Thoughts on Love and Marriage

Somewhat nervous. Want to try and share some observations based on 20 years of married life and connect that to some of the themes of this new book of the Torah – the book of B’Midbar – we began to read today, this book titled ‘In the Desert.’

Nervous because I don’t really like to suggest expertise at the really important stuff in life – being a parent or a partner. Too early to tell and we are all blind to our own failings. And also know how fortunate love is, sliding doors abound. I know some people do all the good stuff right and never feel they find love, and some people do all the good stuff wrong and … well I might be one of them.

But twenty years seems at least a relevant moment to reflect on something that is so at the heart of what I try to be in my life, and at a time when I feel it’s worth standing up for marriage and married love. Because not so many people seem to spend time doing that these days.

One of the great transformations of my lifetime has been what I call a loss of stickiness in society. When I was 13, my parents opened a bank account for me to pay the cheques I received for my BM into the Midland Bank. I got a free bag and a Griffin Saver pocket dictionary on the basis that the Midland Bank – and all the three other banks around at the time – all felt that if you got ‘em at the age 13 you would have their banking attention for ever.

And that’s gone, the Midland Bank, but also the idea that relationships last forever, any kind of relationship. And I can feel an increase in a belief that, on the basis that no relationship lasts forever, it might be best to hold tight on the love we feel we could give, it might not get met, or it might not get met forever and, in this less and less sticky world, it might be better never to have loved at all than to have loved and lost. It’s not that I feel that that explains people who haven’t found great love in their life, it’s not that simple, I know. But it’s there and it’s connected to another piece of this, that I see at this point, now some 250 weddings into my rabbinate.

I see the marriages that have come to an end. ½ of all marriages come to an end through divorce. And again, it’s not that simple. I know that divorce can sometimes be the best thing to do in a bad situation, but I feel, when I sit with couples coming up their marriage and looking so hopeful and full of delight, there’s a sadness in divorce – the line in the Talmud is that God’s tears fall on the ark in the desert sanctuary. And sometimes I feel this lack of stickiness in society is a piece of the problem. I hear from some couples as they, in that disentangle their lives together, “We don’t love each other anymore, we’ve grown apart.” And, again, I know that sometimes divorce is exactly what these couples should do, but we don’t think in terms of that great line in Christian liturgy – “till death do us part,” about almost anything any more. Not even marriage.

And that’s a shame, I think, because perhaps the single most important I’ve realised about love and marriage is that, commitment is at the heart of it.

That’s part of the dynamic of the Jewish marriage ceremony – that we start with the commitment piece – the blessings of Kiddushin that seal off other pathways in our life, before we get to the blessings of Nesuin, future good things. The future good things can only come off the back of commitment.

It’s part of the central dynamic of the Children of Israel’s relationship with God. The relationship is often understood by the Rabbis in marital terms – betrothal, or Kiddushin, is mapped to the moment where God makes us Holy, Kedoshim Tiheyhu Ki Kadosh Ani – you shall be holy, apart from other possible relationships with other possible gods in order to be in a committed relationship with Adonai Eloheinu, our God, Adonai Echad – our one God. Monotheism and monogamy are mapped time and time again in the Torah.

“I will betroth you to Me for ever, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and in compassion. And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord”

And then there is the Torah – understood, again and again as a kind of Ketubah in this marriage. The great Safed mystic and poet, Yisrael Naraja wrote a version of the Ketubah traditionally read in Sefardi Synagogues directly before the Torah reading,  of Shavuot – coming this week, always the week after we begin to read this book of BeMidbar.

And the relationship we have with God is one of commitment, we accept upon ourselves a covenantal relationship which binds before we worry about whether we still fancy one another. I think it’s only a select marriage that can survive a test of do I love you enough today to get through another ten years of being faithfully committed to you? There are too many distractions, we are too restless, to afraid of missing out on greener grass on the other side of the fence.

And in so doing, we miss what happens when there is true commitment and a deep acceptance that I’m in, I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll be here for you and I want you to know that and feel that at every turn. I think this sense of trust is necessary for us to grow re-become ourselves as life moves from the infatuation of first encounters through a journey that has lead, for Josephine and I, from dating to engagement to marriage and kids and changing jobs and continents and all of that. The commitment is the rock on which the change and the sense of freedom is built.

But even that isn’t quite right. It’s not as if marriage is worth it because in marriage we get certain things out of it. Marriage isn’t supposed to be a transactional relationship – in Buberian terms, an I-It relationship, a what am I going to get out of this relationship. It’s supposed to be a wholehearted willingness to go on a journey of care and compassion together, come whatever may come. Marriage is an opportunity to love without limit so that we can be people who love without limit. It’s a permission – that, again, is language from the wedding ceremony – VeHitir Lanu et HaNesuot, we say a blessing for a God who permits us into this relationship.

Here’s one tip I can offer, if you want to be in a place where the commitments of youth still drive and light up the relationships of our today in such a way that we actually pull of wanting to be in these relationships tomorrow not just because we think we probably ought to stick together for some reason or another – but because we actually love being inside this place of commitment and possible growth.

It's drawn from one of the most remarkable Biblical verses I know, one that makes it into the Rosh Hashanah liturgy.

The issue is this, this new book – Bemidbar, the one we started today, it’s a catalogue of disaster. There are rebellions about eating meet, failures of faith around spies and rebellions and temper losses and in that way, it’s a book that chronicles how hard it is to be in this committed relationship, called to love a God who cannot be seen of touched. And God too gets tetchy and irascible in this book, wiping out thousands, angry and cross with all the failings of the Children of Israel God witnesses.

But yet there is this verse in Jeremiah where God looks back on our time in the wilderness BeMidbar and says this.

הֲבֵן יַקִּיר לִי אֶפְרַיִם, אִם יֶלֶד שַׁעֲשֻׁעִים--כִּי-מִדֵּי דַבְּרִי בּוֹ, זָכֹר אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ עוֹד

Ephraim – that’s us, as it were – is my dear child, a child that is dandled, for when I speak of him I remember him and my heart yearns for him.

But hang on, it wasn’t really like that was it, there were these arguments and rebellions and failings.

But yet, but yet, God still looks back fondly. Sure God knew it was tough, at times. It can’t be that God didn’t know, exactly what was going on.

It’s almost as if God is wilfully presenting Godself as someone who celebrates the good in a relationship, even in its difficult times. It’s as if God is looking back at something chequered at best and making a decision to acknowledge the good. A sort of wilful self-deceiving blindness to the failings. A commitment to see the delightful times as the very essence of the relationship, and as for the failings, so be it, let ‘em go. They become the peripheral, the inconsequential moments. I, says God, shall focus on the moments of delight.

That’s the best wedding advice I have, I hope it goes for all the important relationships in our lives, marital or otherwise.

We should train ourselves in the seeing only of the good and the delightful in our partners, our children, our parents, friends and colleagues. We should look back at the events of a day, a week, a year, twenty years even, if we are so blessed, and see only the things that brought delight.

That glance, that touch, that moment of care. We should focus on the things that are Yakar – precious. These are the things to Zacor Ezkerienu Od, still remember, remember.

Love isn’t, at least it isn’t for me, a thing that is either there or not, like one of those scratch-away lottery tickets that reveals failure or success in ways beyond our control.

Love is closer, at least for me it’s closer, to a practice, a spiritual practice of commitment and seeking ongoing delight.

And it definitely takes luck and it can definitely go wrong even for the most committed and wilful of us.

But it is wonderful and I would wish it for us all.

Shabbat Shalom