REPLAY: Game, Sex, Match: Religious Singles and the Quest for Romantic Love.

“The art of loving is hard to learn… and even harder to master.”

— Dr. Elliot Malamet

When you are part of a religious community, the acts of loving and being loved can be surprisingly complex, requiring a delicate balancing act between personal freedom and external expectations, and between sexual pleasure and religious duty.

Singlehood is seen in the community as a problem to be solved — particularly for Jewish women. 

From accessing the ritual of the mikvah to negotiating healthy sexuality to coping with the pain of breaking up, single Jewish women regularly navigate complicated terrain, and often without rules or rituals that are compatible with dating in modernity.

This episode is an instalment of Across the Sea, a podcast about mental health and Judaism. In this episode, Dr. Elliot Malamet invites guests Rabbi Rachel Rosenbluth and Micki Lavin-Pell to discuss dating and building healthy relationships while Jewish.

“Singleness is definitely supposed to be a temporary stage — as temporary as possible.”

— Bluth

This‌ ‌episode discusses:‌ ‌

✔  The possibility of “holy intimacy,” a sacred sexuality that may be experienced before marriage

✔  The lessons that we can learn from break-ups & how to benefit from them going forward

✔  Whether we need to develop a new Jewish sexual ethos — and what it may include

   ‌

Highlights:‌ ‌ 

00:50  Introduction

01:51  Rabbi Bluth, stereotypes & expectations

04:50  Jewish law out of step with modern dating?

07:52  New Jewish sexual ethos

09:50  The mikvah & singlehood

12:11  Intimate couples & purity laws

15:36  Lessons gained from break-ups

19:55  Healthy v. unhealthy relationships

22:25  Is it harder to get & stay married now?

25:42  Micki Lavin-Pell & internal barriers

28:34  Singlehood & cultural messaging

30:23  Single male stereotypes

32:06  Singlehood & fear

34:32  Gender discrepancies 

36:19  Too fast v. too slow

37:50  Healthy sexuality

40:00  Setting boundaries

43:05  Damaging beliefs & best advice

Links:‌ ‌

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm  

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-art-of-loving/9780061129735-item.html 

We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection and Enduring Love by Stan Tatkin  

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/we-do-saying-yes-to/9781622038930-item.html 

To get in contact or learn more about Living Jewishly:  

Visit‌ ‌our ‌website: https://livingjewishly.org  

Follow us on Instagram: @living.jewishly  

Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO2YEegjapKpQeXG6zh6tzw  

or send us an email at hello@livingjewishly.org.  

Shalom!