… Now for the touching/living together before marriage - I didn’t even think about the question of living together, but since you brought it up - why not. Well, it all sounds perfect. You met the perfect man for you (lucky for you, only at 24 ... I've been looking for the perfect woman for like 20 years..), and you had the most amazing mental and spiritual connection, and you knew that the physical connection (which is important for keeping ‘Shlom Bayit’, no ?) will be the same. That’s a great fairy tale love story. But life doesn’t always go like that. Not for everybody. Sometimes you meet an amazing person, you connect and all that, but then you don’t really connect on the physical level. You know. Smell, shapes, touch, what they like/don’t like, in short - physical 'chemistry'. It really exists. Now, I know that EVERYTHING could be worked on and developed if you commit to it and if you love the person. But, to a limit. I do believe there is such a thing as physical compatibility, just as there is a spiritual compatibility, and it’s in a way a matter of shoot and miss... and since its a matter of shoot and miss, you don’t want to leave it for your wedding night, right ? I am not saying you have to live together and have full ‘Khayey Ishut’ like any secular hedonistic couple, but... you know... find things out... that's my take on it. And besides, as you may know, when the physical connection is awesome, that actually elevates the spiritual connection between the man and woman to much higher levels. A whole part of the yoga system (Tantra) is dedicated to physical practices one can do with his/her partner, which will elevate the life force through your charkas, and this elevates your consciousness to the highest level...

Now to the research you mentioned there and the issues it raises - you are talking about desires. Which is the enemy of the human mind, and which is the main thing that all eastern, and western philosophies, including Judaism, are trying to deal with, very miserably. Our desires are built-in in us from birth, and during a human life they just grow and grow. Whether you had 1 partner or 20, you will always have desires, including sexual ones, and you will always be attracted to people and wonder, for even a split second, how it would feel like... it’s natural, we all have it, even the Chief Rabbi of Israel (for whom, by the way, I did a voice-over, and the film is shown tonight on CBS !!) has it. It would mean not to be alive or human if you didn’t have it. So the question of not having sex before marriage and how it applies to your level of coveting later on is not relevant. Maybe you won’t have anything to compare, but your imagination WILL compare... and if you are bringing social phenomena into the discussion - why is it that so many religious, and even orthodox, people in Israel are going to prostitutes ? Do they know how to deal with their desires ? I don't think so. None of the 3 main religions can help you deal with your desires, because they are all about REPRESSING your desires. And repressing NEVER EVER EVER works. It just makes your desires stronger and more deeply rooted ! The Indian philosophy of Vedanta, offers the best way I have learned so far for dealing with the human desires. And it’s not even a religion. Any organized religion, by it’s being organized, implies control and repression of the individual's desires and will. And the case with covering your hair is no different...

Now, if "the love of God is a much larger, life filling thing, which leads me through life not through dichotomies of good bad, right wrong, evil pure, but through every experience in life" - then why do you need the Halakha ? Why do you need a book, or a bunch of old and wise people, to tell you what you should do, and what you shouldn’t do, in order to love God, or even communicate with him ? I mean, Moses ! This is what being Orthodox is all about ! It’s about following all the rules and regulations set by the Torah and the Halakha, orthodoxly, to the last letter, and not deviating from it. 'Cause “that’s the ONLY way to love God and understand him and live with him and have his grace upon you”... am I right ? If you chose your own way, and your own customs, and your own prayers and all that - then you might as well call yourself 'Reform', or 'Masorti', or whatever they call it...

Don’t get me wrong, I do admire the relationship you have with God, and your ability to 'trust' and feel his guidance in every experience of your life. I wish I had something like it. I kinda had it as a little kid in Israel, but then lost it in my adolescent years and during the army. Just couldn’t understand why God 'has left me'... why he allowed for the bad shit that happened to me, to happen. That’s when I couldn’t rely on his love and guidance anymore, and went on looking for other explanations.... I guess it comes back to the same old holocaust question: why does this God allow for such horrors to happen to innocent people ? How do YOU deal with bad things that happen to you ? Does God always grant you what you want ? Do you really feel the 'hand' and guidance and security of God in everything that happens to you, the good and the bad ? I am really asking, this is what it all boils down to, for me.... you have en explanation, a system that explains the world and your life ( = God), and it seems to work for you. I couldn’t find a system like that, and that’s why I am so fascinated when I meet somebody like you who has such a system.

Oh my God (;-)), an extremely long letter... sorry… but these issues are really serious. And very important. To me at least…