A great cynical curmudgeon once wrote that “love is the mistaken notion that one female differs from another”. Khazal described a now defunct courtship custom celebrated annually on T”u B”Av (tonight/tomorrow ). I’ve often wondered if in doing so they were intimating the same attitude towards love as that of the great cynical curmudgeon.
The final mishna in Ta’anis teaches that on T”u B”Av “The daughters of Jerusalem (clad in borrowed white garments) would do circle dances in the vineyards” presumably before a male audience and “shop” their marriage-ability. I find the description of the dance significant. Elsewhere Khasidisha seforim point out the geometric truism that a circle is a set of points equidistant from one central point. IOW no individual point in a CIRCLE can possibly be any closer to the center than another. The whole scene is one of egalitarian sameness. Rich and poor wore the same borrowed uniform. Beauty and pedigree were to be ignored. And so the maidens were all points on a circle with no one either further away or closer (re: more attractive or more repulsive)than any other. As if to say “don’t predicate your love and marriage proposal on real or imagined differences. Today on T”U B’Av all are equal.”
The centrality of romantic love to traditional Judaism while indisputable is still ambiguous and enigmatic. On the one hand we have Shir HaShirim, a love poem for adults only, as the ultimate allegory of the covenant and love that binds Israel with her Creator. It is also termed Qodesh Qodoshim= the holy of Holies via a vis other sacred writing in the TaNak”h cannon being merely Qodesh. We also find the Rambam famously describing the love of G-d in terms of a male lovesick with an infatuation for a female who can think of and yearn for nothing else. Yet we have Midrashim describing our founding patriarch as never having beheld his wife’s visage until many years after marriage and our Torah–giving prophet as having separated from his wife. We also have a long and storied tradition of arranged marriages wherein , as Tevyeh in Fiddler says “but my father and my mother said we’d learn to love each other”. Certainly Rav Desslers postulate that "Giving" engenders "Loving" turns the western paradigm of romantic love on it’s ear.
Perhaps more than any other human endeavor our romantic exertions are where we most feel the tension between yedeeah =(providence) and bekhira (free will). Per khazal ones mate is decreed with a Divine “echo/daughter voice” 40 days prior to ones conception (or maybe @ conception 40 days prior to ones embryonic formation? ?? Not sure what yetziras haV’lad means). A great wedding invitation litmus test to determine if a couple is kharedi or MO is to see if they write im bas geelo = with the daughter of his age i.e. with his besherter or im bekhiras leebo/leebah =with his /her hearts choice. If it’s our choice then differences certainly DO differentiate. If it’s G-d’s providence then for all intents and purposes as far as the non-choosing human being is concerned, one will do just as well as another.
Circles, equality, equidistance…ROUND…it’s what makes the world go love.
Qedusha-Havdlala...have you had yours today?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
tumbleweed...lonely...desolate
maybe it's time to ask DovBear for reinstatement.
besser arbiten bah yennim
Do not despair. Readers are attracted by comments on other blogs.
Something provocative will make them click on a blogger's nomen, which, inevitably leads them to the blog.
You already know which blogs you read - comment more (and include a line under each comment mentioning that you have FINALLY begun your own blog).
Bray,
No mention of learning extra on TU b' Av?
Like I said, see ya tomorrow
Other than your Fisking post, I'm liking the new Blog. One more word on Fisking: there are ways of making your point without the meanness of that post. You have a beautiful message of havdala, don't ruin it by being mean-spirited.
Comments on this post will follow.
Like the idea with the circle, though one has to be careful with things like this. Most likely they danced in a circle because line dancing didn't exist and it's just how everyone danced.
Still, your point about everyone looking the same is valid. I see it slightly differently. They were trying to eliminate superficial differences (rich, poor, ugly, beautiful) so deep differences would stand out (personality). Unfortunately, the shidduch nowadays rejects such un-tznius dancing and parading of women, but forgets the message - I won't consider her if she didn't go to such and such seminary, she has to be less than a size 6, etc.
In terms of Avraham, I believe his not looking at Sarah is seen as a negative and is related to his dealing dishonestly with Pharaoh. It's yaakov, who becomes Yisrael, who is the paradigm who openly kissed and loved Rachel. As for Moshe, I think it's more complicated, but clearly Miriam and Aharon were right, but there were reasons that superseded.
Love is a complicated thing and I think the answer lies in between somewhere - love leads to giving which leads to love - there's your circle again, :).
Same with bashert vs free will. It's somewhere in between. I strongly believe in fate and how things work out for the best in the end. Interestingly, my wife and I met in college. Before deciding on that college, both of us were set to go to another college - the same one even though we hadn't met yet. We like to joke that God was making sure we definitely would meet, either at the one we did meet at or at the college we were each originally contemplating. And yet, every relationship has challenges and we have to overcome them using our free will to make the right decisions.
I see it slightly differently. They were trying to eliminate superficial differences (rich, poor, ugly, beautiful) so deep differences would stand out (personality).
This reminds me of the argument made in one of the finests blog posts are ever read over @ my first bloggish love Beyond BT
http://www.beyondbt.com/?p=73
IMO one of the loveliest and subtlest defenses of kharedi practice and values I've ver read.
In terms of Avraham, I believe his not looking at Sarah is seen as a negative
I can't recall nay of the meforshim taking this approach.
I think it's more complicated, but clearly Miriam and Aharon were right,
I beg your pardon??? Maybe on some profound sub-textual or Qabbalistic level. But on the surface and for sevral levels of meaning below the surface they were dead wrong at least vis a vis Moshe. I mean זכירת מעשה מרים is hilkhos Lashon Hara 101!
And while we're fond of mocking Catholicism and a celibate preisthood it is rather striking that the greatest human being ever per our tradition was himself celibate and commanded by G-d to seperate from his lawfully wedded wife.
Same with bashert vs free will. It's somewhere in between.
IMO it's not in-between but both simultaneously even though that usually starts the kind of cognitive dissonance that causes smoke to billow from my ears.
Still the fact that khaza"l refer to a heavenly voice decreeing ones besherter seem to make it a different order of Providence than garden variety השגחה פרטית
I remember seeing something about how Avraham suddenly realized Sarah was beautiful and how it lead to deceit with Pharaoh which required God to make a miracle to save him. I'll try to dig it up.
As for Moshe, what I meant was that Miriam and Aharon were right that Moshe's actions were abnormal and not usually allowed. They didn't stop and think (or at least ask) before saying LH. Moshe stands as an anomaly, much like Eliyahu HaNavi - both men lived apart from the world they inhabited to some degree (and thus, it's no surprise how many parallels there are between them).
Yes, it is simultaneous. This is what I was trying to say. That we had free will to attend a different college, for example, but we still would have met at college (albeit a different college).
Interesting blog post on Beyond BT.
I think it pushes a bit on secular society and I think only in the ideal does individuality flourish amongst outward conformity, but overall a very interesting approach.
It doesn't say anywhere the boys came to look, although it's implied.
re the 40 days thing you might like the Bnei yissascher at the end of this post:
http://www.torahlab.org/doitright/tu_bav/
Post a Comment