He had never questioned this. He and his first wife had been innocent teenagers when they married. They had navigated the space between them like astronauts taking their first steps on the surface of the moon, unsure of the very ground beneath their feet. And for a long time, their relationship in bed had been as fragile as crystal they risked shattering with every hesitant touch.

Zissele had come with a list of explicit instructions given to him by his rabbinical groom advisor a few days before their wedding night, as well as a detailed anatomical chart he was exhorted to memorize. He remembered some of the rules:

The room must be in total darkness. Even the windows must be blocked by a cloth. Both of them had to wash their hands three times both before and after “doing the mitzvah.” Appropriate prayers must be recited: the prayer that one might fulfill one’s obligation “to be fruitful and multiply,” and the prayer which asked the Almighty to infuse one with courage and strength so that the body “not contain any weakness or any limpness or any confusion of thought that may negate me, so I may fulfill my desire with my wife, and may my desire be available to me at any time I wish without hesitation or any limpness of the member forever and ever. Amen.”

He was exhorted to go to the bathroom, and when coming out, to gently rap the bride on her knees seven times to get her attention “so that her mind not wander from the holiness of fulfilling the mitzvah.” Both of them had to remove all their clothes in total darkness, leaving on just a nightgown for her and some robe for him. He was even told precisely how many times before and during he was required to hug and kiss his bride! And the more resistant she was, the more times he had to hug and kiss! The act itself was described in detail, as if explaining it to a child or a blind man or a complete idiot.

He knew that Zissele had also received instructions. She had been taught to examine this place in her body a week before, and familiarize herself with it so that “if the groom should call out to her in a loud voice to guide his member” she would be able to do so. And if he found himself in the right place, he was warned that the “opening was small and narrow and that he would have to enter with great force.”

He had found all this material horrifying. Even the promptings of his groom advisor, who had exhorted him on the vital importance of fulfilling the physical act on the wedding night, had not gotten him through it. Every step of the way had been a struggle—to keep his mind pure, his actions in check as his new bride lay beneath him motionless.