The approach to marriage that seems best to me is the way that it basically worked for me. I put off going to university for some years and instead decided to go to a Lithuanian kind of Yeshiva. In yeshiva things were on the fast track to lead to marriage. Every week there was at least one "Vort." [announcement] I felt left out but from many indications the Rosh Yeshiva was planning on me for his son in law. So other offers were dried up. In the meantime I kept up a friendship with a girl I knew in Beverly Hills High school. I explained to her on the phone a few times what Torah is about and she got all excited about it, and started herself implying she was interested in a shiduch [marriage] with me. Eventually I took the second girl -the one from California. But marriage then was of a different nature than it is today. Though this is hard to explain. The basic idea is you have two people going into a relationship in which the rules and obligations are clear and accepted by them and by everyone around them.
This is very difficult to explain in a modern context.
I am not saying this is better or worse than Marriage in the modern world. But my point is that it is "Rule Based." where the rules are very well spelled out.
It is not just that you and your wife accept the rules of the Torah. It is that the whole world around you also does.
What are the rules? Mainly you have to spend about a year on each major tractate in Nashim [Mishna] to get an idea. That is one year on Ketubot, one year on Kidushin, another on Gittin, etc.
There is also I have to mention the invaluable Sidur of Yaakov Emden which has a part in it which goes into marriage in detail.
The main reason why I emphasis a Lithuanian yeshiva is that that is the kind of place where as a rule the Sitra Achra is excluded. That is they go mainly with the Gra and Rav Shach and keep out the Dark Side. I mean to say in the large context of the Religious world, the Sitra Achra is in control. (This is why people that become religious in general become bad people and lose whatever good character they may have had beforehand.) So in terms of those who try to keep Torah most are infected by the virus of the Sitra Achra without their being aware of it. So to get any benefit out of Torah in a way that one does not lose more by becoming an agent of the Dark Side, this is only possible in a Litvak environment.
[I should mention that Reb Nachman himself was very aware of this problem and warned about it. But the only group that got his point is the Na Nach people.]
This is very difficult to explain in a modern context.
I am not saying this is better or worse than Marriage in the modern world. But my point is that it is "Rule Based." where the rules are very well spelled out.
It is not just that you and your wife accept the rules of the Torah. It is that the whole world around you also does.
What are the rules? Mainly you have to spend about a year on each major tractate in Nashim [Mishna] to get an idea. That is one year on Ketubot, one year on Kidushin, another on Gittin, etc.
There is also I have to mention the invaluable Sidur of Yaakov Emden which has a part in it which goes into marriage in detail.
The main reason why I emphasis a Lithuanian yeshiva is that that is the kind of place where as a rule the Sitra Achra is excluded. That is they go mainly with the Gra and Rav Shach and keep out the Dark Side. I mean to say in the large context of the Religious world, the Sitra Achra is in control. (This is why people that become religious in general become bad people and lose whatever good character they may have had beforehand.) So in terms of those who try to keep Torah most are infected by the virus of the Sitra Achra without their being aware of it. So to get any benefit out of Torah in a way that one does not lose more by becoming an agent of the Dark Side, this is only possible in a Litvak environment.
[I should mention that Reb Nachman himself was very aware of this problem and warned about it. But the only group that got his point is the Na Nach people.]
