A (Healthy) Romance between God & the Children of Israel
One of the most recognizable verses about the relationship between God and the Children of Israel appears in Jeremiah 2:2.
הָלֹ֡ךְ וְֽקָרָ֩אתָ֩ בְאׇזְנֵ֨י יְרוּשָׁלַ֜͏ִם לֵאמֹ֗ר כֹּ֚ה אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֔ה זָכַ֤רְתִּי לָךְ֙ חֶ֣סֶד נְעוּרַ֔יִךְ אַהֲבַ֖ת כְּלוּלֹתָ֑יִךְ לֶכְתֵּ֤ךְ אַֽחֲרַי֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר בְּאֶ֖רֶץ לֹ֥א זְרוּעָֽה׃
Go and call out in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: so said the Lord: I remember to you the lovingkindness of your youth, the love of your nuptials, your following Me in the desert, in a land not sown.
There is something desperately romantic about this- the Israelites, young, beautiful, a damsel in distress oppressed by mighty Egypt, follow after God, their Lover. He rescues them and takes them out and they follow after Him…not knowing what they will drink, how they will eat, and how He would sustain them in the desert, but trusting Him. Trusting Him to take care of them. God marries them at Mt. Sinai, the Tablets His betrothal contract. Because God loves them with an everlasting love.
On a personal note, this verse is meaningful to me because I married my own husband in what is called a start-up marriage as opposed to a merger marriage. Here’s a quote from the article I’ve linked [the bolded parts are mine].
Merger marriages are what you tend to see on the weddings pages of the Sunday New York Times: highly educated couples in their 30s, both people well on their way to success. Lots of things can be said in favor of merger marriages. The bride and groom may be more mature, less likely to outgrow each other or to feel impelled, 10 years into the marriage, to make up for their lost youth.
But let me put in a word for startup marriages, in which the success of the partners isn't yet assured. The groom with his new architecture degree is still designing stairwells, and the bride is starting her third year of medical school. Their income doesn't leave them impoverished, but they have to watch every penny.
What are the advantages of a startup marriage? For one thing, you will both have memories of your life together when it was all still up in the air. You'll have fun remembering the years when you went from being scared newcomers to the point at which you realized you were going to make it.
Even more important, you and your spouse will have made your way together. Whatever happens, you will have shared the experience. And each of you will know that you wouldn't have become the person you are without the other.
Many merger marriages are happy, but a certain kind of symbiosis, where two people become more than the sum of the individuals, is perhaps more common in startups.
When I married my husband, he told me he wanted to be a lawyer. But he had been born in Hasidic Boro Park. He had no official skills. He had not yet taken the LSAT. I had no idea whether he would be accepted into any law school, let alone do well in law school and eventually be able to support our family. I married him believing he would do those things- but I had no way of knowing.
One of the things I’ve thought about often is why some people fulfill the trust you have in them and others do not. I gained some clarity on this when I watched therapist Alaya Hertzel of @alayabcoaching talk about the pitfalls of marrying potential. Alaya is a sex and relationships coach, and I like her candid, genuine way of imparting information.
She talks about women marrying spouses because of their potential. They look at a person and think, “He’ll make a great dad” or “He could become such a great rabbi.” And so they marry the man because of the potential they see in him. They believe they can change him, remake him and shape him to become what they see in him. If you grow up in the Jewish world, sometimes this is even couched as a value. You as a woman are taught that your sechar is dependent on your husband learning in kollel. Or you are taught stories like that of Rachel, Rabbi Akiva’s wife, who gave up her husband for 24 years so that he could learn and teach Torah.
But here’s the thing. Support without boundaries is codependency. As a human, you are permitted to have needs. And you need to recognize what those needs are. And with that knowledge of who you are and what you need, you need to marry what is, not what might be. Maybe that person will become everything you see in them. Maybe they won’t. You need to marry the person that is.
But how can I say this? After all, I married a man who hadn’t even taken the LSAT. Didn’t I marry potential?
Here’s where I see the difference. There’s potential in terms of career, and there’s potential when it comes to character traits. You need to marry a person whose character is already formed. They need the core trait you most admire- which, for me, is kindness- and it needs to already exist. Nedra Glover Tawwab, a relationship and boundaries expert who wrote a book I recommend called ‘Set Boundaries, Find Peace,’ states
This is where you should not marry potential. These things are either something the person you are dating can do or cannot do. And if they cannot do them- if they cannot honor their word, if they cannot disagree with you in a way that shows they still respect you, if they cannot handle multiple perspectives- they are not for you.
Maybe that person will grow and change. But you cannot believe that you will be the one to effect that change simply because you married them. That’s where marrying potential is such a dangerous pitfall. You marry potential despite the fact that the person has a track record of not keeping their word, of hurting your feelings, of wanting you to be different….because sometimes they are different than that. So you bet your life on that sometimes instead of the overall actions they’ve shown you- and you bet wrong.
My husband had not yet taken the LSAT. I didn’t know if he would be accepted into law school. But his character was crystal. He was honest. He was kind. He was supportive. He showed up. He was reliable. This was not just my opinion of him- this was something he had demonstrated to me in a variety of ways, consistently.
That’s why I believed him when he said he would become a lawyer. Because I knew him to be the kind of person to keep his word.
So let’s go back to God.
In this week’s parsha, Parshat Beshalach, God splits the sea for the Children of Israel. They follow him to the desert, the land unsown, and rely on Him for water and for food (manna). But why did they do that? Was it just a desperate romance?
I’ve been rethinking the Exodus, especially the plagues, and I don’t think so anymore.
I think that God was very deliberate in bringing His plagues against the Egyptians. As I’ve mentioned in previous Divrei Torah on this substack, He doesn’t just bring plagues in a wild rage or uncontrollable passion. He brings them with precision. He brings them after having laid out the terms, explained exactly what He will do, and then fulfills what He has said He will do. But why is all this necessary? Why not just, in one wild and wondrous moment, blind all the Egyptians and have the Children of Israel exit Egypt?
Because the plagues are not only about the Egyptians. They are also about us. The Israelites.
They are about earning our trust.
“I am a God you can rely on,” God is saying to us. “I am a God you can trust. When I say that something will occur at a particular time, on a particular day, that is exactly what happens. My word is good. You can rely on me.”
And after ten plagues worth of demonstrations, the Children of Israel are ready to leave and follow after God, to wander the unsown wilderness and turn to Him when they need food and water. Their devotion is not always perfect. They grumble and complain. But they trusted enough to follow- and they did that because He proved to them that He was a God worthy of that trust.
The story of the Exodus should not be framed, as it often is, as God the Warrior rescuing the Israelite nation, Damsel in Distress. Instead, it should be framed as God the Warrior patiently and tirelessly earning the trust of the Israelite nation, Damsel in Distress. By proving to her, over and over again, that He was reliable. The things He said came to pass. They came true. Also, He was responsive. When Moses prayed, He would take his prayer into account, and do things He had not necessarily planned to do. So He was not only a trustworthy God, He was a listening God.
When we as the Israelite nation ‘married’ God, we did not marry potential. Not when it came to the things that mattered. Not when it came to His character. He had already proved those things to us.
נָחִ֥יתָ בְחַסְדְּךָ֖ עַם־ז֣וּ גּאָ֑לְתָּ נֵהַ֥לְתָּ בְעָזְּךָ֖ אֶל־נְוֵ֥ה קָדְשֶֽׁךָ:
With Your loving kindness You led the people You redeemed; You led [them] with Your might to Your holy abode.
God is a Warrior, but He is also our Lover.
He showed up. He acted to protect. He was reliable.
And so, when we wander the desert with Him, we know…
He is worthy of our love.