Agh! I suck. I missed my day.

February has been a brutal month. It is connected to Adar wherein we've lost friends and students. Both at Brown and when I was a student in Israel. It is also the month in the mid-90's when there was a spate of suicide bombings on buses in Jerusalem. I was there. It was horrible.

But, like the Purim story, which also takes place in Adar,  everything is about turnaround and redemption. And really, my day is February 14. Valentine's Day. Sweet. Commercialism. Fakery. Imported flowers with a carbon footprint bigger than a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. But I digress.

This is a story about one moment. It's a long one.

Thirteen years ago on February 14th I went on my first date with my nice wife, Nechama Lea. We were both living in Bat Ayin in the middle of nowhere. I was studying in a Yeshiva and she was in a Midrasha. We were amongst men and women who were hot to get married. It was a crazy time. We had a wedding every two weeks. In those days I learned what it was like to live in the middle-ages, not only because we lacked warm housing, but because we had no entertainment outside of communal simchas - celebrations.

Rabbi Kohn was my teacher and his wife, Batya, was a matchmaker. For reals. Batya and I had met but we'd never spent much time getting to know each other. I mean there was no Starbucks. So Batya corners me one day and says, "Hey. How'd you like to go out with Nechama Lea?" And I was like, "You mean that woman with the beautiful smile and gorgeous blue eyes?" (I swear that's what I said.) And she said, "Yes."

While I was being coy the truth is I had recently met NL. She and I had been introduced at the wedding of Jonah and Alison by my very good friend Charlie. NL had been Alison's roommate. Char and I had known each other for years. I was drunk, weddings you know. And I had literally just walked in from breaking up with a woman. (It was by mutual agreement - we were great friends but not lovers. Still are. She's married, lives in Golan with 4 boys.) And the next woman I saw was NL. We said hello and I went on my way.

Then a day later Batya asked if I'd like to go out with her. I didn't want to seem like a man-slut, I had, after all, just broken up with 'Jenny,' so I said let me think about it.

That night I went to a party. Sheva Berachot. This is a party that is held every night for the week following a wedding. It's awesome. So at a Mexican themed Sheva Berachot in Nachloat at the home of Sara Lea, I sat down on a bench and lo and behold who should be next to me but Nechama Lea.

She was drinking beer. From a bottle. Awesome. It felt strange. We had escaped our medieval village. Men and women were shmoozing. Beer was being consumed. We were all adults who had found religious Judaism later in life and this was a space that was clearly a bridge between our 'former' and present lifestyles.

There was no chance of 'going home' with a girl. We were all celibate and we were all committed to abstaining from pre-marital sex and even pre-marital touching. So we talked. It was great. And, in the end, we did 'go home' together, but it was just mutual hitch-hiking back out to Bat Ayin. Our first encounter turned into a 4.5 hour tunnel-visioned experience. We were at a party but I don't remember much about it. We were in Jerusalem, and then in a car and then walking, but I don't remember. At some point we were with a third person, Josh, but we lost him. I think he caught the vibe and took off.

The next morning I contacted Batya and gave her the code word and she set up the next meet. We were going to go into Jerusalem, for dinner. We decided on a vegetarian place in the German Colony on Emek Refaim. Yeah, we were on Emek before Emek was Emek. We got a lift and then a bus and then we walked and we went into the restaurant. I think she had a quiche of some kind and I had a Greek Salad.

At some point during the meal we offered each other tastes of our respective food choices. And here was the moment. So small. So insignificant. But so deep. We each took our fork and picked a piece of food from the other's plate.

Nothing. The smallest most benign gesture. But I remember, at the time, that it was so so powerful. We had crossed into intimacy. We had broken through the barrier that our place-settings represented. We had fulfilled the innate mammalian desire of providing food for those you care for. It was really really deep.

I remember her eyes from that meal. Later I would compare them to sunflowers. Her eyes are blue but there are flecks that bring me to those flowers. In later years, after losing friends, the sunflower was my visual meditative cue. I still use it when times are terrible. It is a place of safety and beauty.

We finished dinner and then went to a pizza shop and drank beer. She's Czech. I'm Canadian. We talked about our families and hockey and beer.

I don't remember going home. And then we got married.