Earlier this week was Simchat Torah, the day when Jews all over the world press the rewind button on their Torah scrolls (this results in lots of dancing and jumping, probably because nobody wants to be the person with enough energy to actually rewind the scroll - and because dancing is fun). Which means today we started at the beginning again. I was amused that there is a page of commentary on the first half verse in the Torah, which consists of about 6 words. Most of that commentary was basically saying that the Biblical story of creation should not be taken literally and explaining how someone can deny that the story is literally true without claiming that it is false. It's nice to know that some people really don't have anything important to do with their time (an interesting thing to write in a blog).
Moving on, we had the first story of creation. The commentary pointed out that after the second day of creation, God did not end the day by observing that things were good. So according to God, Mondays are not good, but all other days are. Tuesday is the day of earth and fertile lands, which I find interesting for personal linguistic reasons.
Then we get to the second creation story. This is the one with few details about the world being made and lots of details about people being made. I've always liked the bit about how man and woman were separated and are supposed to rejoin in marriage. I've had four girlfriends for a total of just over 9.5 years of romantic relationships, and somehow that just seems like the right way to put things. The brother of one of my girlfriends asked why she would date someone when she had no intention of getting married ever and how it was different from being friends. But it really is different from just being friends, because there is some amount of joining together. Everyone I have dated has left an impression on me - some part of themselves that will always be with me. The closer we got, the stronger the impression is. My friends have changed me too, but in much weaker ways.
This summer I spent a lot of time thinking about my time at MIT, which inevitably included a lot of thinking about my past relationships. One thing that I realized is that while I had a good time with my previous girlfriends (and have many good memories involving them), Mira is the one who properly completes me. She both makes me a better person and has strengths where I have weaknesses. The two of us together are far more capable than either of us would be alone. There are many examples of how we work well together as partners. At this point I really do feel like I was an incomplete person waiting for Mira to fill in the areas that I was missing.
But this joining together goes beyond just helping each other out. When I asked Mira to marry me, I wrote an essay describing why I loved her and wanted to marry her and what that means to me. Part of that was based on this section of the bible, with two people joining together to become one. People can be joined physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I think that's the right order. Physical is definitely first, because it is the easiest and also the only one that can't be maintained indefinitely. Being emotionally joined is a wonderful experience, although you have to be careful about emotions traveling between people. Mental and spiritual joining are more subtle and I don't think we've really gotten there yet. Mira and I have spent very little time apart from each other in the past 5 years, but we have felt the separation each time. I really can't imagine my life without her.
Going back to the Torah reading of the day, I also like the Jewish concept that God started creation and left it to us to complete it. More on that later.
(By the way, I don't think the male/female thing is particularly important to this concept, and I recognize that other people have different concepts of dating, love, and marriage which I respect as equally valid)
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