JFL Feb 07 issue 10

8-page pull-out section!
FEBRUARY 2007 • VOLUM E 1 • ISSUE 10
Notable & Quotable: page 30
Parenting Tips from the Palm Tree: page 31
Heart to Heart: page 32
Heaven’s Sweetest Creation: page 35 •
The Paradox of Passion
Couples expert Esther Perel explores the nexus of commitment and desire
BY SIMONA FUMA
HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS DEAL WITH THEIR EXPERIENCES IN DIFFERENT WAYS. Some
become suspicious of the outside world, while others feel the need to commemorate the past at
every opportunity. For Esther Perel’s parents, their survival of the death camps turned them into
people who relished the gift of renewed life. “They possessed a thirst for life, thrived on
exuberant experiences, and loved to have a good time. They cultivated pleasure,” she writes in
her book, “Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic.”
Inspired by their example, Perel became a family therapist who sought to help couples
relate to one another to the fullest. But in the course of her career, she noticed a pattern:
couples who were giddily in love when they first met quickly lost the spark that first drew them
to one another. Better “communication,” that cure-all of couples counselors the world over, did
little to renew the freshness these couples were seeking. In fact, their relationships embodied a
paradox: the safer and more secure a couple felt with one another, the less likely they were to
experience the rush of passion.
“Sometimes too much closeness [stifles excitement],” Perel explains in a telephone
interview with JEWISH FAMILY LIFE from her home in New York. “In the course of
establishing the stability and security of our relationships, we sometimes strangle the vitality
out of [them].”
So what does she recommend? Well, since Perel considers this paradox of passion
something you “manage, not a problem that you solve,” her message is ultimately less
reassuring than the pithy formulas most self-help books offer. Her advice is to “think about
ways you might introduce risk to safety, mystery to the familiar and novelty to the
enduring.”
For instance, in a chapter entitled The Shadow of the Third, Perel describes how a
“third” person can help a couple recapture their initial spark of attraction. It involves
seeing your partner with new eyes.
“[W]e, too, can peek at our partner with the admiring eyes of a stranger, noticing again what habit has prevented us from seeing,” she writes. To illustrate
this point, Perel’s book tells the Talmudic story of Rabbi Bar Ashi, whose
spurned wife disguises herself as another woman to help rekindle her
husband’s interest.
“When we go into committed relationships where we want to experience
security and stability, we often shut ourselves down to the surprises of life,”
Perel says. “We want to turn our partner into a fixed, predictable known entity.
But then we complain easily about marital boredom.”
Despite Perel’s admission that her theory flies in the face of common
wisdom, judging from the critical and popular response to the book, Perel’s
message has struck a chord with many couples.
Entering a second printing cycle just three months after its September
CONTINUED ON PAGE 34
While most couples therapists believe emotional intimacy begets desire,
Esther Perel says it’s exactly the opposite.
PHOTOS FROM TOP: NICK FREE; COURTESY OF ESTHER PEREL
34
JEWISH FAMILY LIFE
FEBRUARY 2007
Love Is a Jewish Business
Esther Perel is just the latest in a long line of Jewish therapists and
relationship counselors. Here’s a sampling of
what some of them have had to say:
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
The father of psychoanalysis, this Viennese therapist is
responsible for such ideas as the unconscious, the id,
the ego and the “Oedipal complex.” Oh, and don’t
forget those “Freudian slips!”
ON … WOMEN
“The great question that has never been answered, and which I
have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research
into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?‘”
Abigail Van Buren (1918- ) aka Dear Abby; (real life
name: Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips)
One of the most widely-syndicated newspaper columns in the world, “Dear Abby” was
founded in 1956 when, as the story goes, “Abby” told the editor of the San Francisco
Chronicle that she could do a better job than the current columnist. The rest, as they
say, is history.
ON … WEDDINGS
“[The perfect wedding] is one that is everything the bride and groom want it to be—with
the understanding that they take time to explore not only what they want but how to get it.
Keep in mind that getting there is half the fun.”
Ann Landers (1918-2002); (real life name:
Esther “Eppie” Pauline Friedman Lederer)
Born 17 minutes earlier than her twin sister
“Dear Abby,” Landers had a fan base that
spanned across North America. Her 47year-long advice column was known for its
brazen wit, directness and common sense.
ON … LOVE
“If you have love in your life, it can make up for a
great many things that are missing. If you don’t
have love in your life, no matter what else there is, it’s
not enough.”
‘Dr. Ruth’ Westheimer (1928- )
Despite her humble beginnings as a 17-year-old orphan in the newly-formed Israeli
Haganah, this unabashedly candid sex-expert has made a name for herself on
radio, television, in print and the college classroom. She is the author of
31 books (and counting!).
ON … MARRIAGE
“No two marriages are quite alike, and … you should not think
of yours as something that should meet all the standards of
some outside authority but as your own odd but absolutely
charming marriage, an owl-and-the-pussycat marriage, with its
own quite individual story unfolding.”
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (1966- )
Self-branded as “America’s Rabbi,” Shmuley Boteach has won international
acclaim through his appearances on radio, television and in print. He is currently
the host of TLC’s Shalom in the Home and the author of 17 books, among them the
bestselling “Kosher Sex.”
ON … INTIMACY
“Unlike Christianity, in Judaism lust in marriage is as important as love. It is not enough for a
husband to cherish his wife. He is obligated to desire her as well. That’s why the ninth
commandment forbids us to covet our neighbor’s wife, which, by implication, means we
should be coveting our own.”
PHOTOS FROM TOP: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY HULTON ARCHIVE; MCT; KATJA LENZ/AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29
release, the book has already sold tens of thousands of copies and is currently being
published in at least 12 different countries. Perel says that the international success
of her book proves that the dilemma she captures is pervasive not just in the U.S.,
but across the Western world.
“What I say … almost sounds somewhat blasphemous,” Perel says.
“[But] once the French bought a book about [relationships] coming from
the U.S., I knew that I was speaking to a [very broad] audience.”
True to form, Perel has been invited to discuss her theories of intimacy on TV
in Canada, Britain and the United States, where she has appeared on NBC’s
Today Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show, among others. In addition, her book,
which has both a popular and intellectual appeal, has been reviewed and
recommended in publications ranging from Redbook and Good Housekeeping to the
Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker. “Perel’s ideas are like the chorus of a really good
pop song,” writes Polly Vernon in London’s The Observer, “instantly familiar because
they resonate deeply.”
Maintaining that ‘charge,’ Perel
says, is essential to the long-term
health of a relationship. If you try to
hold fast to a relationship, it dies,
Perel says, and really, such a paradox
should come as no surprise.
Indeed, with her French accent and frank speech, Perel is a thinking woman’s Dr.
Ruth. Born in Belgium in 1958, Perel partially credits her insights to her culturally
diverse background. She moved to Israel at age 18 where she studied French and
educational psychology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Six years later, she
ventured to the U.S. to complete her graduate degree in art therapy at Lesley College
in Boston, and also studied family therapy with Dr. Salvador Minuchin, one of the
founders of the field. There she met and married her husband of 21 years, Jack Saul,
with whom she has two children.
Speaking eight different languages—including English, Hebrew, Yiddish and
French—and practicing psychotherapy in six, Perel has spent the last 22 years
counseling couples from all over the world. Along with the more modern
constituency of her multilingual clientele, Perel counsels people from very
traditional societies, such as ultra-Orthodox Jews, and couples from
societies transitioning toward greater individualism, like Poland and Turkey.
In the course of these sessions and her travels, Perel has noticed drastic
differences in the way people of different cultures express themselves. “It
is like the observation that many foreigners who come to New York have
that people don’t look at each other here,” Perel says. Compared to
Europeans, she adds, Americans bring a much more “pragmatic, goal-oriented
approach” to human interaction. Describing the sense of play that characterizes
a place like Israel, she says, “There is a real electric charge on the street.”
Maintaining that “charge,” Perel says, is essential to the long-term health of a
relationship. If you try to hold fast to a relationship, it dies, Perel says, and really, such
a paradox should come as no surprise. After all, as Oscar Wilde once famously quipped:
“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is getting what one wants, and the
other is not getting it.”
Simona Fuma is the Israel editor for World Jewish Digest.