There’s no tradition of being happily single in the Jewish religion. Whereas a Christian woman can aspire to be the next Mother Teresa, the Jews have the likes of Jessica Sklar, best known for marrying Jerry Seinfeld, as a role model. This value can be traced all the way back to the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, which says that it’s not good for a person to be alone and urges man and woman to procreate.
But you don’t have to read the Bible to know it. All you have to do is live in the modern world. It is clear that the greatest joy a Jewish mother could have is to see her son or daughter married–with children on the way. Mention an engagement and everyone even peripherally involved will be showered with an avalanche of Mazel Tovs. It’s as though the act of getting engaged were a greater feat than the discovery of the polio vaccine.
To the Jews, marriage is the ultimate achievement. As I recall, when the acclaimed Jewish playwright Wendy Wasserstein won the Pulitzer Prize for “The Heidi Chronicles,” her mother said something to the effect of “I wish we were celebrating her wedding instead.” What’s worse is that no one can imagine that a single woman might choose to stay single. For instance, one day I was riding in the car with my mother, brother, sister-in-law and two nieces. My brother, an internist, was talking about the lack of dedicated doctors in the country today, particularly those in high-stress medical professions such as cardiac surgery and oncology. He thought part of the problem was that too many women were going into those branches of the profession. “It’s no good because a woman can’t commit to a career. A woman’s going to get married and have children.” I could have been invisible.
If you get married in your 30s, you’re a late bloomer. If you’re still single in your 40s, you may as well plan your own funeral, unless you want everyone in your family to do it for you. I remember when my niece got married at 23. I sat next to another niece at the wedding ceremony.
“Why didn’t you ever get married?” she asked innocently. “I’m not dead yet,” I answered tersely.
After the wedding my mother complained that she had spent more than a $1,000 on a gown for the event. “When will I ever get to wear that dress again?” she complained to me. “I guess I’ll have to wait for Craig’s wedding.” Craig is my 23-year-old nephew who isn’t even in a casual relationship, but my mother just wanted to let me know that as far as she was concerned, I was never getting married.
A week later my other brother informed me that his temple was having a sale on cemetery plots and that he had reserved me a space next to him and my other sister-in-law. To me, that was as good as saying that I would never at this point meet a man who I might logically want to be buried next to when it was my turn to pass over.
At one point, for about a month, I was dating a 48-year-old Irishman whom I had met online. It had been an intense time in which we had seen each other at least twice a week. Then one day the man mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth without an explanation. I was telling my brother about it, when he told me, “Barb [my sister-in-law] says that men who are that age have so much baggage it’s impossible to form a relationship with them.” This little tidbit circulated around my family where all came to the conclusion that my cause was lost.
Then I joined a dating service that catered exclusively to Jewish people, but most of the men interested in me were 20 years my senior. I wondered if the fact that I am past childbearing years means I am confined to dealing with hopelessly immature men. “I can still get married,” I defiantly declared to my mother one day. “Well,” she responded, “you’ve had a lot of opportunities to get married if you had wanted to take them.” “That doesn’t mean it’s all over,” I snarled. “No,” replied my mother, “but some people never meet the right one.”
It’s my fondest desire in life to prove them all wrong. I have a fantasy in which I meet a younger man who’s wealthier than Bill Gates, sweeter than Mr. Rogers and better looking than the late JFK Jr. Then, I wonder, will the Jews accept me again? More to the point, will I want them back?
