Jewish Dating Thought of the Week: Is Dating a Time for Forgiveness?
June 16th, 2015
In a completely hypothetical scenario, a Reuven takes Rivka on a date to the fancy restaurant La Primavera en el Verano. Things are going pretty well; it turns out that both of them like to visit the aquarium and write poetry. Reuven watches Rivka laugh as he reaches for the saltshaker. As he pulls his hand back, he knocks Rivka’s onion soup all over her pristine white dress. Rivka’s face literally goes red as she viciously scolds the clumsy man. After a few minutes, Rivka apologizes profusely for her behavior, explaining that this was simply one of her favorite dresses and she got a bit carried away. Should Reuven continue dating her?
Throughout life, Jews are taught to judge every person for the benefit of the doubt. However, a date is like a road test. If a driver makes a few mistakes on his road test, even really small ones, there is no way that he or she will be forgiven and receive a driver’s license. If it’s such a small mistake, why shouldn’t he get his license? Because a driver will always drive worse after he gets his license than he did when the instructor was carefully watching him on his road test. However, the drivers who could muster up one perfect run will be relatively safe drivers, while drivers who can’t drive perfectly for even a short time will be dangerous drivers.
Same thing with dating: a marriage is going to be more difficult than dating. If someone gets angry, has bad manners, or makes insulting jokes on a date, when he or she ought to be trying his or her best to impress you, the traits will only intensify once you two are married. This means that you should be brutally honest with yourself whether or not your date’s habits are a problem, since they won’t magically go away once you get married.
However, just because they have a few flaws doesn’t mean you shouldn’t marry them. After all, every single person in the world has a handful of flaws. Anger issues will likely be a major problem for any relationship, but if someone has a stutter or talks while chewing food, should you cut the relationship short? Maybe not, but its important to consider your date’s problems before going on to marry them.
Leave a Reply