“Two Heads Are Better than One” – A different way of providing instruction to brides and grooms.

The “Two Heads” program is a new, joint venture of the Nishmat Midrasha and of Tzohar. This initiative came about as a result of the understanding that in a new and changing world young religious couples need a new, different, and relevant kind of counseling. From our point of view, the key to making the partnership in learning into a meaningful, positive, and solid experience is as accurate a matching as is possible of the personalities of the instructor and the instructee. As a result, each instruction is different from all others, and every instructee’s experience is unique.

This project was established as the result of a growing demand on the part of the religious, non-yeshiva or ulpana, population for premarital guidance and instruction in the spirit of Nishmat and Tzohar.

To date, the instruction has been provided in the framework of yeshivas or in the more organized religious villages. There is, however, a large religious Zionist public which is not connected to the yeshiva world, and whose place of residence is not in one of the religious villages. In addition, there is a growing population of young people who identify with religious Zionism, who are thirsty for Jewish knowledge, beyond Halachic rulings. In light of our recognition of the needs of this group, a special training program has been developed, which includes in-depth teaching of Halacha, Halachic thought, couple behavior, psychology, and communications. The men and women who serve as instructors are, for the most part, graduates of yeshivas and have a general education as well. Among them are members of the free professions. All the instructors have approached this project with the ideal of providing constructive, proper education for family life in a post-modern, permissive world.

The matching-up of the instructors and instructees is done by a professional coordinator, who receives requests from brides