Love & Judaism

Blind spots keep us from achieving happiness and fulfillment in ourselves and in relationships. They also create negative patterns with the kind of person we attract. While frustrating, these patterns can clue you in to changes you need to make; if you’re the only constant in the equation, you’re what needs to change!

As my learning intensified and expanded, I began to teach the meaning behind the Torah stories. This approach also failed miserably since, as any woman knows, you should never give a man instructions on how to drive around the corner- let alone how to live his entire life...

When we look more deeply into the Ten Commandments, we will find not only spiritual advice for enhancing our marriages, but very practical and essential guidelines as well.

We recognize that we are marrying what we see, but we are also marrying what we don’t see.

I felt completely inadequate. Me? Help the Jewish people? When I didn't even identify as a Jew?

Are you searching for love in the present, or in your past? Are you looking for your soulmate or are you looking for yourself?

With the union of the halves, independently whole at the outset, the groom utters the most romantic, most beautiful of sentiments: With this ring, I separate you, I liberate you from the work of your half, and sanctify our souls into one whole, to journey, to labor, to struggle for the completion of our whole and our world, together...

As in a marriage, when the wedding-party is over, the couple's true intimate life begins. Shemini Atzeret is described as the "time of intimacy with the Divine." At this time, we ask for rain - the symbol of intimacy between heaven and earth.

Does everyone have a soulmate? If yes, why is it so difficult to find one's mate, and why do many never succeed? Is a soulmate an inevitable absolute, or are there exceptions? To what extent a role does human effort and decision making play in the process?

If insisting that you will only date Jews makes you racist, does insisting that you will only date men make you sexist?

To be intimate means to go into a place that is private, that is sacred, that is set aside. It means one person entering into the private, sacred part of another human being's existence...

One day, Sara tried a different approach. "Honey," she said to her husband. "I know you this isn't the way you see it. But please, do it just for me!"

"I want someone who's kind but not the too-kind type that lets himself be walked on, smart but not haughty, assertive but not overbearing, handsome but not vain.." The Rebbe laughed. "It sounds like you want to marry more than one person"

Is the mystique and the romance, the music and the moonlight, just nature's way of hoodwinking men and women to reproduce?

Masculine and feminine modes of communication reflect our respective arenas of spiritual expertise. Unfortunately, the differences can sometimes result in unintended discord

Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other but actually seeks to cultivate it. Love, like the act of creation, is the courageous act of creating space for the presence of the other.

You are engaged. You are definitely glowing, though you're not sure if it is from joy or sweat. Where is the fairytale that you pictured for so many years? What is wrong with you?

There were no greater festivals for Israel than the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur. On these days the daughters of Jerusalem would go out... and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? "Young man, raise your eyes and see which you select for you..."

Only when we turn around do we realize the truth, the inner essence, and then we are “face to face”—which does not only mean that we can finally look at each other, but more so, that we can look in each other . . .

All the old arguments for marriage have fallen away, and we are left with only one true reason to get married. So we can finally get married for the right reason...

No man is permitted to use his wife solely for his own personal, physical gratification. Thus intimacy, in the framework of Jewish marriage, like any of the other Torah commandments, is to be enjoyed, enhanced and sanctified.

Who would have expected that within just two years from their wedding day, their relationship, once so passionate and loving, would have already grown stale?

I get the impression that while it maybe cool to be someone's girlfriend or partner, getting married and becoming a wife is no longer deemed respectable...

The more you make space within yourself for another person, the more likely you are to draw the right one to yourself...

The truth is that we have very little control over our moods and whether other people like us or not or what they choose to do with their lives. People can suddenly reject us or can be so overwhelmed with their own issues that they seem to not care. When we are dependent on others for reassurance, approval or understanding, we remain suspicious and insecure...