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<p>Frank Sinatra used to sing a song about love and marriage. In part the lyrics are
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<p>Love and marriage, love and marriage<br>
They go together like a horse and carriage<br>
This I tell you, brother<br>
You can't have one without the other</p>
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<p>I am sure that RSRH would insist that the order is wrong and it should be marriage and love. My reasoning is based upon Rav Hirsch's commentary on Bereishis 24;67 which is below.</p>
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<p>67 Yitzchak brought her into the tent of Sarah, his mother. He married Rivkah, she became his wife, and he loved her, and only then was Yitzchak comforted for his mother.</p>
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<p>This, too, is a characteristic that, thank God, has not vanished from<br>
among the descendants of Avraham and Sarah, Yitzchak and Rivkah.<br>
The more she became his wife, the more he loved her! Like this marriage<br>
of the first Jewish son, Jewish marriages, most Jewish marriages, are<br>
contracted not on the basis of passion, but on the strength of reason<br>
and judgment. Parents and relatives consider whether the two young<br>
people are suited to each other; therefore, their love increases as they<br>
come to know each other better.</p>
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<p>Most non-Jewish marriages are made on the basis of what they call<br>
“love.” But we need only glance at novelistic depictions taken from life,<br>
and we immediately see the vast gulf — in the non-Jewish world —<br>
between the “love” of the partners before marriage and what happens<br>
afterward; how dull and empty everything seems after marriage, how<br>
different from what the two partners had imagined beforehand. This<br>
sort of “love” is blind; each step into the future brings new disillusionment.<br>
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<p>Not so is Jewish marriage, of which it says: <em>va'yekach es Rivkah va't'hi lo l'eshah
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<p><em>va'yeehhaveha</em>! Here the wedding is not the culmination, but only the beginning<br>
of true love.</p>
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And now four more words, which, since God led Eve to Adam, until<br>
the end of time, have remained and will remain unsurpassed in beauty<br>
and glory: <em>va'yenacham Yitzchok achrei emo</em>. A forty-year old man, inconsolable over the<br>
death of his aged mother, finds consolation in his wife! This is the position<br>
of the Jewish woman as wife! What nonsense to identify Jewish married<br>
life with oriental sensuality and harem conditions! With Sarah’s death,<br>
the feminine spirit and feeling departed from the home. Yitzchak then<br>
found his mother again in his wife (hence, “When he brought Rivkah<br>
into the tent, to him it was as though his mother were again there” —<br>
see Bereshis Rabbah 60:16). This is the highest tribute that has ever been<br>
paid to the dignity and nobility of woman — and it is in the ancient<br>
history of Judaism.<br>
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