It's Thanksgiving night, and instead of groaning with family and friends about how stuffed we all feel, I'm sharing my kishkes with a stranger.
Dr. Kenneth Porter, a 57-year-old Manhattan psychiatrist, and I are describing our version of "the ideal 48 hours." His dream unfolds in Hawaii, mine in Jerusalem and Paris. Each with our basherte - our predestined soul mate.
We're beginning a four-day Basherte workshop at Elat Chayyim, a Jewish spiritual retreat center in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Dozens of other singles from Miami to Milwaukee have journeyed here to spend the holiday weekend with like-minded souls.
Rosalie and Efraim Eisen are sitting by the fireplace in the lobby, guiding us through reflection exercises to help us connect with ourselves and others.
"To meet your soul mate you must meet your soul," the Eisens say.
The Massachusetts couple have led 50 spiritual singles workshops across North America and Israel in their quest to preserve Jewish continuity. They say singles have gotten lost in the mix, so to speak.
"In general, Jewish singles are a very underserved segment of the Jewish population," says Rosalie, 50. She speaks from experience.
As single parents, she and Efraim lived just hours apart in small Jewish communities in Oregon. They knew each other's rabbi and friends, yet no one thought to introduce them.
Then they met in Philadelphia at the 1991 Aleph Kallah, a biannual gathering of people attracted to the Jewish Renewal movement. Fireworks didn't explode at first sight. But the next day both attended a class on hevra kadisha, the society that prepares bodies for ritual burial.
In that unlikely setting they connected.
Participants were sharing what had brought them there. Rosalie, gripped by emotion, described how she'd lost four out of six members of her family. Instinctively, Efraim reached for her hand. She felt so comforted she didn't want to let go.
"It was in that moment of holy service, just like when Rebekah was serving Eliezer, that's when I met Rosalie. When I wasn't trying," says Efraim, 52, referring to the week's Torah portion, Hayei Sarah, in which Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac.
"We created the workshop out of the lack of a way for us to meet when we were single," he adds.
A jovial fellow with a large, knitted kippa, Efraim works as a marriage- and family therapist and serves as half-time chaplain at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
He had the qualities Rosalie was looking for: someone connected to God and to Judaism, with old-fashioned values and a love of children.
She was kind, nurturing, organized, and practical - the kind of woman with whom he wanted to have children. The Eisens say they quickly knew they had found their basherte and they've made a mission of helping others do the same.
They started with Basherte classes at the Aleph Kallah. At the final session, happily married couples would gather around the participants in a blessing circle and offer wishes for finding the right partner.
Shawn Zevit, 41, a Reconstructionist rabbi in Philadelphia, met his wife one month after sitting in the blessing circle in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1995.
"It was a Jewish spiritual context, so it felt more inviting" than blind dates, bars, singles dances and dating services, he says.
"Probably what I was looking for at some level was someone who would be willing to go into that circle."
Avrum Wacholder, 46, a Brooklynite in the wholesale food business, agrees that the Basherte atmosphere was more inviting than other options.
"I've gone to singles events at Tavern on the Green [a fancy New York restaurant], milling about with cigarette and drink in hand," he says, mimicking the usual flow of questions: How old are you? How old do I look like? What's your sign? Are you from Brooklyn? Do you have a kid? What do you think about having another kid? Excuse me, we just met five minutes ago - how about asking me what I think of the presidency?
A divorced father who grew up in what he calls an "abusive" Orthodox background and now aligns with the Jewish Renewal movement, Wacholder echoes Zevit when comparing Basherte retreats to other singles events - bagel brunches and dressy dances.
"The difference is the spiritual side to this. If they're here they'll probably already have that connection," he says.
Wacholder enjoyed spending Thanksgiving with 33 other Jewish singles, but bristled at the emphasis on finding a basherte.
"I don't think I really came for that reason. There should be 'single-and-proud' events, not, 'I'm Avrum and I'm a recovering single.'"
The Eisens emphasize inner work first and foremost. They take us on a kabbalistic "four-worlds" journey of body, heart, mind and spirit to help us explore patterns and beliefs about relationships, clarify what we want in a partner, practice conscious communication, and form a community over the weekend.
Instead of the superficial chatter associated with the singles scene - and the preening and the pursuing - we're digging deep. Rosalie and Efraim set a comfortable stage with song, prayer, movement, meditation and hevruta, or study partnership.
Efraim plays his guitar and teaches us several original tunes, some of them kind of corny, including one inspired by a French mystic's saying, "Joy is the sign of the presence of God."
We sing, "Love is the sign of the presence of God. Truth is the sign of the presence of God," and add our own verses. "Friends are a sign of the presence of God. Nature is a sign of the presence of God. Peace is a sign of the presence of God."
In one exercise, we divide into pairs and talk about our family and life history. What was our family about? How have we replicated that?
"We gravitate toward that which is familiar," Efraim observes, urging us to look at our patterns. Rosalie reminds us that we have to be aware before we can begin to change. The stories are frank, as we confess to each other the joys and wounds of being human.
Then comes perhaps the most poignant assignment of the whole weekend: writing an "unwanted ad." The idea is we may keep dating the same person - with a different face.
If our partners are always unhealthy, what's the problem? While it may be more fun to trash our ex, the Eisens say we have to take responsibility. We are the common denominator in all the scenarios.
To make our unwanted, or less-conscious ad, we start by listing significant partners and the negative qualities that summed up our unhappiness with them. Then we look for recurring themes in our criticism, such as too self-centered, unspiritual, materialistic, messy, or neat.
With tongue in cheek, we write an ad for the person we didn't really want but ended up attracting. For instance: "Single Jewish female seeks emotionally unavailable man who reminds her of her father. No inner work necessary. Please be prone to running from conflict. Spiritual compatibility discouraged."
Several bold souls go to the microphone to read theirs aloud in front of the group. Sympathetic sighs and watery eyes show the compassion and support in the room.
But we aren't left to wallow in the sadness. Rosalie explains, "To be able to say hineni, here I am, we have to be ready to bring a healthy, committed partner into our life."
Before embarking on that part of the journey, we shake off the heaviness with an hour of dancing. We get out of our heads and connect with our bodies. The Danskinetics teacher reveals that her predecessor found her basherte at a recent retreat, so she hopes to follow in those footsteps.
The Eisens have more than a dozen matches to their credit. They don't know exactly how many because not everyone keeps in touch after the retreat. Rosalie, who has a master's degree in human development and a background in financial planning, says she's always been good at matching people. Her husband has worked as a therapist for years. They soon plan to marry their Basherte business with a personal matchmaking service.
One of their success stories concerns Randi Glatzer and Mitch Golding. The couple met at a Basherte retreat at Elat Chayyim on Memorial Day weekend in 1999. They tied the knot in September.
As Randi recounts, "Both of us were a little uncertain and anxious about going to the retreat. Mitch, in typical male fashion, waited until two days before the weekend to sign up. Two days before, a friend told me, 'You're either going to have a great time or you're going to end up wanting to hang yourself.'"
Glatzer, a writer, figured she had nothing to lose. She'd spent years focusing on career, family, friends and spiritual development - and trying to squelch the disappointment of failed relationships.
A month after Glatzer's 37th birthday, her rabbi at B'nai Jeshurun in New York caught her crying in a corner of the synagogue and invited her to talk.
"I was sure he'd tell me to stop focusing so much on finding someone to marry. Instead, he told me the opposite. 'You have to make this the most important priority in your life,' he said. For me, going to the Basherte workshop was part of that effort."
Golding, an attorney who lived in Philadelphia, was 39, divorced, and still grieving over the failure of his marriage. He and Glatzer noticed each other at the retreat, but sparks didn't fly.
Glatzer liked his warm smile, green eyes and long eyelashes. She also noticed his kindness. He found her attractive - even though another fellow warned that she seemed flaky.
At the end of Basherte retreats, the participants bless one another. Golding and Glatzer paired up and he put his hands on her head, asking that she find the man she was looking for, with whom she could have a child. He rustled her hair, a gesture that touched her heart.
"I knew," Glatzer declares, "after that whole weekend of exercises and praying and thinking, that that was the kind of man I needed."
Many car and train trips later, during a snowstorm in Philadelphia, he gave her a diamond engagement ring. Sometimes Glatzer dreams that she has accidentally tossed her wedding band over a bridge or that Golding has left for a foreign land. Then she wakes up and rejoices that he's right by her side.
"This is the happiest I've ever been in my life," the newlywed says. "There is no greater joy than being with someone who cares about you; who understands you; who gets you."
That prospect keeps Jewish men and women of all ages and movements flocking to Basherte events. Rosalie and Efraim have presented their workshop from Jewish Renewal communities in America to an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem.
No matter where they are, the Eisens weave Torah and the Jewish calendar into the fabric of their workshop. For Pessah gatherings they have made hametz a metaphor for the mistakes singles need to leave behind in searching for their basherte.
At our retreat we study a particularly "basherte" Torah portion - about the match made between Rebekah and Isaac.
Torah says it's not good to be alone, notes Efraim, adding that Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach taught the deepest, holiest prayer is, "Dear God, please help me find my soul mate."
Surprisingly, the Jewish tone touches several participants who until now have remained unaffiliated with their heritage. Porter, the Manhattan psychiatrist, never had a bar mitzva and has practiced and taught Buddhist meditation for years. This weekend he experienced his first mikve (ritual bath), first Torah service, and first Torah aliya.
"The main experience I had coming here was deepening
He also connected with the other men. When I ask the Eisens later how our group was different from any other group, Efraim says the male bonding was remarkable.
Women didn't outnumber men by much - 21 to 13 - although several women were apprehensive there'd be no men at all.
Dr. Bruce Schneider, a chiropractor from New Paltz, New York, shared Porter's joy in discovering brotherhood.
"That in itself was wonderful, to have the support of other men," says the 47-year-old father, separated from a non-Jewish wife. "It gave me clarity and strength relating to the women here." He was amazed to find men supporting one another rather than competing for women.
Even though the weekend has a strong Jewish renewal flavor to it, the men and women sit separated by a mehitza for one event. With the opaque curtain providing anonymity, the genders take turns disclosing what each wants the other to know.
As the room darkens with the setting sun, Rosalie explains, "We want to share our deepest truths so we can set about repair." The men pass around a microphone and admit: "If I'm very attracted to you, I sometimes fumble because I get so anxious. For sex to really work for me, it needs to come from a loving place between us both. It's a myth that men don't care about the loving aspects of it."
"I am vulnerable and fearful, and I just don't know the answers to questions you might have."
"I'm not psychic. Tell me if something is bothering you, and we'll work on it together."
"It's OK if you approach me first."
"I want you not to look at me as how much I earn."
"I can't always be the strong one. I want there to be a balance and a flow."
"Even when I'm in relationship with you, I need to have my own life, friends and activities. I'll come back to you replenished."
The women sit quietly in a circle by the fireplace, nodding and taking in what they're hearing. Then it's their turn: "It's important for you not to reflect past relationships with other women on me. Don't hold me to who someone else was."
"Some of us come across as very powerful and sure of ourselves. I also feel very vulnerable."
"When I share problems, I really need you to just listen, not to fix them."
"I like for you to share your vulnerabilities with me, then I don't feel that I have to be perfect."
"It's not OK when you promise me the world in the first three dates, then after a month I don't hear from you again and you say there was no charisma."
"I really do want to understand this whole sports thing!"
A cocktail party and talent show Saturday night after havdala lighten the mood. We see new sides of the compadres we've gotten to know at such a deep level in such a short time. Musicians, dancers, storytellers and comics entertain into the wee hours.
Sunday dawns rainy and foggy. The Eisens pass out "hineni" buttons, and of course, we pair off for more exercises.
Rosalie tells us to meet our soul mate we have to be ready to say hineni, here I am. We might have to shift paradigms. Efraim quips, "But I want to buy a house first. But I'm too fat."
Are we really ready? Some of us decide we're not.
They give us homework: figuring out what qualities are essential in a mate and writing a basherte want ad based on them. As Rosalie notes, "When you look at so many of the ads, they're about outside things.
"Shouldn't God's attributes - compassion, loving-kindness, patience, forgiveness - be at the top of the list?"
The ads will come in handy. As participants in the retreat, we have access to their on-line matchmaking service.
To learn more about Basherte, go to www.basherte.com
[Published in the Jerusalem Post, December 29, 2000]