(00:00) There’s no life without marriage. Without marriage, there’s no civilization. Is the highest form of imitating God. Marriage has to involve a man and a woman. Two women are too much alike. Two men too much alike. You have a very clear perspective on what dating should be all about. Dating was invented as a means of choosing the right spouse.
(00:26) It has been a colossal failure and nobody wants to admit it. When you undermine marriage, the entire society becomes extinct. Hi and welcome back to Reclamation Radio. I am Dr. Kelly Brogan and today I sit down with Rabbi Manis Friedman who is an author, a philosopher, a public speaker and who was one of the very important ambassadors in my own personal remembrance of the nature of marriage and the role of a wife and the role of a husband. There are many hot takes in this episode, so get ready. Some of the
(01:07) highlights are around the misunderstood aspects of dating and specifically what dating is according to him supposed to be for. He also helps us women to know how it is that we can identify a husband in the dating pool. He talks about the essential contribution of a wife to her husband and why marriage should not be for love.
(01:46) And lastly, we talk about why it is that sexual intimacy should be experienced with the lights off. Enjoy. And I hope that this helps you whether you are in your mate selection process. Whether you are married or you are looking to reorient towards this covenant that was designed for men, women, children, and society. And here’s why. Listen in. Hi, Rabbi Friedman and welcome to Reclamation Radio.
(02:17) Thank you for the opportunity. So there is a sociocultural institution that has come under siege by my observation and this is the institution of marriage. Whether you believe or those listening believe that it’s an engineered, you know, attack or assault on the covenant or whether it’s just an emergent phenomenon of the way that we are shifting paradigmatically and culturally, it doesn’t really matter because the stats are that 70% of divorces are initiated by women and so many listening are in this situation. looking at the shrapnel
(03:03) of their family dynamic and wondering maybe could it have been different? How could I do it potentially different in the future? And whether women find themselves in this position because of poor mate selection or because of a misunderstanding of their role as wife or perhaps even a lack of reverence for the covenant itself, for the institution itself.
(03:35) I think that there is so much that um you can share so much wisdom that I have enjoyed over the years that I’ve been following your work. So I would love to talk today about what marriage is according to you and how to get there and how to stay there. Like these basics so many of us in in midlife are are exploring and I really count you as one of the ambassadors of this remembrance of of what is possible between a man and a woman.
(04:06) So I’ve heard you say that if you are looking for love or pleasure, marriage is not the answer. So what is true that is how what is marriage in that case? What is it according to you? Yeah, that is a very good question and it’s about time not only to answer it, it’s about time to ask it. We’ve never asked that before. You’re 18. Oh, why aren’t you married? Nobody ever said, “Why get married?” Because for so many years, we just took it for granted.
(04:39) Oh, you’re 18. Why aren’t you married? Why should I be married? Nobody ever asked that. Marriage was so natural. It was so much a part of life itself that why did you need a reason? You need a reason to wake up in the morning. Hopefully not. You’re very depressed. So what what really is marriage? Well, one thing is it’s indispensable.
(05:04) There’s no life without marriage. Not only because children are born in marriage because they could be born outside of marriage, too. But without marriage, there’s no there’s no civilization. Without marriage, you don’t want to bring a child into this world. So what marriage really is is the highest form of imitating God. And we’re supposed to imitate God.
(05:28) We’re created in God’s image and we’re supposed to imitate him. Because this might take us into a whole another subject, but the true nature of a human being is that we are not content to be human. If you’re content being human, then you’re just another form of animal life. The cow is content being a cow. The lion is content being a lion.
(05:51) And the human being is content being human. But that’s not the case. The cow and the lion are perfectly content being what they were created to be. We are not. Cuz whatever we were created as, we get no credit for. I’m a human being. Well, I didn’t do that. I was created human.
(06:17) Now, what did I contribute? What did I add? What did I bring to the table? Nothing. Then I’m just an animal. So the nature of the human being is I’m not content being human. I got to become something more by my own choice and by my own steam. What more can I be? Instead of being part of creation, I can be become part of the creator. I can partner with God and making this world a better place. So I imitate God in whatever way I can.
(06:48) He feeds the poor. I feed the poor. He heals the sick. I try to heal the sick. One of the ways and probably the highest form of imitating God is to get married. Because by creating the world, essentially that’s what God did. God said, “It’s not good to be alone.” No human being would ever say that. Human beings love being alone.
(07:13) Just leave me alone. Why doesn’t everybody just leave me alone? But God says it’s not good to be alone. So the godly in us created in God’s image. The godly part of us can’t stand being alone just like God can’t stand being alone. For what reason? For no reason. It’s just not good to be alone. All goodness begins when there is someone else.
(07:47) So, we get married in order to have someone besides me in my life because if there’s no one besides me, I’m a narcissist. It’s one or the other. If I cannot make room for another person in my life, I’m narcissistic. So marriage means merging becoming one with another with someone who is not you not from your family and not from your gender.
(08:20) And that’s why marriage has to involve a man and a woman. Two women are too too much too much alike. Two men too much alike. You got to marry someone who is completely eternally forever not you. And there’s nothing no greater divide than male and female. The media tries to convince us that we’re the same, that we’re very much alike. We will never be the same, which is good news.
(08:46) So the purpose of marriage is who else is there in your life? Becoming one. That’s the objective. That’s the goal. Is that pleasurable? Yeah. Will you love it when you have it? Yeah. But what you want is someone, not something. Love is a thing. Pleasure is a thing. Sex is a thing. All of that has to merge into just the person.
(09:20) So, you don’t need love from your husband, but you need your husband with his love. not without it’s personal but you’re looking for him which includes his love but you’re not looking for love which might be him. So if you look at marriages that are 50 60 years old the oneness. Oh they’re still in love with each other. They have each other and they love it.
(09:48) But having each other is awesome. Love not so awesome. Remember in Fiddler on the Roof when Tevia asks his wife Gold, “Do you love me?” she says, “Do I what?” And it makes it sound like she doesn’t know what love is. She’s so naive. Now, that’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is that she is much more mature than him.
(10:14) He says, “Do you love me?” She says, “For 25 years, I’ve washed your clothes. I’ve made your food. I’ve slept in your bed. If that’s not love, then what is? In other words, you’re wondering whether you’re getting my love. You’ve got me. You’ve got all of me. Grow up. If that’s not love, then what is? A poem, a flower. You have me.
(10:45) I guess that includes my love, but it’s so much more than love. I love this because, no pun intended, and fun fact, my my daughter memorized the entire script to Fiddler on the Roof when she was three and a half years old. She watched it so many times, the movie, the old movie that uh I feel like, yeah, I have all those lines memorized myself.
(11:07) And this is perhaps a more revolutionary perspective than you even appreciate because you’ve been so steeped in this philosophy, I imagine, for so long. But the idea that love is some transient almost emotional state and that it’s really quite singular.
(11:27) I mean, the way that you talk about it, you say, you know, it can be put on someone or wanted from someone. And this almost atomistic perspective is really transactional relative to the intimacy that takes two people, actual beings, and the kind of bond that confers a sense of belonging in a way that nothing else can for the reasons that you’ve described.
(11:57) So to dethrone love in the context of marriage, I’ve I’ve never heard anybody else speak about it in this way. And so I I just want to kind of highlight double click on the belonging concept like what is it to take someone as a person, right? So that what you experience through them is actually fulfilling.
(12:29) You know, you say that a mother doesn’t want love from her children or perhaps shouldn’t, right? She wants her children’s love. It’s deeply personal and that’s where the sense of belonging comes from, right? Because it’s not just a transactional experience that you’re extracting from this individual. Yeah. I think in our society, love has become, I don’t know, an idol. A guy has a friend. They grew up together.
(12:52) They went to school together. They went to the army together. They went through battles together. They’ve been friends for 40 years. Then the guy gets married. He’s been married for a month. Who does he love more? His 40year-old friend or his month old bride. He’s got to love his friend more. He’s not in love with his friend. Whatever that means.
(13:18) But realistically, who does he love more? With whom does he have more reason to love? They shared so much. He’s only married for a month, and yet his identity is so much more invested in his wife than in his 40year-old friend. What is that? Here’s the example. A guy’s on the Titanic and he sees an opening on a lifeboat and he jumps on and saves his life.
(13:46) Then he remembers his friend from 40 years still on the boat and he feels terrible that he forgot his friend. Everyone will assure him that it’s understandable. It’s forgivable. He panicked. It was every man for himself and in the panic you forgot your friend. Okay.
(14:07) But if he was married for a month, they were on a honeymoon and he saved himself and then thought, “Oh, where’s my wife?” No one will forgive him. No one will say, “Oh, you panicked. You forgot. You forgot your wife. Not acceptable. Not possible. Why is that? What is this power to marriage? It’s not love. He loves his 40year-old friend much more. But there’s something about marriage that creates a bond which you love.
(14:37) It’s not the love that makes the relationship. You love the relationship. So the feeling of being alone in the world disappears and there’s nothing else that takes away that feeling. Being close with your parents, you’re alone in the world. You have children, you love your children, you’re alone in the world.
(15:02) The only relationship that takes away the alowneness is marriage. And the Torah says that in the first chapter, therefore, you should leave your mother and father and cleave to your wife and become one. It’s the only way. In every other relationship, you’re number two, you’re number three, you’re number 12, you’re not number one. So, when a married couple who can’t find anything wrong with each other, but each of them feels alone in the world after years of marriage.
(15:36) So what what happened here? At the very least the least marriage takes away the feeling of aloneeness. Even if you’re separated by an ocean, what’s happening is people get married without getting married. They’re roommates. There’s no real intimacy.
(15:57) What is it that a man and a woman do when they’re married that they never did before they were married? So what’s intimate? I was speaking to a television personality, very very liberal, extreme, and we’re talking about intimacy. And she said, “What exactly is intimacy?” Tried to describe it. She says, “How do you how do you do that? How do you make it intimate?” I said, “Well, you always turn the lights off.” Her reaction was so interesting. Oh.
(16:22) Oh, lights off. Oh, don’t see anything. Wow. It was always lights off. From the beginning of history, intimacy happened in the dark. Every rerun of I Love Lucy or of the Honeymooners or or whatever, when they were going to be intimate, they turned off the lamp and, you know, what is the expression? Fade to black.
(16:53) And you know they’re being intimate. Intimate with the lights on, unheard of until pornography. So even even someone who had never even considered the possibility, once they thought of it, it was like, “Oh yeah, there are no sounds, nothing, no music, and there’s nothing to see cuz it’s dark and there’s no talking.
(17:18) ” Well, if you’re not talking, you’re not listening, and you’re not seeing, where will your mind go? To the person you’re with. Now, wouldn’t that be nice? That’s called intimate. Intimate means bonding with the person to the exclusion of all things. When there’s nothing but us, nothing, not even love. You’ve done the work. You’ve regulated your nervous system. You’ve reclaimed your feminine.
(17:49) And somehow still, you’re met with blank stairs, dropped balls, and dead bedroom energy. But you didn’t sign up to be his coach, his therapist, or his mother. You signed up for partnership, for a husband and a man, for devotion, for polarity. And now you may be wondering, is this just how it is? Do I just settle or do I go all collie and burn it down? Suffocated staying, terrified of leaving. This is the trap.
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(18:49) com to watch and receive my 5-day soft power protocol. I remember when I first read this perspective in in your book, it was one that exposed how much I’ve taken the bait of conditioning around physical objectification, right? Imagining that it’s so much more intimate to show all of yourself to the person you’re with, right? That the lights on are more intimate because you’re not afraid, you’re not hiding.
(19:22) And I think that speaks to how programmed and ingrained this concept of I am, you know, what you can see or even what you can hear versus the the soul level attunement that I hear you describing in in this, you know, perspective on what intimacy actually is like and how devoid of distraction it truly is and how you would never have to ask your partner after love making how was that for you if you’re truly attuned in this way not distracted by your own performance not distracted by appearances not distracted by outer stimuli so I think this is another revolutionary perspective that’s very
(20:07) sobering see even the expression love making that is so artificial it’s so contrived you’re not making love I don’t even know what that means How do you make love? That’s so so unnatural. Okay. So, what do you prefer? Well, actually, you’re you’re making a baby. True. Unless you prevent yourself from making the baby.
(20:35) But what you’re doing, you’re making a baby. What you’re feeling, oh, that’s a different thing. You’re feeling the oneness. There’s nothing separates us. Nothing comes between us. I need no thing to be yours. Unconditional. When people say, “I want unconditional love.” It’s double talk. Love is the biggest condition of them all. I want you to love me unconditionally.
(21:03) Yeah. Well, you’re invited only if I love you. Isn’t that a condition? It’s the ultimate condition. If I stop loving you, you’re out. Unconditional love means I don’t count. It’s just about love. Yes. I’ve come to see that as quite a childlike perspective, you know, that I should be, let’s say, as a woman, that I should be loved and adored for all aspects of me and that I’m here just to experience that affirmation that I was potentially longing for from my own parents here with this adult partner. And so that’s what’s led me to
(21:41) appreciate the role of a wife, the role of a husband, and the covenant between them, right? So devoting yourself to this egregor or however you want to phrase it that is created through the bond. And of course that perspective has led me to uh consider very differently you know the opportunity that women have thanks to a lot of the agendas that I’ve been working hard to expose whether it’s feminism or sexual liberation the opportunity that we have to have you know recreational pleasure-based sex and to disregard our role as keepers of the species. Right. So you were you’re talking about making babies and so
(22:27) let’s say we’re already speaking to folks who understand that there is a a special role for sexual intimacy in and only in marriage. Right? So let’s just work off of that premise. you have a a very uh clear perspective on what dating should be all about, right? So, if it’s not going to be about trying out, you know, your sexual compatibility with each and every person or maybe occasionally just having an experience for, you know, the hell of it and you are intent on marrying, right? So, that is your goal in dating whether it’s, you know, you’re young in life or
(23:12) later in life. You talk about how dating is to find your husband. Tell me what that means exactly. I think dating was invented as a means of choosing the right spouse. The argument was if men and women don’t get to know each other, boys and girls don’t get to know each other. All of a sudden you have to pick a spouse for the rest of your life, how do you know what to pick? How do you know what to So, you need to get to know the opposite sex.
(23:48) It has been a colossal failure and nobody wants to admit it. Since dating became a thing, marriage has gone down the drain. It has destroyed marriage. How long are we going to keep this experiment going? It’s really how a people become extinct. When you undermine marriage and other things become more important in a very short time, the entire society becomes extinct. Nobody kills them.
(24:17) They just fade away. So we’ve reached a critical point. In Europe, the population growth is negative. And dating means there is someone who is meant for me. Because every soul is both male and female. And the male and female parts get divided at birth into a man and a woman somehow miraculously by divine plan. They they find each other.
(24:51) Sometimes from ends of the world. Sometimes as a result of great upheavals, they suddenly find themselves in the same place and they meet. It’s all miraculous. It’s all mystical. But those two halves of the soul come back together. It is a reunion. If it’s just a union, it’s not a marriage. Marriage by definition is a reunion.
(25:16) And that’s why they can become one because they were once one. Dating means you’re looking for your husband. Like this woman who said many years ago, she said, “I’m trying to get married. I really want to get married. I’ve been going out and dating.” And where are all the men? You’ve heard this? I have.
(25:43) I said, “Where all the men are is none of your business. You’re not marrying all the men.” She says, “No, I mean a man.” Said, “Well, you’ve never met a man.” She says, “No, I mean somebody special.” You never met anybody special. She says, “I’m talking about the one for me.” The one for you, aka husband. So, you’re really not even looking for a man, a special man, a great man.
(26:16) You’re not looking for a man. You’re looking for your husband. That’s very different. Because if you’re thinking husband, you’ll probably choose someone very different than if you were thinking a man. You don’t date the kind of person you want to marry. Scary thought. The men who make good dates don’t make good husbands.
(26:40) So now the dating has taken on an existence of its own. It has nothing to do with marriage anymore. In fact, it’s like an alternative to marriage. You have a meaningful relationship for the weekend or the year. Meaningful. Meaningful. How meaningful is it when you keep your eye on the escape hatch on the back door that you can slip out of and disappear? Okay.
(27:06) So, dating has become a kind of a semi-marriage, virtual marriage, partial marriage. The devastation when it ends is just like a divorce. Rips your heart out with none of the benefits. By the time you do get married, how many pieces of your heart are gone? So, the way to date properly is meet a guy. Don’t even call it dating anymore. I don’t know what dating means.
(27:36) You want to know how old I am? Is that is that what dating is? You meet a guy, you talk to him. Is he marriageable? No. Then goodbye. Oh, work on a relationship. There’s nothing more disturbing than that. You don’t really like each other, but you’re working on it. Why? Why? You don’t like each other, you say goodbye.
(28:03) So, dating someone for 3 years, that is cruel and unusual punishment. Never ever. If he won’t marry you at the end of two months, you don’t want him. Are you really that complex and that complicated that after two months he doesn’t even know whether he wants to marry you? That’s insulting by the way. Oh, you’re nice and everything but but but who knows? Oh, come on. It’s not nice.
(28:27) There are even people who get married but won’t have children because, you know, this might not work out. Oh, what a way to get married. I’ll marry you, but I’m not sure I really want to be married to you. So, come on. This is so ridiculous and it’s so hurtful.
(28:54) I speak to a lot of women about how the rot, as I perceive it, at the core of so many flailing marriages or even failing marriages is that the woman has never actually chosen this man. And I’ve heard you speak about how it is that you you know that it’s your husband. It’s like quite simple. So I’d love for you to share that. Well, obviously you have to share values because you’re going to share a life. Sharing a life means moving in the same direction.
(29:29) So of course you check that out. You discuss that and so on. But what’s the clincher? Okay, he’s got a good life. I want to share his life. I want to be part of his life. We want to work at this together. But why him? The clincher is chemistry. On paper, it all sounds good, but that’s not good enough.
(29:52) There has to be this positive or good chemistry which means that when the man is sitting with the woman unlike all other women this woman makes him feel like a man not she is a great woman she makes him feel comfortable being a man and he somehow makes her feel comfortable being a That is not going to happen with every eligible bachelor. When it happens, it’s the clincher.
(30:24) What does it mean to feel like a man? The feeling is I would love to take responsibility to take care of this woman for the rest of my life. That’s masculine. I will bring or do or create or achieve whatever is necessary to make her life good. It’s called aggressive because it’s proactive and not because it’s violent.
(30:49) The woman on the other hand is thinking, “Oh, I I could trust him. I could close my eyes or follow him wherever he wants to go.” She feels like a woman or better like a wife. Cuz there are men and women who get married, but she never becomes a wife and he never becomes a husband cuz there’s no glamour in that. So, they’re both looking for a glamorous life while sharing an apartment.
(31:12) But he’s not a husband and she’s not a wife. And that doesn’t work. They’re alone in the world. So, dating should be a very selfish process. You don’t owe him anything. He’s a total stranger. You’re checking him out selfishly. Do I like him? Do I like his looks? Do I like his his body language? Do I like his thinking? Do I like his personality? It’s all very, very selfish.
(31:40) You’re not trying to impress him because you don’t care. He’s a stranger. All you’re doing is checking him out. People don’t do that. They become very personal with a date. You’re hoping to make a good impression. Why? You’re not there to sell yourself. It’s so degrading. You’re there to check him out. And if after a couple of weeks there’s nothing happening, it’s over.
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(33:30) And if you don’t completely love it after 6 weeks, you can return it for a full refund, no questions asked. Enjoy. There’s a simple piece of advice that I I’ve heard you share that I have held in my heart when I’ve spoken to other friends who are dating and ending relationships, etc. Because I I like to teach women to just have a no, right? Not a no because a million validating reasons, recruiting evidence, all these things.
(34:03) And and I’ve heard you say that when you end a relationship, when you end a dynamic, especially in this dating world we’re talking about, whatever that even means, giving a reason is an offense, right? To give any sort of a reason why, rather than just to end it, as you’re saying, to keep it nice and clean.
(34:23) But a lot of women feel like they need to educate this man about what he did wrong or what he’s doing wrong or what he could have done better in order to make it work. And that flies in the face of what you’re suggesting, which is it’s not about making it work. It’s is he your husband or is he not? And that should be clear in a couple of months, it sounds like. Yeah. Giving a reason is cruel. Well, you’re just not um bright enough.
(34:44) Uh you’re just not man enough. Oh, that’s devastating. Yeah. And likely a projection as well. Who knows? And you speak about the man’s role in initiating the commitment, right? So, initiating the marriage and I know many women who have initiated this marriage conversation, who are the ones who get impatient, who say, “Well, you know, maybe even give an ultimatum or say, you know, it’s time for us to talk about marriage.
(35:17) Are we getting married? And maybe this is a year or two years even into the dating process.” So, what do you feel ideally it looks like for a marriage to be um like what is the the commencement point, right? Like how does it begin uh that commitment and what should it look like? The last thing you want to do is emasculate your husband cuz you’re the you’re the one who’s going to suffer, right? You don’t want to emasculate your husband if you say to him before he is your husband. So, are you going to make up your mind pretty soon or what’s taking you so long? That’s it. He’s
(35:50) emasculated now. You don’t want to marry him? It’s so easy to emasculate men. See, when a man insults a woman, it hurts her feelings. She’s not defeminized. But if you insult a man, it’s not just his feelings that are hurt. He is emasculated. It’s very different.
(36:20) So if she has to demand, then she is immediately assuming the role of the husband, turning him into the wife, and then she’s going to complain that he’s not mad enough. If, in fact, you do have to demand that he make up his mind. That means you don’t want to marry him. So don’t force him to make up his mind. Just say goodbye. So you just sit there and wait for him to make up his mind.
(36:40) Two years, 3 years. No, it’s very very common that the woman decides to marry him long before he decides to marry her. Very common. If he knows that she is ready and he’s not, he’s emasculated. I tell young men, you want to ruin your marriage before it even gets off the ground, come home from the wedding and say, “So, what do you want to do now?” That’s it. You’re finished. She hates you.
(37:18) You have to be the aggressor. She wants to rely on you, trust you, lean on you, depend on you, and you’re asking her, “What do you want to do now?” Oh, he’s just being polite and thoughtful and considerate. She doesn’t want that. She wants a man. There’s the rub of so much of the programming we’ve been subjected to.
(37:44) I know that you so emasculated to begin with in this generation. Exactly. People say, “Where are all the men?” I don’t know. You destroyed them pretty much. I know that you are a believer and supporter of having a third party, if we want to call it that, a matchmaker. of somebody who is identified as the facilitator of these uh potential unions and with whom the man and the woman communicate in lie of communicating directly with each other and I couldn’t agree more that that is the ideal design and I’d love to just hear a bit more about why you think that that actually sets these dynamics up for their true marital
(38:33) potential when there’s a matchmaker involved. It’s just so humane. It’s so considerate. No one should ever get hurt in the process of getting married. So, when you’re dating, there’s all sorts of dangers, all sorts of potential hurts. It takes a chunk out of your heart, and that should never happen.
(39:00) So, you meet a guy, you’re going to give him your number, your email address, you’re going to promise him another date after the at the end of the first one. What if you don’t want to? So, instead of uh making commitments that you don’t really mean to make after the first date, nothing is promised, nothing is said. Thank you very much. Nice meeting you. Bye-bye.
(39:29) You call the matchmaker and it doesn’t have to be a professional, a friend, an older friend, somebody to run interference. You call the matchmaker and you say, “Yeah, I I I I would like to meet again.” She conveys the message. He wants to meet again. She sets up a date. You’re still total strangers with each other. Safe.
(39:52) You go out, you meet a second time. No promises, no commitments, no phone numbers. You each report to the matchmaker and the matchmaker tells you what the other side is ready for. If the guy thinks, I’m ready to propose, he doesn’t do it unless the matchmaker says yes, she’s ready to say yes. So, you never propose and then be told no. That can set you back a year or two.
(40:22) can certainly ruin your day. So, no one ever gets hurt. It’s so humane. It’s so considerate cuz it’s so common. A man goes out with a woman, she has a great time. He’s not so she says, “Oh, thank you so much. That was really wonderful.
(40:50) Uh, should we get together tomorrow?” and he wants to say no, but he’s a nice guy and doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. So, he figures what’s the harm? Okay, fine with the Now, she thinks he’s ready to marry her. So, at the end of the second date, she’s like asking him to propose. He doesn’t even want to see her again. So, she says, “Okay, tomorrow.” She’s so eager. What is he going to do? He says, “Yes.
(41:13) ” Now, he hates himself. How am I getting out? How do I get out of this? So, he goes on a third date to tell her why he’s not interested. Of course, she’s going to say, “Why?” He’s going to tell her, “You’re not interested. You tell the shatan.” You tell the the matchmaker, “I’m not interested.” She calls up the other party and she says, “No, it’s not working.
(41:40) ” Why? I don’t know. I need closure. There’s nothing to close. you just met twice. There’s no hard feelings. It’s like you went shopping and they don’t have your size shoe. It’s not an emotional crisis. You met the guy, he’s not your size, so you move on. It’s very considerate. It’s very, very kind and thoughtful. It’s the right way.
(42:06) Also, it’s not going to go on for 3 years. The matchmaker won’t allow that. There’s something that happens in my system just listening to this prospect because it just drains the field of so much complexity and neurosis and the potential as you’re saying to really inflict unnecessary harm, you know, on each other. And it feels intentional and clean and respectful.
(42:37) And I know that the role of respect particularly from a woman to a man as you’re suggesting is it’s paramount. And if you are beginning interactions whether they have potential or not in this emasculating potentially disrespectful way, it’s just contributing to a lot of noise between men and women that uh ultimately um clouds things for for all of us. So I am so appreciative for your perspectives.
(43:10) As I said, they feel like I’m like I’ve been jolted out of some sort of anesthetic experience, you know, of Yeah. very much interfering with what it is that I want as a woman. Watching women get in their own way and really impede the fruition like of their heart’s yearning this this girlhood dream to experience the belonging uh that this kind of union can can afford.
(43:42) And I um you it’s endless pearls of wisdom. I want to end on one because I think of you all the time uh when I’m with my kids actually you know because we’ve been talking about man–woman dynamics here but of course there’s so much wisdom that you have to share about parenting and and so much of this applies in these other relational arenas of course right but I think I believe it’s something I read in your book I I don’t remember where I came across it but you talk about not yelling to communicate from the other room as a form of
(44:18) respecting someone. And it’s so simple. I live in a two-floor house, you know, with my teenage daughters, and it’s very tempting to yell up to communicate something to my daughter. And if I just take a moment to feel my my deep regard for this human being, right? my my love for this specific child, right? Then it’s very worth it to take 30 seconds and walk up the stairs and look her in the eyes and speak to her, even if it’s to say, you know, what do you want for breakfast? And that simple, as I’m saying over and over again, that simple reminder has
(45:05) been very powerful for me because it’s it’s rehumanized, it’s redignified, it’s brought integrity into these little mundane family moments in in such a simple and powerful way. So, I wonder if you Yeah. if you have any any final words particularly for for women in household dynamics um with their husbands, any women just walking around in the world to to bring more of this spirit of regard for for each other as as human beings that I think you have a special way of helping us to remember. I think there was a there was a disaster
(45:46) that started in the 60s when all of a sudden parents, grandparents, great-grandparents became totally irrelevant and embarrassing. Anybody over 30 years old was an embarrassment. We’re paying the price for that now. And it’s it’s a big price, steep. We need a little more respect. Children desperately want to see respect between husband and wife.
(46:11) If they’re just two kids, the husband and the wife playing and behaving like kids, your children have no chance. They feel more mature than you. It’s a disaster. So when they see respect between parents, they gain respect for parents, then they have parents. And when you have parents, you’re normal.
(46:35) When you don’t have parents, you’re not normal. So, as much as parents should respect their children’s dignity and not talk to them like they’re calling their dog, get over here. What is that? What is that? The children also have to respect the parents. And the parents who dismiss it. Oh, no, no, no. It’s okay. You can talk to me. You can you can call me by my first name. You can sit in my chair.
(47:08) You can disagree with me in public. No, they can’t. If you want your child to be a healthy human being, you don’t let them sit in your chair and you don’t let them uh disagree with you in public and they cannot call you by your first name. Then they know they are children of someone.
(47:31) But if they can sit in your chair and they can say whatever they want to you at any time and call you by your first name, they don’t have a mother. Not good to not have a mother. Everyone needs a mother. So in in a very very brief summary of the whole thing, maybe our grandmothers knew something after all. Maybe that old-fashioned way of doing things was a little smarter than what we’re up to.
(47:55) So we have to revisit that. Like if you asked your grandmother, “What happens in the bedroom?” Your grandmother says, “Nothing.” That could be the wisest answer of all. In a bedroom, there’s no thing. What do you mean what happens? There’s just them. There’s just two people with nothing, no agenda or performance as you call it.
(48:20) It’s not about having the best sex. It’s about having each other. So, what happens? No thing. That’s intimacy. And that bond forever and ever. Even if you get divorced, that bond will not go away. And that’s very good for the kids. Children growing up in in the in the in the shadow of bonded parents. They’re healthy. They know their roots and they they like it.
(48:59) They don’t want to get away from the parents as quickly as possible which is very painful and sad. So yes, life can be very very good. Just follow the rules. Thank you for anchoring them for us and for ceaselessly uh sharing. you know, I I can see the passion that you have for the restoration of these values, and it really doesn’t take much more than hearing it sometimes from the right person in the right place, and you’ve been that for me in so many ways.
(49:39) So, I’m so grateful and I look forward to sharing your resources with everyone listening. So, thank you, Rabbi Friedman. You just did. Thank you for that. [Music] I feel like I feel good.
