I Only Want to Get Married Once: The 10 Essential Questions for Getting It Right the First Time

Pure and Distilled Emes on Dating -- Delivered on a Silver Platter in less than 140 pages

In my few short years of dating in the frum world, Rebbetzin Levitan has always clearly stood out in my mind as a dating expert. Her conversations with me consistently revealed her refined sense to intuit people's nature and ideal match. She has an uncanny ability to thread the needle with insights and even shidduch suggestions. So, needless to say, when I heard that she published a sefer, I rushed -- with very high expectations -- to buy her book. Rebbetzin Levitan unfailingly surpassed even my highest expectations. The book is quite simply distilled Emes. What stood out the most for me is how the book succinctly offers exceptionally clear and definied eitza for shidduchim. She avoids vague pronoucements, and instead offers objective guidelines in a direct manner that allowed me to effortlessly lift core principles off the pages and into my life. For example, what's infatuation and when is it love? Sounds like the introduction to a lengthy series, yet she distills the issue into a matter of pages -- is it effortless, is it image-oriented or controlled by imagination, and on. This straightforward style reveals Rebbetzin Levitan's mastery of these topics because she need not wind the reader through exhausting paragraphs to arrive at pshat; rather, that pshat is delivered on a silver platter. Add to that some juicy (yet anonymous) short examples from the real dating world. Apart from the to-the-point nature of the book which compacts lifetimes of dating eitza into less than 140 pages, this sefer is delightfully organized. Because Rebbetzin Levitan had already masterfully organized the book, both globally and within each chapter and sub-chapter, I had to spend almost no mental energy organizing any of the ideas in my own head -- the ideas were basically just spoon-fed. That may sound a bit lazy on my part, though it did make the book a pleasure to read! (Honest, right?) It's a no-brainer buy. My eitza -- read this one at least three times. I've been taking careful n...