Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
5 min read
Why open my heart to someone, only to have it shredded in return?
It’s easy to give up on dating. I do it all the time. Why open my heart to someone, only to have it shredded in return?
Every time I make it home after another bad date, I flop onto my bed and silently scream, I give up! I bury myself in my blanket, let the tears trickle out and promise myself to join some remote convent.
Then something tells me it’s worth hanging on for just one more day, but I groan in protest. And then I remind myself the five reasons not to give up on dating.
Who likes uncertainty? You want to know that your efforts will yield results. If only you had a magic crystal ball. But no one has a smidgen of prophecy. You need to embrace the uncertainty.
How?
Rabbi Tarfon says in the Mishnaic collection of wisdom in Ethics of our Fathers, “It’s not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” Don’t worry about outcome; focus on the effort, the only thing that is in your control.
So try again. Yes, some of those dates will be bad. Take a deep breath and try again because not all of them are that bad. Some of them are even nice, the person just isn’t for you. Embrace uncertainty and take the chance to achieve great things.
The Talmud says that making matches is as difficult as splitting the Red Sea and that God is busy doing just that. But why does it seem like others just walk right through the sea to the other side as the Israelites did, while I’m stuck in the mud like the Egyptians? When I feel like a failure, I remind myself there are other things I’ve tried and succeeded at, maybe even on my first shot.
Don’t take your successes for granted. Appreciate the elements of success even during your moments of failure. Perhaps you’re upset at failing the bar twice? But maybe the guy who passed the bar on the first try needed to take a dozen lessons before he could ski down the slope without falling. You may be the expert skier he envies.
Everyone has different strengths; God has laid out unique paths to cross the sea. Some of you may stumble in the mud, step on sharp rocks while others waltz right through. When I feel like a failure, I remember there were guys who liked me. Maybe the timing was off or it didn’t work out. But not all of my dates and relationships were failures even if it didn’t end with marriage and I need to remind myself of that.
Focus on your successes and strong points and don’t let your failures prevent you from walking down your path.
You’ve heard this all before: Albert Einstein was thought to be mentally handicapped. Abraham Lincoln was downgraded from captain to private in the military. Thomas Edison was deemed too stupid to learn a thing.
The same is true for many of our sages. Rabbi Akiva was a very late-bloomer. He was a simple shepherd who at the age of 40 had not yet learned Torah, yet he became a leading Torah scholar with over 24,000 students. Come to think of it, Moses was a simple shepherd too, as was the future King David. Ruth, the grandmother of King David, was a poverty-stricken convert and widow. None of them had it easy, yet all of them climbed great spiritual heights and attained greatness.
You may feel like you’re living in your personal Groundhog Day movie, reliving your day again and again. But remember, the day keeps repeating itself until the lead character gets it right. That means incremental change is happening. You’re not in the same place, looping on an endless hamster wheel or treadmill. Perhaps your marital status hasn’t changed yet, but you have.
You’re striving upward on a spiral. Each time you try, struggle and fail, and try again, something does happen. You grow, you change, you learn, and you end up a bit higher on that spiral.
During my endless dating I have felt like even though I haven’t given up on God, perhaps He’s given up on me. I try to make bargains with Him. I get angry at Him. But I’m not indifferent to Him. I may not get what I want from Him, but that doesn’t mean He’s given up on me.
Nothing can exist without God continuously creating it. You are here; that means God believes in you. He’s instilling new life every moment, giving opportunities again and again. He hasn’t given up on you.
God knows that every inch of progress is success. It’s as though He’s whispering to us, and giving us a push, Here’s another chance, because I know you can do it. Just try, one more time.”
Sarah Lavane’s dating memoir “Unmatched” was chosen as one of Jewish Link’s Six Best Books of the Year. In it, she recounts her decades-long effort at meeting her match. She hasn’t given up. For reviews, excerpts and more info, visit unmatchedstory.com
