[Avodah] RSRH, Sinatra, and Love and Marriage

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Daniel Eidensohn _yadmoshe at 012.net.il_ (mailto:yadmoshe at 012.net.il) 


>>R' Yitzchok Levine wrote:
> *Love and marriage, love and  marriage
> Go together like a horse and carriage
> This I tell you  brother
> You can't have one without the other
> *
> From a  Torah standpoint, there is something very wrong with the 
> lyrics. See  RSRH's commentary on Bereishis 24:67 




>>It is not helpful to present a statement out of context or even  give an 
interpretation which is not supported by the text. While there are  
marriages that follow the Yitzchok Rivka model there are others that are  
successful because they are the Yaakov - Rochel model. <<
 
>>>>>
My neighbor, R' Yakov Homnick, said in a shiur that  pretty much every way a 
marriage can come about is covered in the Torah.   You can marry "the girl 
next door"  -- somebody you grew up with and have  known for a long time -- like 
Avraham and Sarah.  You can have an arranged  marriage, like Yitzchak and 
Rivka.  You can meet a girl and fall in love,  like Yakov and Rochel.  All these 
marriages can be very happy and loving  marriages, Torah marriages.  
 
I will add only that, from a modern perspective (and I am including  Hirsch's 
19th century Germany as "modern"), it is the second of those three  marriages 
-- the arranged marriage -- that most needs defending and explaining,  as 
Hirsch set out to do in his commentary.  Another generation might have  been 
appalled by Yakov's courtship of Rochel and might have taken  Yitzchak's marriage 
in stride, but moderns are appalled by the idea of marrying  a girl you don't 
know, chosen for you by your parents.  So that was the one  that needed 
defending, and as Hirsch correctly says, such an arranged marriage,  made with the 
wisdom and experience of your elders, can indeed be a very happy  and loving 
marriage.  
 
Let me add that the Novominsker rebetzen A'H once told me, when I was a  
single girl, "When goyim get married they put a hot pot on a cold stove, but we  
Jews put a cold pot on a hot stove."  At the time I didn't really  understand 
what she meant (and I didn't take her advice, which was to "settle"  and marry 
a suitable person without worrying about "being in love"), but I  now perceive 
that there was wisdom in her words, because of the way that a  Torah life 
provides structure and support to a good marriage, regardless of  whether the 
marriage started off on the Avraham, Yitzchak, or Yakov model.
 
PS I am not comfortable with this subject line because it seems to put  
Hirsch and Sinatra on the same level, as two Torah commentators who have a  
disagreement.  Don't know how to change it but do want to register at least  a mild 
protest.





--Toby Katz
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