74 mitzvot, four men, one possible match

There are weeks when the Torah portion gently suggests an area of spiritual improvement. Then there is Ki Teitzei, which contains 74 mitzvot and reads as though Moshe suddenly realized he was running out of Deuteronomy and still had an alarming amount of material to cover.

War. Marriage. Divorce. Rebellious children. Lost property. Roof railings. Unpaid wages. Forbidden relationships. A mother bird. Amalek. Who may marry whom. Who may not marry whom. What happens when marriage goes wrong. Frankly, all it lacks is a seven-minute timer and a message saying, YOUR NEXT DATE IS READY.

Which brings me, inevitably, to CoronaCrush.

I did it again.

For those unfamiliar with CoronaCrush, it is virtual Jewish speed dating, presumably invented by people who looked at ordinary Jewish dating and thought: This isn’t stressful enough. Could we add a countdown clock?

The format is brutally efficient. You meet a succession of Jewish men online, each for seven minutes. Seven minutes to establish attraction, compatibility, religious outlook, geographical feasibility, relationship goals, and whether there is any conceivable universe in which you would willingly share a bathroom.

This time I had four dates.

Twenty-eight minutes.

There are chicken breasts that require longer consideration, although admittedly I wouldn’t date one of those either.

Ki Teitzei seems the appropriate Torah portion for the occasion because, according to Chabad, it contains more mitzvot than any other parasha: 74 of the Torah’s 613 commandments. Among them are a remarkable number concerning relationships, marriage, divorce, and precisely who may join the Jewish people through marriage.

In other words, long before CoronaCrush developed its matching criteria, the Torah was already filtering.

Moshe begins the parasha with Ki teitzei la-milchamah al oyvecha, “When you go out to war against your enemies.”

I logged on to their platform.

Same energy.

My dates were Moshe, Avraam, Eli, and Jonathan. Each had seven minutes, separated by one-minute breaks, presumably to enable one to hydrate, reassess one’s life choices, and remember which man had just told you about his grandchildren.

This was not my first CoronaCrush rodeo. I have done this before, which means I now possess a skill I never anticipated acquiring at this stage of life: the ability to assess a Jewish man at broadband speed.

Seven minutes sounds impossibly short until you have been single for long enough. Then you realize how much information humans voluntarily provide when asked a single innocent question.

“What do you enjoy doing?”

Seven minutes later, you may have acquired his employment history, political philosophy, relationship with his mother, dietary restrictions, views on aliyah, preferred synagogue seating arrangement, and a detailed explanation of why his previous three relationships failed.

Sometimes the bell cannot come soon enough.

But Ki Teitzei offers an unexpectedly useful corrective to the shopping-list mentality of modern dating.

A Torah.org commentary on the parasha discusses people searching for a spouse and the familiar list: I need someone who understands me. I need someone who makes me comfortable. I need someone who… The rabbi suggests removing the “I” from the equation and instead asking what kind of person you could be good for.

Well.

That is extremely inconvenient.

Because dating apps encourage precisely the opposite. Height. Age. Location. Observance. Education. Politics. Smoking. Children. Hair. Interests. Somewhere, there is probably a filter for men who replace the toilet roll without requiring rabbinical arbitration.

We construct specifications for another human being as though ordering a customized Hyundai.

Then Ki Teitzei comes along and reminds us that relationships aren’t merely about finding someone who satisfies our requirements. They involve responsibility towards another person.

The parasha even gives a newly married man a year free from military service to devote himself to his home and his wife. Torah.org explains the rather beautiful logic: a couple needs time to get to know each other and build a lasting bond.

A year. CoronaCrush gave me seven minutes.

There may be room for negotiation between these positions.

Deuteronomy 24:5

And yet I rather love the absurdity of it. Four strangers appeared on my screen. Four completely different lives briefly collided with mine. We talked. We laughed. We investigated possibilities. Somewhere between “Where do you live?” and “What are you looking for?” we attempted that ridiculous, hopeful human exercise of wondering whether this person might matter.

And then the screen announced that time was up.

The extraordinary thing is that, after all these years, all the disappointments, all the stories that went nowhere, and all the times I have confidently announced that I am DONE WITH MEN, apparently I am not.

I logged in again.

Four dates.

Twenty-eight minutes.

And there was even a match.

I am saying nothing further because we Jews have survived several thousand years partly by knowing when not to tempt the evil eye.

Perhaps that is my Ki Teitzei lesson this year. The parasha means “when you go out.” You have to go out. Into battle, into life and, apparently, onto CoronaCrush.

You cannot meet anybody while sitting safely behind your emotional parapet, complaining that there are no decent men left.

Sometimes you have to put on lipstick, position the laptop so that you have only one chin, check that no cat is displaying its bottom to the camera, and click JOIN.

Because finding love may take 74 mitzvot, four Jewish men, 28 minutes, and more optimism than I generally admit to possessing.

But apparently, I am still willing to give it seven minutes at a time.