It’s been said there’s no instruction manual for a good marriage, but Aryeh Pamensky would beg to differ.
When it comes to teaching singles and couples about building a loving relationship, the Toronto-based rabbi believes the Talmud could give Dr. Phil a run for his money.
On Sunday, just before the San Francisco Giants took the field for their hapless World Series loss, Pamensky took the stage at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco to present his part lecture, part sermon and part stand-up comedy routine on “amazing marriage.”
Pamensky, 37, draws on his own happy, 12-year marriage to underscore his mission to eradicate divorce. Ordained as a rabbi in 1992, he has taught personal development and marriage seminars for nearly 10 years. He has also presented an eight-week seminar, “A Happy Wife is a Happy Life,” in various cities across the country. His one-hour appearance in San Francisco was a Cliffs Notes version of that seminar.
Co-sponsored by the San Francisco Jewish Community Center and the newly inaugurated Bay Area chapter of Aish HaTorah, Pamensky spoke to a crowd of 100 thirty- and fortysomethings who enjoyed his lighthearted approach, often shouting out comments, questions and witty retorts well suited to the comedy club setting.
Pamensky offered a relationship model distilled from 4,000 years of Jewish tradition and a few seasons of “Oprah.”
“Women are relationship beings,” he claimed. “Men are not.” Starting with that premise, the first step in the rabbi’s model is to give men what they love most: a job.
“Men, make your woman happy,” he says, “all the time!”
While that may seem like a mighty tall order, Pamensky says men will succeed if they remember to practice the three A’s: affection, attention and appreciation.
Among his tips for practicing the three A’s: listen intently (“that means turn off the TV, not just press the mute button”), maintain eye contact, send cut flowers and give frequent nonsexual touching. Why nonsexual? “Sexual touching implies reciprocation,” says Pamensky. “Men need to show pure affection.” These kinds of behaviors, he claims, will make a woman feel loved and inspired to recycle that love back into the relationship.
If some of this sounds similar to relationship guru John Gray’s best-selling book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,” Pamensky is the first to acknowledge the debt. A colleague of his once told him about the parallels, complaining that Gray picked a poor title for the book. “He shouldn’t have picked Mars and Venus,” Pamensky recalled his friend saying. “That puts men and women in the same solar system!”
As for women, Pamensky offered two tips to make their men happy. Since men are, according to the rabbi, basically “giant egos on legs,” he urged wives and girlfriends to stroke their men’s egos as often as possible, such as by offering sincere compliments and encouragement. Secondly, because men are not relationship beings, they will tend to forget to the cardinal rule of keeping their women happy all the time, requiring that women swallow hard and “give their men a break from time to time.”
Some in the audience wished the rabbi would give them a break. Claire Silver of San Francisco said Pamensky espouses “an unenlightened, pre-feminist perspective that preys on gender stereotypes from 100 years ago. He talks about stroking the male ego. Well, what does Judaism have to say about ego? That it should be made larger, or does something more important come before ego?”
Neil Penn of San Francisco agreed. “The rabbi meant well, but he comes from a level of cultural myth that tends to create pain for anyone stuck in the myth or reactive to it.”
However, most in attendance seemed to enjoy the presentation, and cheered the rabbi loudly at the conclusion of his lecture.