The Jewish theory of soulmates has its roots in that most romantic of canonical texts: the Talmud.
The term beshert is most often used to mean a soulmate: the one person whom an individual is divinely destined to marry…
The widely used kismet-a Turkish derivation of the Arabic word qisma, meaning lot or portion-originated as the version of fate in the Arab world. In The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present the idea that humans originally had four arms, four legs and one head made of two faces Zeus split these creatures in half, leaving each torn creature to search for its missing counterpart. The concept of a soulmate is nothing new, or uniquely Jewish. ( Bescherung, a version of the word, is used to describe the exchange of gifts on Christmas.) Others say that it’s from the Yiddish word sher, meaning scissors or shears, the idea being that beshert is something that has been shaped in a specific way, as if cut out by a pair of unseen scissors. Some argue that the word comes from the German beschert, meaning bestowed or given. The etymology of the Yiddish word-spelled, generally, either bashert or beshert-is something of a mystery. Though the term beshert can refer to any fortuitous event (“I missed the bus, but it must have been beshert, because I heard it broke down”), it’s most often used to mean a soulmate: the one person whom an individual is divinely destined to marry. For New York’s young Jewish singles, destiny-or beshert-has an address, and it’s west of Central Park. The last few years have seen an explosion in the neighborhood’s popularity among Jews in their twenties and thirties. Stroll Manhattan’s Upper West Side on a Saturday night and you’ll find yourself surrounded on all sides by prospective couples trying each other out.
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