Married life in religious society forms the focus of Deot Journal, issue no. 48. In this issue, Rabbanit Sarah Segal-Katz published an article addressing the complex transition from singleness to marriage. What might appear to be a natural culmination of dreams—immersed in fulfillment, sweetness, and joy—is also a passage from the habits of years of aloneness into the realities of shared life. This shift entails not only learning the dynamics of partnership but also moving from a consciousness of absence and longing for the “missing other” toward a consciousness of presence and fulfillment. Segal-Katz highlights the gendered disparity in communal expectations: while men are perceived as needing time to adjust to the demands of commitment, women are expected simply to express gratitude for having married. These expectations are intensified in marriages following extended years of singleness. She underscores that women, too, carry memories, patterns, and even longing for their single lives. The article confronts the social taboo that makes it difficult to speak of the costs, the nostalgia, and the struggles that accompany this transition into what is often framed as personal and conjugal redemption, yet experienced against the background of habituated perceptions of exile in relation to intimacy.
The discussion integrates both personal and theological dimensions: how the dialogue with God is reshaped, how forms of spirituality once tied to solitude undergo transformation, and how a renewed mode of avodat Hashem emerges within the framework of marriage. Alongside gratitude for the discovery of love and the creation of a shared home, the essay insists on acknowledging the processes of adjustment, change, and farewell to old habits. This is a candid and courageous voice, breaking silences and carving space for women to articulate the transition from singleness to marriage not only as good news but as a lived, multidimensional process.
“From Singleness to Marriage – An Unspoken Spiritual Transformation” thus analyzes this passage as one of identity and spiritual conversion, offering a profound perspective on the inner religious shifts experienced within the shared life of marriage.
To read the article in Hebrew: Unspoken Spiritual Conversion – From Singlehood to Marriage
To read the article in English: Non-Spoken-About Spiritual Conversion – From Bachelorhood to Marriage
