Let's let these words of poet John Shea which he titles, "A Marriage Prayer," serve as our opening text for this first day our new year.
 
 

He said he would never go away
and she said she would always be there
so they got an apartment
with a bedroom set that cost too much
and ate spaghetti and Chianti
with breadsticks and butter.

His 'the sky's-the-limit' potential
ceilinged at forty
and she got pregnant
a respectable three times.

The best was when she would park the kids at her mother's
and meet him after work
for drinks and dinner.

They would find out
who they were living with
and then go on as always.

The night of their first daughter's wedding
they wondered about it all
and got weeping drunk.

Once when they were going to see
her mother in the nursing home, she knew she loved him
and cried.

He told her not to worry.

On the dresser in the bedroom
they have photos of their grandchildren
holding hands with Mickey Mouse at Disney World.

They never thought their love a fire so it did not burn out,
this man who would never go away
and this woman who would always be there.

It's Rosh HaShanah- a New Year and we're going to take a look at "The Covenant of Love: Marriage." And if the text for this message derives from those tender words of Mr.Shea, well then our context is the second book of the Torah, Shemot-Exodus.

Our theme, you'll remember, for these High Holy Days is "WE'RE TALKING TORAH," and between last evening and ten days from now, at the close of Yom Kippur, we'll be searching for some of the deeper insights to be found within those five sacred books.

Last night we examined Genesis and Creation. We spoke of that inescapable question beyond all others which God not only posed to Adam in the Garden of Eden, but which is every bit as much ours to address just as long as we have life: "Vayeh-ka? Where Are You?"- in your life, your relationship with God and your fellows, your efforts at living the good life.

So now, to Exodus, and I can imagine that you are wondering, well, how in the world does the Rabbi intend to take us from the bonds of slavery in Exodus to the Holy Bonds of love; how from Charoset and matzah of the Seder to chupah and marriage? Well let's take a look at Exodus.

Biblical scholars have been bold to wonder, why the long drawn out story of Hebrew enslavement? Why not just begin with the heights of Revelation? There are many obvious responses, but the answer I like best is that those first several chapters of Exodus established our people's encounter with fateful history. You'll remember that in its very first verses, the children of Jacob have gone down to Egypt and, as generation succeeded generation, there became numerous, in fact too numerous for a neurotic Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.

Scholar Arnold Eisen provides a worthy insight here. He insists that underscoring all of these first 18 chapters of Exodus - the hopelessness of slavery, the brutality of the oppressors, baby Moses floating in the basket on the Nile, the bush which burned but would not be consumed, the plagues imposed upon the Egyptians, the freedom granted, the soldiers of Pharaoh in hot pursuit, the Red Sea that divided- underscoring all- is this central and eternal lesson:
 

Until we face up to history, then, attend to its inexorable demands, understanding the time and place into which we are called to act, we are not ready for mature promises to (either) each other or to God.

People ask me, "Well, how do you know anything even happened on that mountain top?" Truth is, I don't. But for 35 to 40 centuries our people have affirmed that something entirely unique took place there. The special relationship between Abraham and his God, about which we have just read in our Torah this morning, was intensified, if you will. The stakes were raised. At Sinai, amid the sounds of the Shofar, our people entered into an eternal covenant with God. Tradition holds that at Sinai the Jewish people and God were wed! And the "ring" that was exchanged to seal the deal was the Torah, the very pinnacle of moral law.

Listen. Despite our human folly, our short-sightedness and unfaithfulness, (witnessed only verses later with the shameful golden calf incident) God's plan is to take us as we are - capable of greatness as well as gross stupidity; holiness and selflessness, as well as haughtiness and betrayal.

Simply put - and don't day dream now- The Jewish faith, my dear friends, believes that Kiddushin, marriage, represents in microcosm, a covenant of love fully symbolic of that eternal and unbreachable covenant to which all of the events in the book of Exodus lead. Do you know that Jewish legend insists that the soul of every Jew ever to be born was present at Mount Sinai at that moment of revelation. Be that as it may, this much is certain. Most of us in our lifetime will have the sacred privilege to enter into marriage, the Covenant of Love. And so I believe it a subject richly deserving our utmost attention on this holy day when we commemorate the ancient covenant at Sinai.

Think about it. Almost everyone who is here today has been married, or is already, or will, someday be married, (and for half of us, more than once!) Don't forget that this year the notion of Jewish holy union has also been enlarged by the Reform Rabbinate to include same sex covenants of love- and rightly so!

Perhaps never in the entire history of the Jewish people, has this subject of marriage been more complex. A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled over an old lamp. He picked it up, rubbed it, and out popped a genie.

The genie said, 'Okay. You released me from the lamp, blah, blah, blah. I'll give you a single wish and not one more.'

The man stopped to think and suggested:

'You know, I've always wanted to see Hawaii, but I'm scared to fly and suffer terrible seasickness. So build me a bridge to Hawaii and I'll drive there.'

'You're kidding,' the genie laughed.' That's an impossible wish. Get real. The logistics and engineering make that wish the most outlandish I've ever heard. Make another wish, Buddy.'

After some time, the man said, 'Well, I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always say that I'm clueless and insensitive. So here's my wish. I want to understand women. I want to know how they feel and what they're thinking and why they're crying or what makes them truly happy.'

And the genie replied, 'You want that bridge to Hawaii two lanes or four?'

It's true, men and women, we are so often mysterious to one another! Unpredictable, emotionally explosive, full of inconsistencies, insecurities and desires to be met. And all of that is under the best of circumstances, mind you.

What were those idiots thinking when last February they broadcast, "Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire?" Twenty-three million viewers watched Darva Conger marry Rick Rockwell in a nation-wide degradation of human love and marriage. This was no Covenant of Love! It was an appalling spectacle! And shame on anyone and everyone whose naked greed led them to try to make a buck off of it.

I remember a prospective groom once asking me,

Rabbi, can't we just stand up and say we love each other and want to live together? Why all the vows and the to-do?

My answer was direct: "Because that's not Judaism's way." And then I shared with him these well-known words of Thornton Wilder's character, Mrs. Antrobus, from the play, "Skin Of Our Teeth," you know, when she says to her husband of many years:

I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I married you because you gave me a promise . . . . That promise made up for your faults; and the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was that promise that made the marriage.

So you see, I told this would-be groom how it was the promise, the covenant, which makes our marriage holy, and it is this steadfast commitment to each other that underlies every good marriage.

I was tempted just now to say "our unwavering commitment," instead of "steadfast" but we'd best be honest. Sometimes we do waver: sometimes it's more of an earthquake than just a waver! Says Judith Viorst:

One advantage of marriage is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.

Friends, here's a question I want to address to those of you who are widows or widowers. So many of you were married even longer than our current 28 years. So, from your experience, do you think that every marriage tends to go through its own seasons? That marriages have stages when easy-going love and harmony prevail, and then other stages when they are tentative and scarce at best?

A Jewish father phones his son in New York one April evening to say: David, I hate to lay this on you but your mother and I can't stand each other another minute. We're divorcing. That's it! I'm telling you this now, so you and your sister won't go into shock when I move out.

After the father hangs up, David calls his sister in the Hamptons and tells her the sad news. The sister insists, "Let me handle this." So she calls the folks in Florida and gets the father on the phone.

Whatever you do, Daddy, wait 'til David and I get down there on Friday evening. The father, with evident reluctance in his voice, agrees.

But, when he hangs the phone up, he yells to his wife:

Okay. They're coming for Passover. Now, what are we going to come up with for Rosh HaShanah?

Yes, marriage is the creation of two imperfect people who are willing to make compromises; who are committed enough to bring abundant forgiveness and understanding to each other as a free will gift.

In 26 years as a rabbi, I know I have married many hundreds of couples! And among the things I have learned about this Covenant of Love are the following:
 
 

Number One, you must forget about that "marriage is a 50-50 proposition" nonsense! I know it is politically correct to talk about marriage as an egalitarian relationship, but in my experience, we'd better be willing to put into our marriage far more than we ever expect to take out. If you're a fifty-fifty person, better stay single. Says marriage expert, J. Allan Petersen:
 

Most people get married believing a myth- that marriage is a beautiful box full of all the things they have longed for: ... the truth is that marriage, at the start, is an empty box. You must put something in before you can take anything out.
 

There is no love in marriage; love is in people, and people put love into marriage ... A couple must learn the art and form the habit of giving, loving, serving, praising- keeping the box full.
 
 

Second, I need to underscore for us all, that no married couple will be entirely happy with one another all the time.
 

A 75 year-old man visited his doctor for a physical. "My Goodness- You have the body of a man 25 years younger," the doctor exclaimed. "Tell me, what's your secret.
 

The man replied, "Well, when my wife and I married fifty years ago, we made a solemn agreement: that we would never quarrel. So when we have a difference of opinion and we can see a fight coming on, she just stays inside the house, and I go out for a long walk."
 

I guess good health is due to the fact that for fifty years, I pretty much have lived an outdoor life.
 

Well, sometimes our love does seem so hidden and inaccessible! Said Anna Quindlen in a recent column:
 

... Remember that love is not leisure, it is work ... Love is both an ideal and a course of action. It's a way of believing and a way of life. In the end, love is a labor that can be either lost or won.
 

A Jewish boy comes home from school and tells his mother he's been given a part in the school play. "Wonderful. What part is it?" And the boy says-
 

I play the part of the Jewish husband.

And the mother scowls and says-
 

You go back and tell the teacher you want a speaking part!
 

Well, a living marriage demands that we both- husband and wife- have fully-speaking parts. Communicate people, because love costs. It takes incredible effort and work. The happy marriage is not the one which has the least trouble. It's the one in which each person practices love when the pressure is on.
 
 

There is yet a third factor which we need to examine and it is crucial to "The Covenant of Love." Some experts claim that we need to maintain separate as well as shared interests to avoid merging identities. I understand what they're getting at. But it is also, I assure you, most vital, and studies confirm this, that married couples make every effort to maximize their time together sharing just as much as possible.

When asked recently, "What keeps your marriage together?", 350 couples replied with these answers. Would you have listed any of these?
 

My spouse is my best friend.

Marriage is a long-term commitment.

Marriage is sacred.

We agree on aims and goals.

We laugh together.

We agree on a philosophy of life.

We agree about our sex life.

We discuss things calmly, and finally, I am proud of my spouse's accomplishments in life.

Yes, we need to maintain our closeness lest we become, with the passing of the years, strangers under one roof.
 
 

And finally, as a miniature of that sacred covenant made between God and our people at Mount Sinai, our marriages must be elevated into Covenants of Love. I know very well the fortune spent today to launch a couple with a wedding. We attend to ever conceivable detail and arrangements without end: date, place, caterer, limos, florist, photographer, videographer, rings, band, entertainment, brilliant rabbi, fabulous cantor, and the list goes on. Nothing is left to chance. But shouldn't we pay closer attention to the symbol of the chupah. A wedding is an event. But a marriage is an achievement.

The chupah is a symbol which represents every day and every year after the wedding. The chupah is the home where hopes and dreams are nurtured; where the future is literally created; where human hurts are healed and common values cherished and embraced and passed along to the future. The chupah is the symbol of the Jewish home- the abode of the spirit, where two souls can seek comfort through faith and prayer, through observance of ceremony and celebration of festivals, through intimate friendship and understanding forgiveness.

Such is the chupah, the symbol of the home which is the Mount Sinai of a Covenant of Love; the place where the Covenant is enacted.

Temple Sinai welcomes and treasures its intermarried couples and families. And these interfaith couples often concern themselves, and rightfully so, with the difficulties and challenges of bringing two separate faiths to their marriage. What intermarried and intra-married couples have in common is that we too rarely consider not the problems posed by our faith, but the strengthening solutions they afford.

Listen to this- take it to heart!

Religious faith- prayer, ceremony, observance- enhance every marriage and insulate it from hurt, shock, alienation, stress and the most lethal enemy of every husband and wife- indifference.
 

You know, Sometimes I've been asked, "Is there anything more beautiful in life than a young man and woman clasping clean hands and pure hearts in the path of marriage?" And the answer is yes, there really is!

It is the gladsome sight of an old man and an old woman finishing their journey together on that path. Their hands are gnarled, it is true, but still clasped; their faces are seamed but still radiant; their hearts are tired ... but still strong. They have proved the happiness and the holiness of marriage, and have vindicated it from the jeers of the cynics.

Last night we said that the final goal of the book of Genesis is redemption. Well, if the culmination of the book of Exodus is covenant, then surely the culmination of human life is The Covenant of Love. No one need be excluded. At this moment some of you whose beloveds are now gone from life can cherish this chapter in your dearest, sweetest of memories. Some of you have yet to find that special individual, your soul mate and Beshert- your destiny- and we pray that this mystery will unfold and be fulfilled for you when it is meant to be.

But many of us are married, and whether we have been married only months, or for a single year, or for five or for fifty plus years, let me invite you now to take the hand of your dearest in your own, and, in your hearts, renew and rededicate yourselves to one another on this first day of our new year. As we pray in the words of our mothers and fathers,