Rochel Taktuk: Guys, we're talking about dating today and I'm very happy and excited about that. And by the way, I know I am acutely aware of the fact that the world is kind of exploding as we speak. I'm actually supposed to be in Israel right now. My brother-in-law is getting married soon, God willing. ⁓ But obviously we're not going. There's only emergency flights happening and also I was just telling someone I don't like being brave with my son's life. So he's eight months, thank God, we're not going to Israel right now. We're just, it's not, I have three siblings who live there and they're basically living in bomb shelters. I say all of this to tell you that I'm aware that these big global things are happening and we talk about them a lot. And at the same time, you still exist. Your life as an individual, as a woman, as a girl, if you're a teenage girl, I'm so happy you're here. By the way, if you watch my podcast usually and you're not dating, you're happily married or you're not interested in dating, please send this podcast to someone who is dating. Okay, this is gonna be a dating series. This is like the most important thing to me. You guys know that my whole life has been women and girls and I just love females. I really do. I feel so deeply connected to women. I am a woman. I love women. Whatever stuff we're made of that God, like he took a bunch of things and put us together, we're made of the best stuff. And ⁓ I want us to be happy. And marriage is the biggest. If you're married or wanna get married. marriage and love and romance, all this stuff, it's the biggest part of your life. It's like the core of your existence. If your marriage is not doing well, you're not doing well. I can tell you that as a married person. ⁓ If you want to get married and you're not, it's miserable. If you're dating and you don't know how to date and you feel like kind of lost, it's also miserable. I just want to talk about this with you. And Amir Tashem, God Willing, this is going to be a series ⁓ on dating. And you might ask, well, what authority do you have to talk about dating? And it's not just because I'm married that I can be like, ⁓ I can talk about dating. I really feel that the way I dated, and I've said this before in this podcast, it's one of my biggest, ⁓ it's something that I'm extremely proud of. It's one of my prides. How do you say that in English? It's one of the prides of my life. No, that doesn't make sense. It's something in my life that I'm extremely proud of. It's one of my biggest achievements, I'll say that. ⁓ And dating is extremely difficult. It's very hard, I did not enjoy it and I want everyone to know that because I think we have this idea that you watch everyone else dating and everyone's in love and obsessed and happy and you watch movies and TV shows that really, really mess with your head. Just don't watch those, okay? They're gonna mess with your head. It's not true, dating is hard work. It requires focus, it requires determination to not give up. Even when you're dating your soulmate, it can be that way. I had that myself, my husband who I love more than life. ⁓ I did not like dating him at all, not because of him, because I hated dating in general. didn't, I even more so didn't like being engaged. I love, love being married, thank God. But dating was very hard. So this is gonna be a series. If you know someone who's dating, let them know that this podcast exists. because I want them to ⁓ be here with us. Let's go to, I wrote my, okay. Okay, so. Yeah, that's how I feel that I an authority on this topic because I think I did it really well. And my husband and I talk about that a lot. ⁓ By the way, like dating doesn't just stay to, it doesn't just like live in the moment when you're dating, it lives on forever because dating is the foundation of your marriage. I know it's kind of scary because it's like, what? That, you know, I dated my husband for three months and we got married after we had a very quick engagement and got married. But those three months truly, they like carved out a space in a ground. from which our marriage kind of sprouted out from there. It was like the fertile ground. It's the soil from where our marriage has grown out of, which is a big deal. So welcome. By the way, if you want to get married and you're not getting married, I'm here for you. I know that pain and I talk to a lot of women who are going through that and it's very difficult and it's very painful. So welcome back. ⁓ Something interesting I've been thinking about a lot is that the more enlightened our society becomes about love and dating and all these influencers now and all these, I guess, talking heads, you can call them, all these people on social media who are giving advice, they're actually starting to give really good advice. And the more advice they give, like how many times have you heard now, we're kind of living in the conservative era. like traditional word, going back to the Bible and it's very Christian themed, which is great because Christianity is rooted in the Torah, in the Bible. But it's just so funny that the more enlightened we become and genuinely so, like we actually have better advice about dating and love, the more it just sounds like Shidduch dating. Shidduch dating. It just sounds more and more like Jewish Orthodox dating. I've said this a million times and I don't know how I can... like reiterate it and ingrain it into your mind and into the world psyche. But it's not just that the Torah has all the answers. It's not just that. We have this idea that with love and dating, we should be really, really open and open to everything and just kind of be open-minded and be very liberal. And you would assume if you have that mindset that religious Orthodox Jews don't date well. and we don't have good marriages because we're very anal about our rules. Okay, I shouldn't have used that. Nevermind, my sister's gonna laugh at that. Okay, we are very strict about our relationships and we have so many boundaries and guardrails and so many rules, so many rules. in terms of dating, there are so many rules. In terms of our marriages, there is an unlimited amount of rules and sometimes they can be really annoying rules, but they're there and we live by them. And a lot of people will think that because we have all these rules that our marriages suck and they're boring and dating is annoying and you can't have any fun and it couldn't be further from the truth. When something is important, when something is sacred, you need to protect it. We Jews, by virtue of learning Torah, we understand that marriages and sexuality and marital intimacy and all these intimacy, emotional intimacy, these things need to be guarded and protected. And the more they're protected, the more they work. Jewish dating just works. Shidduch dating, which I hated my whole life. And I was always like, I was that girl that was like, I'm not gonna shidduch date, I'll do whatever, I'll date for a year, I don't care. I was so wrong. I shidduch dated my husband. If you don't know what shidduch dating is, I'll tell you in a minute. And it was the best thing I have ever done in my entire... Life, Sheduf dating is Jewish Orthodox religious dating. So it's Orthodox Jewish dating, I should say. And basically you go to a matchmaker and they set you up with either a complete stranger or it's for me, it was complete strangers. I wasn't raised with boys. Another boundary, right? My parents did not let us talk to boys. We never touched anyone. We never held anyone's hand. We didn't really text anyone unless we were being rebellious, ⁓ which my parents don't know about, but like. very strict. We did not go to school with boys. We did not have boyfriends. We did not have friends that were boys. And it was the best thing my parents ever did for us. We were never taken advantage of. We never gave ourselves to men or young men or boys that didn't deserve us. We were just so protected. Our honor, our dignity was protected. ⁓ Again, rules, rules. Judaism has all these rules, but they work. They work. Your teenage daughter, by the way, and if you're a teenager, listen to me, my sister is 17. She was just here with her friends, I think it was a week and a half ago. She was visiting and she stopped over to eat dinner and just hang out. And I was talking to these girls who, a lot of them have boyfriends. My sister does not have a boyfriend. Sorry, I'm giving everyone your personal information. And I was kind of questioning, why are you dating as a teenager? And I don't want them to think I'm judging them. So I was also listening to them about their relationships, but teenagers have no business dating. And you're gonna understand why in a minute. It's not just because of the rules. You're going to hear about, have two foundations today for you. Sorry, I'm going a little fast. This is how my brain works. Let's start. I'm really like going in a million directions. Jewish dating just works because we have so many rules. Okay. I just, that's basically, I just wanted you to sum that up for you. And the last thing I'll sum up is that I was telling you that all these, you know, ⁓ girls gone Bible. I don't know if you know them, go look them up. They're amazing. I really love them. They're these two Christian women, young women. Who talk about love and dating and life and how they you know return to God to Christianity? I think they're Catholic I'm not a hundred percent sure about that, but they give advice to women all day every day. Let me just make sure this is recording We are recording ⁓ and They're giving advice all the time and like their advice just sounds more and more like Jewish dating don't sleep with him They always like don't please don't let him sleep. Don't sleep with him. He doesn't deserve you hasn't earned you how many times Have I told you guys that? Don't sleep with him! Why are you sleeping? Why are you even letting him touch you? We'll get there in a minute. But I'm just saying that Judaism really does have all the answers. It really, really does. And it simplifies life. It's so helpful to have the answers. God created us and he gave us a manual, the Torah, telling us how to live. So follow it. It's actually kind of that simple. Okay. So I'm gonna give you guys, this is just the first episode of this dating series. And this is how I went into dating with these two foundational ideas. There's two foundations you have to understand and integrate into your mind before you start dating, okay? Number one, do not date unless you're dating for marriage, okay? Do not date. unless you're dating for marriage. Dating almost broke me because it's exhausting. First dates are exhausting. They're emotionally depleting. They feel like they're killing you. I don't know, that was for me and I talked to other people about first dates and they're very difficult and dating in general is hard. Do not embark on the journey of dating unless you're dating for marriage because then there's no point. A lot of women are stuck in this limbo place. And it's very sad and depressing. Taylor Swift, for example, was in this with Joe Alwyn. Six years of her life for what? Right? She dated Joe Alwyn. I just watched this movie, Hamnet, last night. It was beautiful. With Joe Alwyn. And it made me think about that. ⁓ Six years of her life, she dated Joe Alwyn. And like those six years went to the garbage. And you might say, no, they taught her, you really need a lesson, a six year lesson. A lot of women are stuck in this place of like they're dating someone who they really like, but marriage is not really spoken about so much. They might not be compatible. They're having a lot of fun. Maybe they're having this really passionate relationship. But because marriage is not on the table, and a lot of women are afraid to mention this because the guy who they're dating will judge them, which actually happens. I spoke to someone who told me they mentioned marriage on like a first or second date and the guy was kind of like, you know, I don't feel so comfortable. Like I'm just meeting you. It's so goodbye, bye, bye, bye, bye, you're not for me. You don't know what you want in life. I want marriage, I'm here for marriage. Something that saved me when I was dating was he's either my husband or he's a total stranger. He's either my husband or he's a total stranger. If you're not my husband, I don't know you. You have no space in my life. I don't know you, I don't care about you, you don't care about me. And it really makes dating... less emotional, less intense. It's very hard to go on a date with someone and it's fun that you get a little bit dressed up and it's a little nerve wracking. I personally didn't like all the nerves, but I didn't like dating. I told you guys that, but it can be kind of like, and you create this tiny little connection because you're not sure, are you like for me? Are you not for me? ⁓ And then if it doesn't work out, it can be very painful. Just go in with the mindset, you're my husband or you're a stranger. That's it. If things don't work out, it's not so personal. He's just not my husband. If he rejects you, okay, yeah, rejection doesn't feel good. It hurts always, but he's a stranger, so who cares? You don't like force things. You don't try to make things work all the time because he's not my husband. He's a stranger. He's a stranger. This will save you. This is one of the foundations of dating. You date for marriage and with that, idea in your mind, if it doesn't work out, it's okay. That man has no part in my life. He means absolutely nothing to me. And I guys, I am living proof. I can't remember the faces or the names of the men that I dated. I dated like more than 10 people in like a two year span. I was determined to get married. I knew that I could not move on in my life unless I was married. I can't remember their names. I can't really remember their faces. I don't... I don't remember anything, they are nothing to me. But at the time, if I didn't have that thought in my mind, that mindset of you're a stranger because you're not my husband, I would have been all wrapped up in the drama and the emotion. He doesn't like me, he rejected me, oh my God, I suck, I'm horrible, I'm terrible. And how did he not like me? Was I not good enough? Am I not pretty enough? I need to lose more weight and then no one in my acne, all these insecurities. No, he's just a total stranger. He's not my husband. That's it. You won't torture yourself when things don't work out. It's just not personal. That's it. It's not personal. Didn't work out. He's not my soulmate. I'm gonna find my soulmate. It's not him. Moving on. I adopted that mindset and I started to just cruise in my dating. I started to just not my husband, not my husband, not my husband, not my husband. Even when things were painful, like if you think like, ⁓ Wait, this could have worked. No, no, no, no. No, it could have never worked out because you're not my husband. My husband wouldn't do this. My husband wouldn't like, you know, I remember getting rejected, like really rejected once. Well, more than once, like really, this one time where I thought, ⁓ this could be something, my husband would never reject me. Goodbye. You're not my husband. You're a stranger. I can't even remember that guy's name. I'm thinking about it now. Don't know his name. I can't remember it. But at the time... If I hadn't had that mindset, it would have been all wrapped up and angry and depressed, depressed. Wow, it can really get you depressed when you're rejected and you put so much effort and you, bye, you're not my husband. It really simplifies things. And that's a core tenet of Jewish dating. You date for marriage, which is why I always tell teenagers, oh, are you getting married? You're 16? You wanna get married? Is that legal? Your parents let you get married at 16? Oh, you don't wanna get married. Why are you dating? For what? to distract yourself, to distract you from your life, to just what, hang out with this guy who in 10 years will literally mean nothing to you? Like why? There's no purpose. There's no point. Guys, instead of dating as a teenager, and I'm even talking 18 years old. If you're 18, I know it's lonely, trust me. I got married at 22, I know. But it's just not worth it. Invest in yourself instead. You are going to thank yourself. Educate yourself. Get fit, go to the gym, learn about nutrition, eat good food, invest, invest, invest, learn Torah, find people to be friends with, make real relationships, friendships. Read, read. I'm reading Anna Karenina right now. I'm almost done. And it's just like changing my world. I don't know. I'm so engrossed in it. Read. Okay, that's the first one. Date for marriage. And with that mindset, when you're dating for marriage, there's only one option. There's only two options. You're either nothing to me or you're everything to me. By the way, that's how I said it in my mind when I was like 21, 22. I would look at this guy and say, it's so funny. You're either my soulmate. You're either everything to me or you're absolutely nothing to me. And that just simplifies dating. It's not personal. Okay. The second thing I want to tell you, this is the most honestly, I don't know if it's the most important, but to me it's... In with shit dating, which, ⁓ you know, I told you is matchmaker dating where the matchmaker is the go the in between between you and some random guy, right? You know, it's not so random. Your parents do some research into him. You do some research into him. Maybe you have a family friend that knows him, but it's kind of a blind date. There the go between between this matchmaker is like the person you don't text each other at all. I didn't text my husband for like a month. Like maybe just like, I pick, like I'm outside. That's it. Like when my husband came to pick me up, I'm outside. It's 6 0 5. I'm here. Thank you. That's it. No texting. My husband even texted me after like a month. He asked the matchmaker, can I text Rahalea? I want to send her a message. Or maybe she told him, I think, to like, oh, take it to the next level. Start messaging her. And I immediately felt uncomfortable. I called her. I was like, no, it's too early. I don't know him. Sorry. Because I had that mindset. I don't know if he's my husband. He might be a stranger. I don't know. But the next foundational thing. ⁓ wait, before I tell you with shit updating, you really ⁓ you're total strangers. And again, you're dating for marriage and you have and that forces you into this mindset of you're either everything to me or you're nothing to me. With that, the second foundation, which I'm going to tell you right now is ⁓ again, you're probably not should updating. You're strangers. This is one of the foundations of Jewish dating, which is the best way to date, Shidduch dating, matchmaker dating. You're strangers. You don't know each other. You don't know if this is your husband or not. You don't know him. You're dating him to get to know him. ⁓ And with that said, there's no touching. You're not holding hands. You're not hugging. You're not kissing. You're definitely not sleeping with him. That's for sure. Did you hear what I said? You're not sleeping with him. You're not going up to his place. He's not going up to your place. There's no like touching each other on a date. And I hear this from so many people, like he touched my thigh and like, who was that? No, you're strangers. You don't know each other. He's either nothing to you or he's everything to you and you don't know yet. No touching. Now you might say to me, Rachael, in the modern world, it doesn't work like that. On the first date, he's gonna try to kiss me. He's gonna try to like, you know, give me a hug. Let me tell you a secret. Men respect women who have boundaries, okay? I don't know who convinced us that allowing men to put their mouth on your mouth on a first date is normal or okay. You don't know him. He is a stranger. I don't care if you're going on a date with a coworker. You don't know if he's like everything to you. He might be nothing to you. I told you it's either he's everything and he's your husband or he's nothing and he's a stranger because in 10 years from now, if he's not your husband, you won't remember his first name. So why is he kissing you? Why is his tongue in your mouth? Why is he in your bed? Why are his hands on you? It's actually the simplest thing. If he's a stranger, And I'm telling you this because women really destroy themselves with this false sense of intimacy that they allow to happen. And I hear about this all the time and it drives me mad. Some women after like a third date will actually feel that they're in love. And it's because they're spending the night together. Physical intimacy, being physical is very powerful. It will make you feel things that are not real. You might feel you just found your soulmate when in reality, this man in a year from now will be married to someone else with a baby. Like he's nothing to you, truly. But you're allowing, because you're allowing him to be on your body or in your body or in your house or... Where are your boundaries? Men respect boundaries, by the way, and I just told you this. They respect when you say, no, sorry, I don't kiss on the first date. I only kiss, you know, my body. It's your body, guys. Like, why is this man on you when you don't know him? Maybe it's because I was the way I was raised, but I don't think so. I don't get that concept. I don't understand it. Even if I wasn't Jewish or wasn't Orthodox or wasn't, you know. I don't get it, like, ew. No, truly ew. You have a stranger's tongue in your mouth. It's so gross. I know it gets a little bit funny if like you know him from work or like he's a friend of a friend or he's a friend actually. So that can be a little bit tricky, but always remember you don't want to allow this creation of a false sense of intimacy that isn't real or shouldn't be there. Again, like the girl and the boy who go on a date and at the end of the date, He kisses her and it's a great kiss. Okay, it's an amazing kiss. And after that kiss, they both go home and they're just so excited and they just, they start texting each other and then, ⁓ let's meet up again. And they meet up next morning and the next morning. All from that one kiss. They don't know if they're compatible. They don't know if they believe in the same things. They don't know if they both want kids. don't know if they both want to get married. Lots of people don't want to get married. And it just creates this false relationship. When a woman is sleeping with a man that she's been dating for two weeks, she doesn't actually know him. She doesn't know if they're compatible. She doesn't know if he is a healthy man, a healthy person. But there is this passion in the relationship, but the relationship is not real. That will get you into trouble. That is very painful because the emotions are there. And even if they're not, like, unquote, real, they're kind of real because you feel them. So those two things, number one, you're dating for marriage or you're not dating at all. It will save you heartache, it will save you pain, it will save you confusion and doubt. And number two, and the second part of that is that when you go into dating with dating for marriage, it's either a total stranger or he's your husband. It can't be more than that. And that, guys, that was my saving grace. That was my thing when I was dating, when it didn't work out, you're not my husband. Okay, moving on. I didn't give that guy a second thought. Number two is, like I just said, because he's either everything to you or nothing to you, right? From principle number one, right now he's a stranger. He's nothing to you. You're gonna see if he's everything to you, but he's a stranger right now and he's not everything to you and you might be married to someone else in a year from now. He might be married to someone else in a year from now with children. He... might be a serial killer, you don't know. So there's no touching. There's no making out, there's no sleeping together, there's no kissing, there's no nothing. I personally, not just because of Jewish law, although Jewish law, ⁓ what's it called, demands no ⁓ touching at all, I believe even if I wasn't Jewish, I hope I'd have the wisdom to have no touching at all anyways. My husband and I, and I've said this a million times, it saved us. We had such clarity when we were dating and we talk about it all the time now still. Like, wow, we did such a good job. It was so, and yes, in the beginning it wasn't so exciting. There was not a lot of, there was no passion at all. We were just talking and seeing if we were compatible. Do you want kids? Yeah, I want kids. ⁓ how many, like not even, how many kids do you want? But like talking about our values, what do you want in life? Like, and once we got that done, of course you have to be like, you have to think they're cute and attractive. Well, that's coming on our next series. obviously, if you're going on a date with someone, hopefully you think they're attractive in some way or else why are you dating them? Because you need that attraction. Not obsession, but attraction, initial attraction. But my husband and I, really allowed us to date with a fully clear mind. And there were times where both of us weren't sure. I don't know, I don't know, I'm not sure. But we had like our brains to fall back on, our values, our core, our essences, our souls to fall back on. without like this net, this spider web of emotions because we were touching, we weren't. So we were just totally clear in our minds. And I want that clarity for every woman because that leads to a lasting marriage, an eternal marriage. I know it allows you to know someone really deeply, like truly. We have everything backwards these days in this modern time. We have everything backwards. We touch first, we create all this emotion first, and then we... Try to find out if we're compatible. No, it's the exact opposite. You have to get to know someone really well before all that physical emotional stuff comes. It's getting to know someone first. The emotion follows that. Why create emotion with someone you're not compatible with? Why create emotion with a man who cannot be with you? Wait, get to know him first and not touching, like my husband and I didn't touch at all. We really helped with that. We sat across from each other at a table, at a restaurant or a cafe or a park. We went on walks or hikes and we talked for like 150 hours. don't know. We just didn't stop talking. And when we realized, wow, we want the exact same things. We're, I think you're cute. You think I'm cute. Okay. We had the initial attraction again, not obsession, not like love at first sight, which is something else. But once you get to know each other, you have that initial attraction. you can start to build the relationship. Okay, now we can allow emotions in. Okay, so that's our first ⁓ session, our dating session, our girl talk. I love girl talk. If you have any questions or comments, leave them. I always read them, even if I don't answer them, like I answer in my head. But if you have more questions or ideas for the next one, comment them and I will see you next time. Bye.