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August 2022 • Southern Jewish Life
Torah Tells: Modern Dating People in the Bible were… people. They put their shoes on one sandal at a time. They ate, drank, and didn’t like getting stung by bees, just like people today. A primary purpose of reading from the Torah every week is to find new things it can tell us about our lives, our world, and our quality of education at religious school. Given the recent passing (not demise) of Tu B’Av — known by some because of its newer, secular variant on Feb. 14 – it’s apt to look at how our forecestors (including our threefathers and foremothers) first hooked up. What do those nascent moments say about what to do after giving Jdate a credit card number? Adam and Eve didn’t have many options nearby. In recent pandemic lockdowns, many were in a similar plight. Perhaps the only other person they’d see is a roommate or neighbor on their floor. Or, in Eve giving Adam the apple, the Torah gives precedent to falling for the DoorDash delivery person. Abraham married Sarah. That’s all the Torah says, giving precedent to not telling anyone (including your mother) about your dating life, and to holding a private ceremony. Isaac was a man of few words. At least, not many words loud enough for the Torah’s stenographer to hear. Abraham sent a servant to find his soft-spoken son a wife. He brought back Rebecca, which ended well enough. Today, it’s okay for someone to help with your online dating profile. But sending someone else to actually meet the women for you is a bad idea on several levels. Jacob left home around age 20, as one does, and met a girl at a well. Today, one similarly goes to college and meets someone at the local watering hole. Happens all the time. But then it got interesting. Without JDate, Is she the one he married? No. It wasn’t a typical case of being unable to tell her how did our from her sister, but that’s still an importancestors meet? ant lesson — especially if you’re dating twins. And he did marry her next. Putting obvious lessons on polygamy aside, Jacob worked seven years each before getting to marry them. That’s devotion, though no matter how romantic that perseverance seems, this kind of thing comes to fruition a lot more on screen or in print than in real life. And don’t date someone and then her sister — they don’t like that. Joseph was driven away by his family. Once he become a macher down in Egypt, Pharaoh “gave” him the daughter of Potiphar to marry. Yes, the Potiphar whose wife tried to seduce Joseph about 25 minutes into the musical, thus landing him in jail. (See the aforementioned question about quality of your religious school education.) Is there a modern application of the mother wanting someone, and him marrying her daughter? Yes, but you probably need to be 17 or older to see the film about it without parental supervision. Also, contrary to what you might think, this is not the first — or last — instance where a forecestor married someone not born Jewish. (See also Adam, Abraham, Moses… Actually, almost all of them, if you think about it.) Speaking of Moses, early in his story he went on the lam after killing an Egyptian who’d been beating an Israelite. While hanging out in Midian, he married the Midianite woman Tziporah. Sometimes when you travel to a foreign land, you meet that special someone. continued on previous page