"Bashert" — Definition

Basherts.jpg

A person's soulmate, or "it was meant to be,” considered as predestined.  

(feminine - basherte):


“Oneness" in their past, present, and future is thus what defines a truly predestined (bashert) couple. They share a common soul-root (their past), common goals (their future), and always (in the present) remember their common origin as they proceed toward their common goal.

SOURCE: http://www.inner.org/covenant/marr05.htm
__________________


Bashert, (Yiddish: באַשערט), is a Yiddish word that means "destiny". It is often used in the context of one's divinely foreordained spouse or soulmate, who is called "basherte" (female) or "basherter" (male). It can also be used to express the seeming fate or destiny of an auspicious or important event, friendship, or happening.

SOURCE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shidduch

In modern usage, Jewish singles will say that they are looking for their bashert, meaning they are looking for that person who will complement them perfectly, and whom they will complement perfectly.

SOURCE:

https://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=129


A more useful term than "bashert" might be "zvug," A "zvug" is a true (and only) life partner, the person who actually completes the other.

SOURCE:

http://bojiataslava.com/us_05_27_12_sermon.html

Bashert, which in Yiddish means “predestined,” is most commonly applied to the concept of one’s intended soul-mate. This idea that, when dating, one is searching for his/her bashert, his/her divinely intended life partner, stems from Sotah 2a, which states: “Forty days before the creation of a child, a Heavenly Voice issues forth and proclaims: ‘The daughter of A is for B.’”

SOURCE:

http://www.jewishtreats.org/2011/03/it-was-bashert.html

The concept of bashert implies that the person one will marry is preordained even before birth. There are a great number of discussions that stem from this concept: questions concerning dating, marriage, bad marriages, divorce, second marriages....But the question Jewish theologians wish to address today is the broader understanding of the concept of bashert.


Those pieces of our lives that are “pre-determined” may be related to one’s wealth, the country in which one lives or the person one marries. And while we may never know why these points of bashert happen, they are often important aspects of a greater story.

SOURCE:

http://www.jewishtreats.org/2011/03/it-was-bashert.html

The Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism) speaks of husband and wife as “plag nishmasa – half souls”. And Nachmanides explains in his Emunah U’Bitachon (Chapter 24) that God takes the soul whose time has come for it to enter into this world, and separates it into two halves, placing one half in the male and one half in the female. And when these two halves meet again in matrimony, their original connection and love bond comes back.

SOURCE:

https://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=129


Previous
Previous

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” - a translation of Hans Christian Andersen's “Keiserens Nye Klæder" by Jean Hersholt

Next
Next

"Through a Window" by Jane Goodall