
because only God really knows who is really best for you and who
loves you the most!
Marriage Tips
Marriage is to come to a constant recognition that you are actually
one unit.
Standing
squarely in the way of this recognition is a rather large serving
of your ego. Your ego is hell bent of having you buy into the illusion
that your goal in marriage is to have someone else fulfill every
one of you individual needs. (And if for some reason, one of those
needs isn't being met, then of course it means there's something
wrong with your spouse.) Since the ego is by nature the what's-in-for-me
part of your personality, there's only room for someone else if
that person can be used to benefit its own self-centered world.
As
you stretch out of your ego's little world into giving to and sacrificing
for your spouse, you will grow into a level of soul living that
would be impossible otherwise. To do so you need to stop "What
are my needs?" and start asking, "What are our needs?"
You need to stop thinking about "me" and start living
the reality of "we."
There
are many famous stories about couples who lived this reality. Rabbi
A. Levin took his wife who had suffered a fall to the hospital,
and when asked what the problem was replied, "Our leg is hurting
us."
Rabbi Auerbach, a great rabbi who passed away a few years ago, said
at his wife's funeral that, although it is traditional to ask for
forgiveness of the deceased at this time, they had never had a fight
-- since they had always lived with the recognition they were one
-- and he had nothing to ask forgiveness for! The Talmud puts it
very simply: When you hurt your spouse, it's like taking a knife
in one hand and cutting the other.
The
upshot of all this is that much of all that drippy romantic stuff
out there actually has some truth to it. The essence of marriage
is purely spiritual. It's about the bonding of two people into a
greater entity.
The
Hebrew word for man is iysh, for woman, ishah. The Talmud says that
when iysh and ishah come together, the letters overlap except for
two -- y and ah, which together spell one of the names of God. The
greater entity formed though the bonding of husband and wife creates
something so spiritual that God's presence dwells with them. The
royal "we" just got a little more impressive.
Here are a few tips for making this understanding and more real
1. If you are married,
the next time you are fighting with your spouse, ask yourself in
a calmer moment, "At this moment am I seeing my spouse as my
other half or as my enemy?
2.
Remember that ultimately if you cause your spouse pain, that pain
will be shared by both of you.
3.
Start to identify your spouse's needs as having equal if not more
importance than your own. Ask yourself if you are taking these needs
into consideration when thinking about big decisions.
4.
If you are single or dating, ask yourself, am I looking for someone
to fulfill my needs, which makes me feel good? Or am I looking for
someone who I can give to and grow with? Am I prepared to forgo
my immediate needs for the long-term needs of someone else?
Torah
Insights of a Jewish wedding
The
Veil The
TallisThe
RingThe
Ketubah
The Veil
The more real a thing 
is
the less you can see it. Let me explain, after you reach the level
where you see all those things which are not to be seen, then you
open your eyes and everything is clear to you and it feels like you
saw it all the time. To love someone is the deepest thing in the world,
but you can't prove it. God is the most, utmost real thing in the
world and you can't see Him, but after you don't see Him, you see
Him. Then you can see Him everywhere, in every flower, in every cloud,
in every little stone, in every candle. When we say the Shema, God
is One, we close our eyes, because first we don't see God, we're blind,
we just believe, but then we open our eyes and it is so clear. He's
always there.
If
people only know each other by what they see, then there is no connection
between them. If they see about each other all the things that nobody
else sees that means they really love each other. This is the source
of the tradition that the groom is putting a veil over the face of
the bride. He tells her, and tells the world, "I have seen in
my bride things which nobody else has seen."
People
get married in order to bring children into the world. When the groom
covers the bride's face that means he knows that children are coming
from such a high place where nobody can see, nobody can look, only
God in Heaven can know. So, according to our holy tradition that very
split second of covering the bride's face is the moment when they
should both pray that their children should come from the holiest
place in the world.
The Tallis
A good friend is
someone where I can hide. Sometimes we make a lot of mistakes and
we have nowhere to hide. A Tallis, a holy prayer shawl, is a place
where I can hide. According to our holy tradition, a tallis is given
as a gift from the bride to the groom. You know someone loves you
when you are good and sweet, but everyone has a part that is not perfect.
So the bride says to the groom, "You can trust me so much, you
can hide under my soul all the time. I shall help you hide under this
tallis for all eternity." The truth is that in our lives we meet
many people whom we love, but only one person who gives us a tallis
of peace where we can hide.
The Ring
There are two lights
in the world. There is finite light, which has measures, which has
vessels. Then there is the infinite light which has no vessels, has
no beginning and never ending. This is round. Every person in the
world has a little bit of measured and a little bit of unmeasured
light, and yet even the unmeasured is individual. In that part of
the light which has measure, everybody's measure is different. Even
in the light of the infinite, in the unmeasured, the holiness of human
beings is that even though we are all infinite, I am not infinite
in the same way you are infinite. But then there is something infinite
behind all this which brings all the infinite together. The bride
walks in circles around the groom, giving him that part of herself
which is infinite. The holy groom gives her a little ring, giving
her that part of himself which is infinite. Both of them are standing
under the canopy, the great infinite light which covers both of them
together, which is God's light beyond everything that real, holy,
infinite light which has no beginning and never ending is what gets
people together.
The Holy Beis Yaakov says, if someone gives you a gift and you don't
know the worth of it then you didn't receive that gift properly. Imagine
if someone gives me a little ring and I think it is worth only a dollar.
So my thank you is a dollars worth thank you. I didn't receive more.
If I know the ring is worth one hundred
dollars I say thank you differently, because I receive it differently.
Can you imagine if someone gives me something and I know it is eternity!
I'm
sure you gave a lot of gifts in your life, but none of them compare
to the wedding ring. For the first time in your life you are privileged
to give someone a gift and know you are really doing God's will. For
the first time in your life you give someone a gift and you know your
whole life depends on that little gift. For the first time in your
life you give someone a gift and you know this person will remember
it in eternity. For the first time you give someone a gift and you
know your great great grandchildren will know. So you can imagine
how round this ring is. It is really eternal. It has no beginning
and never ending. It will be remembered forever.
When
you receive this ring it is real eternity. Your life depends on it,
your children, the whole world, the coming of the Messiah depends
on it. The Talmud says the Messiah can come only when all the people
who are supposed to be in the world to bring Messiah are here. Everybody
has a little brick for the Great
Highway, and until everybody has put his or her stone in the right
place the Highway isn't yet finished.
The Ketubah
The Midrash says the Torah was written with black fire on white
fire. White fire is when everything is clear. Black fire is when everything
is dark. Imagine I take a piece of white paper and I start writing
letters. Someone who doesn't know about letters says, "Why are
you putting so much darkness on the white paper?" I say, "You
don't understand. I'm writing holy words." Sometimes we are a
little bit angry with God and we think, "Why do you put so much
darkness upon us?" But after the whole thing is over we realize
God was writing holy letters. We bless the groom and bride that they
should be able to read the black fire and the white fire. We bless
them that there should always be white fire around them because a
letter can't live without white fire.
Talmud
says that God