mm: I think you raise some fascinating issues in your "Politics and Lovers" post. But you raise more questions than answers.

You say that it's important to know what you "hold religiously" and to know you can tolerate your mate's answer to that same question about his/herself.

I can see the wisdom in at least trying to know yourself, especially when it comes to choosing a mate, but do you think you can ever get more than an approximate answer?

And even if you know where you stand now, will that really make a difference later? For example, you say you've become slightly more religious since moving to Israel. Perhaps a year from now you'll give up the religiousness. Perhaps in five years you'll be completely haredi. My point is that one's religiosity is subject to change--particularly in a Western culture where (for better or worse) we all have infinite freedom to express our spiritual impulses however we choose.

The problem with our respective evolving spiritualities is that, when it comes to marriage, we all at least hope we're making a lifetime commitment. Not "I'll love you as long as we're both religious in compatible ways." So although we all must strive to know who we are, if we want to spend our lives with someone else we also have to admit from square one that we'll never know ourselves completely. Eventually we must take a leap of faith and commit to another human being no matter how either of us end up.