לקריאת המאמר בעברית במגזין גלויה | Originally published in Hebrew in Gluya
The period a couple waits to begin their full lives together is long and full of expectations. Couples that become engaged and then wed experience the tension and the longing that are inherent in this waiting period for a shared home, for continued presence with each other. With the wedding, this gate is opened. The life of togetherness gains its own space, a private space that enables enthusiastic intimacy; a private space, which enables closeness without limitations, as much as they desire during the permitted days.
The nature of desire and longing is to flow, to overflow and to burst forth. How does life look under the influence of these eros-forces? Religious education provides us with important tools in preparation for married life, but most of them focus on prohibitions: on the forbidden days and the prohibitions of physical intimacy and closeness during these times. But we must remember that the forbidden times are the exception to the rule (and it is important to learn and prepare for them), whereas the rule, the fundamental couple’s reality, is that a couple is in mutual closeness with each other: “How fair you are, how beautiful! O Love, with all its rapture!” (Song of Songs 7:7). In the following lines we will seek to look this stormy reality in the face and to delineate tools for the emotional and physical storm within our daily lives.
The schedule
Many couples arrive at married life with healthy, adult habits regarding time management, internal order and behavioral patterns. Entering joint life with a partner includes stages of learning and adjusting to sharing time and physical space with someone else, to managing shared tasks efficiently, etc. and indeed, it is important and appropriate to learn how to be efficient and organized, how to exact the most from the couple’s shared life and manage it optimally; but the purpose of couple-hood is not only to be a “good team”, efficient and good at managing tasks. The point of the connection between the partners is revealed particularly in those places in which sexual arousal bursts forth and changes plans. When passion flows and sweeps and order is disrupted.
Society in general, and religious society in particular, seek to create order and produces rules for the prevention of disruption of order. The message that is transmitted, even before marriage, both directly and indirectly, marks what is appropriate and right for marital relations and what the correct times and conditions are for a couple to join together. These statements are like a ‘distant rumor’ that is echoed in different texts, such as the halakhic discussion of the question of lighting during intercourse and the direction to have intercourse in the dark. But one should remember that these discussions, on the appropriate times for intercourse, did not take place in a vacuum: the rabbis, and the poskim following them, were searching for a technical solution during periods when families lived in one shared space, where intercourse created a central issue of modesty. There are those who even today maintain these guidelines and view them as seemly behavior, or as talismans of spiritual-mystical significance.
Love bursting forward suddenly
In the hurried pace of modern life, the nature of daily life is different from couple to couple, and the various factors that affect the hormonal and psychological state of one couple, their mood, their level of fatigue or their physical wellness, is not similar to that of other couples. The nature of time management is also different between different couples. Most couples nowadays spend the majority of the day apart from each other, at school or at work, juggle shifts at different hours or work together from home. Even if a couple communicates throughout the day – verbally or in writing – relative distance is also maintained. The result is that each couple experiences different opportunities of mutual passion and desire and must juggle personal time management that is also in sync with time management in general. All of these factors require mental attention and flexibility to respond when passion arises, at times even when it comes by surprise.
There are considerations that one must take into account in our times, out of an awareness and consideration of life conditions in our day. Today, there is awareness of and care for the preservation of the quality of couple-hood and sexual life within the flow of life; beginning with the expectation of a couple for specific times of intercourse (mikveh night, Friday night, a set night during the week) and to the recommendation that a couple set a weekly date night. In light of the increased mental load, many commitments and a demanding daily schedule, Eros, which in its nature arises not according to schedule and when planned, might be pushed aside and erased. Eros can arise when both partners are washed, dressed, and ready to leave for a family event; or in the morning, while getting ready to leave for a busy work day; or on other unideal occasions: Should we be late for a cousin’s wedding?! Miss a work meeting?! Cancel plans and change a busy schedule only because passion comes knocking?
And it skips over me with love
Within the social expectation of order, and against those fears and hesitations, it behooves us to remember other voices within our culture, which it appears are not often heard.
Said Rabbi Shimon b. Yochai: Love may disrupt the order of things […] as it says: “Abraham rose in the morning, etc.” and did he not have several servants?! Rather, love spoils the order of things
(Bereshit Rabbah, §55).
Abraham’s intense love for God changes his behavior. He himself, instead of his servants, bridled his donkey and made the technical preparations for the sacrifice of Isaac. The midrash, in saying “love disrupts the order of things”, is not expressing a negative attitude to Abraham’s actions, but is rather praising him for disrupting the order of things for love. When there is love, ordered things may be disrupted.
“R. Issachar said: “And his banner (diglo) of love was over me”: even a man who sits and learns Torah, and skips (medaleg) from halakha to halakha and from verse to verse, God says he is beloved of me, “and his banner (diglo) of love was over me”; and his skipping (dilugo) of love was over me”
Bamidbar Rabbah, §2
Through the play on words diglo-dilugo, R. Issachar praises the disruption of order that takes place in the context of love. Even a disrupted, disorganized study of Torah is beloved before God, when it stems from love.
Order is gone; all is in order
A return to these midrashim returns joy to a couple’s life together, and symbolizes to us that we must make room and be flexible for eros, even when it comes unexpectedly and disrupts our plans. There is nothing wrong with a married couple, who are permitted to each other at the time, responding to a sudden arousal of passion such as this. This kind of response will, moreover, contribute a positive experience to their erotic biography and leave its impression for the future as well. And perhaps it also contains a special spice that makes the experience more powerful.
It is true, as responsible adults we must live up to our familial, professional and social responsibilities, and a complete disruption of our daily life in order to satisfy our eros might testify, in certain cases, to addiction and a lack of control. But in between these two poles – complete order on the one and complete lack of control on the other – there is a wide and flexible spectrum of normative reality, in which marital life takes place. Amongst the myriad commitments we have exists also the commitment to the commandment of onah, and if passion arises in both partners at the same time, and they find a good rhythm together, it has the power to overcome the disruption of order.
Seasoned couples will usually know how to let work know they will be coming in late in the morning, when they wish to be together uninterrupted. When it comes to newlyweds, sexuality is experienced as the first shared chapter of life, and in this case it is more simple to go with the flow of changing times and the opportunities of mutual passion that arise. In fact, even a seasoned couple, who carry a heavier load of responsibility and tasks, can learn how to be grateful for the disruption of their schedule when opportunity knocks, and to be flexible with plans. Gratitude that comes, not from an acceptance of what is, but rather from recognizing the importance of the arousal of passion, which refreshes daily life, recognizes the ability to make time and place to respond to passion and enjoy its benefits.
It is permitted and suggested, when it is appropriate and right for a couple, to choose to give in to their emotions, to go with the internal flow of passion, to be together and to internalize that this secret ‘disruption’ is a natural and normal part of life. Particularly at the beginning of married life, when a couple is discovering sexuality together, it has an important part in building couple-hood. There are times when we can’t respond to sexual arousal – forbidden times, or times when we cannot put off certain tasks. But if we feel the internal commitment to the commandment of onah, we will know how to welcome it when it reveals itself and seeks to quench its thirst and know its place.
Translated by Sara Tova Brody
