By Rabbi David Eidensohn
©Copyright May
3, 2002 by author
A Man is Blessed with Marriage (TUR Code of Laws)
The Context in Proverbs of "He Found a Woman, He Found Good"
"This time" – focusing on the relationship
This segment is about gender roles; it is the fruition of decades of study, raising ten children, teaching, counseling and working with top therapists. For a student of Cabala, gender roles are what tires are to a bicycle. This is also true of physics and biology. The world is comprised of diverse elements that live by joining opposite numbers, whether in physics with positive and negative sub-atomic particles, or in electricity with positive and negative charges, or in biology with the two sides of the DNA ladder and the two rungs holding two kinds of basic elements. Even the cosmos works with stars and planets, dancing together and reacting to each other's mass and forces. All of these diverse species somehow function without marriage counseling, something humans should emulate, but do not. In fact, gender issues are one of the most insoluble of all modern problems.
The very idea of discussing gender roles, as we will do, enrages millions of people who are sensitized by the bitter debates in the culture and the propaganda. How painful for a scholar to present a life's work of findings, and to see people snarl for reasons he wished he could not understand. If we say something nice about women, some men are upset, because we are denigrating men. If we say something nice about men, some women are upset. The smart ones write about transcendence, and leave out the gender roles. I take the risk, because I have seen many women and men who were relieved by the teachings here. They realize that Judaism does not denigrate women, and it does not provide for a superior gender, even though it is, in many ways, a Patriarchal religion.
Something else must be said before we begin our discussion of gender roles. We are studying Cabalistic ideas, and this is a problem. Is there a Cabalistic male or female? There is, but you and I never saw him or her. That will not stop me, however, as I will explain. Cabala is the study of transcendence using finite words. This seems impossible. How can the finite reveal the infinite? Could it be that the finite itself is not what we thought it was?
Einstein tells us that everything in the universe sits upon a slightly curved invisible surface. Every object that exists sinks into this cosmic surface and bends it. The bend in the cosmic fabric is gravity. Gravity pulls other things in the universe to it. Thus, we relate to other things, our "gravity," simply by being, and allowing our essence to sink into the eternal cosmic fabric. The fabric, not us, bends, and attracts others. What others? There are many forces. The greatest are those revealed when our gender relations bend the cosmic fabric.
We, as finite individuals, sit upon the fabric with finite force. It bends, and maybe it groans. Our finite force attracts finite ideas and energies. When two individuals relate with gender polarity, they achieve transcendence. Their happiness illuminates the cosmic fabric and it sings spiritual songs. All of us sit upon cosmic spiritual fabric. We sit on infinity, and we can make it notice us; more so, we can let infinity reveal itself to us, and then be molded by it.
There are loads of gold, spiritual wealth, infinity, all around us, but they are covered with peels and shells. Nothing is so good as human and gender love. In the interests of cosmic balance between good and bad, there must be "peels" and "shells" between gender love and us. We have to work very hard to penetrate the peel and shell to find the rich core, and even if we find goodness in gender relations, the tides of challenge flow against us, and we must swim hard to stay happy.
To return to our analogy, as we sit in the cosmic fabric, our presence announces itself to the universe. Those closest to us notice us first, although even those farther away are effected. Judge Bernard Stanger, a beloved local Family Court Judge, once discussed gender relationships. The key, said he, is propinquity. Nearness to someone sends a message, and begins the biological and emotional processes that can lead to gender relations.
The female contains the most sensitive spiritual energy, and wherever she is, flies are attracted along with good forces. The Jewish concept of modesty is necessary to avoid deleterious relationships that come from unwise revelation of the self in the cosmic or social fabric. A woman dancing free in public school and then college is so exposed that her femininity may be damaged. The Jewish home is just the opposite of the secular gender experience. Nobody goes near my daughters until I have thoroughly checked them out. When they see a boy, it is for real. The idea of unleashing transcendence with a dozen people is simply unwise. I have friends whose daughters went here and there, and cannot marry. The parents tear their hair, the girl attends weddings and bravely smiles, and the clock ticks louder and louder.
Yes, there are gender roles. Those who practice Jewish gender roles are saved from the hate that is manifested in secular society between men and women, and it is hate. Studies show that colleges are so full of feminism or hate for men, that men are no longer treated properly on campus, and are gradually refusing to attend college. Of course, they are refusing increasingly to marry. The only solution is to describe gender roles, and to promote modesty, rather than what goes on today, which leads only to anger.
The female essence is very delicate and subtle. The Zohar is designed to show heaven and esoteric forces revealed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochoi. The Zohar begins by telling how in heaven permission was given to the heavenly hosts, angels, etc., to reveal themselves to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochoi and teach him the secret Names of G-d and all kinds of holy things. There is, however, an exception. The guides of Rabbi Shimon told him bluntly that he could not know of the secrets of the Female Dimension in heaven, the abodes of the Matriarchs and righteous women. He was not insulted, and we must know why. It has nothing to do with modesty because "there is no Evil Inclination in that world," as the Talmud says regarding Abraham's head in the lap of Sarah after death. Someone who entered the heavenly abode could see this, because in heaven there is no Evil Inclination. Why could a saint such as Rabbi Shimon not know what Names, forces and angels were active in the Female Abodes of heaven?
To understand this, we must invoke the teaching of Rabbi Isaac Luria, in his classic Eitz Chaim. He says that there are two dimensions, the linear and the circular. The Zohar, he says, does not reveal the circle dimension. The male is linear and the female circular. Therefore, Rabbi Shimon was limited in understanding the deeper aspects of the female Life or circular dimension. We discuss this at length, but for our purposes here, we say that linear dimension words cannot comprehend or reveal the circular dimension except on an external level. We are not inhibited, because "it is Torah, and we must study," but we keep in mind the dictum of Maimonides in learning mysticism: "If you understand one thing in a lifetime, rejoice." We reveal the external level of the gender roles and issues, and if they are meaningful to you, embrace them, and if not, reject them. Maybe I am wrong and maybe you are. I have done what I have done for the sake of heaven, but I won't succeed unless you keep this rule faithfully.
In this mode, I invoke the Lurian teaching that "wisdom" in Hebrew is CHOCHMO, a word whose numerical value (in Hebrew letters are numbers, so all words have numerical values) is the same as the word GOLEM, a lump of unformed clay. WISDOM is GOLEM, an unformed thing, and a transcendence that must be carefully digested, because if the infinite morsel is stuffed into the finite mouth there will be problems. You must take our words as unformed clay, and mold them with the deepest part of your heart. Please don't fashion the clay with culture clashes or gender politics.
We can now study about the Cabalistic female and male, and if some idea rings a bell of appreciation, let it ring, otherwise, let the words pass in silence. You can always re-read the topic after you have covered more ground, and are ready to focus on what you did not get the first time around.
The Code of Laws known as TUR, written by Rabbi Yaacov about seven hundred years ago, is the foundation of Jewish Law. Although there are other codes, they build on the TUR. The TUR is divided into four sections, and one of them is called "The Rock of Salvation." It is about marriage and family law.
The TUR family section begins: "Blessed be the Name of the Holy One Blessed be He who desires good for His creations, and He knew that 'it is not good for a man to be alone'. He therefore made a 'helpmate opposite him'. Also, the purpose of the man in Creation is to be fruitful and multiply and this is impossible without the 'helper.' Therefore G-d commanded man to cling to his 'helper' that He made for him."
Let us examine the text. We see that the purpose of creation was for the man, but the man needs a helper. In what way is a woman a helper? Is she not a creation just like man? This brings us to the conflict between the patriarchal structure of Jewish life, and the phrase, "crown of her husband" that indicates that just as a crown is higher than the head, so the woman is higher than the man. It also conflicts with what a senior rabbi and Cabalist of the past generation told me, that in Cabala, the female is higher spiritually than the man. If so, why was society not designed to be led by women, and why does the Creation story consider Adam the main player and Eve a "helper"?
Male centrality in Creation conflicts with two teachings of the Talmud. One in Talmud tractate of Blessings, teaches that women are assured of Paradise, in contrast to the Talmud's teaching in the tractate of Menochose that men are not assured of Paradise, and most have a hard time in that regard. If women are closer to heaven than men, why are men central in Creation and women "helpers"?
The Medrash (Rabo Genesis, 17) teaches that women created from "bone" remain firm, whereas men created from dirt dissolve in a few drops of water. Historically, this is true throughout Jewish history. Men worshipped the Golden Calf but not women, and even today, in the past century, when most Jews became irreligious, the women retained some Jewish identification but the men were mostly lost. The men, even senior rabbis, collapsed in Egypt, during the bondage, and decided not to have more children. The women argued with them and insisted that G-d would redeem the Jews. We see, clearly, that women are spiritually superior to men, so why is he the main player and she a mere "helper"?
The Medrash (Rabo Genesis 18) states that women have a "bino yeseiro" or superior understanding, and that men must develop understanding out in the marketplace, whereas a woman has it naturally. If women have more understanding, why are they not central to creation rather than men? We find also that the only Jewish leader who had a perfect record spiritually and in war was a woman, Deborah. So why are men rabbis and leaders rather than women?
Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, the saint of the nineteenth century, prayed for the spirituality of his grandmother; it was a noble goal, and as with his prayer to be like Rabbi Elijah of Vilna in brilliance, it was a futile but lofty hope. Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaye Karaleitz warned teachers not to assume who will become a great scholar and who will not. "We never know," said he, "if the great rabbi will develop because of the prayers of his mother, or the tears of his grandmother."
We thus have a great conflict in sources. On the one hand, it is clear that a woman is spiritually and even in other areas superior to men, but Judaism is patriarchal in nature. Men are rabbis and rule the community.
The answer simply stated, is that yes, women are more spiritual than men. A woman is an angelic gift to struggling men. The world was created for struggle, for Adam, which means "dirt." Greater is man than angels, because angels have "light from light" whereas people have "light from darkness." The man is the central theme of creation and the dominant gender in public affairs because he struggles in "dirt." He cannot succeed, however, without the angelic force, higher in spirituality than he is, the female. In marriage, the two merge into "one body" and all thoughts of superiority vanish. The man must be "kindness" and self-abnegation, and the female becomes "the crown of her husband" in self-actualization. Her role, however, is to help others, as she is a higher spirituality to resolve and reveal others in the world. By participating in his struggles and helping Adam, she becomes a partner in struggle. However, she is assured of Paradise because she is remote from evil, unlike the man who is very close to it. We will develop these ideas, but let us turn now to the other teachings in the TUR Code of Laws:
"Whoever lives without a woman lives without goodness, without blessing, without a house, without Torah, without a wall, without peace, and Rabbi Eliezar says, 'Whoever lives without a woman is not a person.' One who marries finds his sins blocked, as it is said, 'He found a woman, he found good.'"
We see from the TUR Code of Law that the woman causes many benefits to the man; they are:
1) Goodness
2) Blessing
3) House
4) Torah
5) Wall
6) Peace
7) Becomes a person
8) Sins are blocked
What does this mean?
"Goodness" is a form of holiness. It connects us to the source of good, G-d, and it transforms us to "good," and protects us from the opposite of good, evil. There is, however, a deeper idea.
G-d created light on the first day of Creation and "saw that it was good." (Genesis I, 4) Light comes after night. Goodness comes after evil. If there were no evil and darkness, there would not be true good and light. The purpose of light is not just to shine, but also to resolve darkness. The purpose of goodness is not just to maintain itself, but also to rectify evil. "Greater is light from darkness than light from light," says the Zohar. True light comes from darkness and resolves it. "And it was evening and it was morning, one day." First came evening and night. There was darkness and no light. Then came morning and light. Light, however, must not be satisfied only with itself. It must resolve the previous darkness. When light resolves darkness, the previous night or evening connects with the light and day. Then both night and day become "one day."
After the morning resolves the evening, all is one day, one triumph of goodness. Even the night becomes day; indeed, it is the greatest light, whatever that means. In this world, we know darkness, and struggle with it. These struggles are our only light in the Future World, and such a light will they be!
Therefore, "morning" in Hebrew is SHACHAR, related to "black" for darkness. Morning has meaning only relative to darkness. It resolves darkness. Light must not just bring us better times, it must also answer our questions about the past and resolve darkness. A woman resolves the evil and darkness in a man, coming as he is from the public "dirt" dimension into the purity of the home.
She is a) the force of resolution, as we will explain, and b) she is the revealed Schechina (Divine Presence). You cannot sense the Schechina in the male dimension of the "dirt" street, but you can sense the Schechina in the home, where the woman, the source of "goodness," rules and reveals G-d. The Zohar says that a man may only enter his house with his wife's permission. The idea is that the Schechinah Presence requires the wife who welcomes the man into her dimension. By respecting her, the man maximizes the spirituality he obtains from her. This is known as the "secret of the UBER," the gestation of souls and spirituality, from mentor to disciple, and in our case, from wife to husband. When we respect someone superior to us in spirituality, we engage his or her level, and it "gestates" in us, improving our capacity to know G-d.
The woman is "a helpmate opposite" the man. She resolves his essence and his program, sometimes by helping ("helpmate") and sometimes by opposing ("opposite.") She takes the unstable lights of the man and arranges them. Therefore, the Medrash above says that men are unstable sand, which dissolves in a few drops of water, but the woman is the bone, that is sturdy. We are not talking about emotional stability, or intellectual stability. The man is at war. His "public" or "dirt" dimension role forces him to struggle. A struggler cannot be all that smooth and lucid. He needs the female to stabilize him.
The female resolves and stabilizes the male. Therefore, she is "goodness," the level of "resolution." She is "bone" to his "sand." Another Medrash says that man is "sand" and the woman is "earth." The idea is the same. The man is unstable and the female stabilizes him. The Creation was for the struggle of the "dirt" essence in all of its frightening instability, because "according to the pain is the reward." The female, on the other hand, is the angelic, heavenly level, guiding, helping and resolving the struggler. The two are joined in marriage, so that she shares his struggles and he shares her holiness and goodness. Because women are stable and holy, they are "secure" in going to heaven, unlike the male, who has a hard time making it to heaven. With a wife, his chances are improved.
The next item is "blessing." The simple meaning of blessing is that good things come with the woman. A man who has a wife is blessed with her. Because the woman is the spiritual essence, the domicile of the Presence, she radiates goodness and negates evil. There is, however, a deeper idea.
Blessing in Hebrew is BROCHO, related to the word BERECH, or "connection." A blessing is just that. A person who is a finite individual, in the material world, receives "blessing" and unites with the infinite. This is the female level, the connecting to heaven. What does "connecting to heaven," mean?
Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, in his commentary to Song of Songs, says that people want to rise to heaven. It is more important, however, to bring G-d to earth. G-d coming to earth is the ultimate female essence. The revelation of G-d in this world is the infinite and transcendent seen and known by mortals. This is the miracle of the female essence, and it is the essence of BROCHO, or blessing. Blessing does not negate the finite vessel; it fills it with infinite light, as if that could be. When the finite radiates the infinite, we have blessing, the connection of higher to lower, of heaven to earth. The earth now reveals heaven.
A woman provides the husband with a "house." This does not refer to the physical abode, which the man can have without a wife. Here "home" means a spiritual home. A Torah home is suffused with Schechinah, the Divine Presence. It is Derech Erets, the Way of the World, which "precedes the Torah." Every positive human act is "house," and its true manifestation is marriage.
The first letter of the bible is BAIZ, which means, "house." This shows the primacy of the home in Judaism. Derech Erets, the "Way of the World," precedes the Torah. The house comes first. What a person learns in the house is more important in molding the character and person than what a person learns from books. The great rabbinical families usually had an absent father, who was deluged with the problems of the world; nonetheless, the mothers kept putting out the leaders of the generations.
One of the great Hassidic rabbinical families was that of Reb Zusheh of Anapolia. His brother, also a great rabbi, said, "I am the least of five rabbi brothers. We are the product of our mother, and she did not know how to read a prayer book." Such a mother provided a home, not a study hall, where she raised the greatest Torah lights.
The Zohar Chodosh in Genesis tells us that the first letter in the Torah is BEIZ, which means house, and that it has in it a dot, known as "DOGESH." This dot is the letter YUD, the level of CHOCHMO, or Wisdom, which means transcendence. "The wisdom CHOCHMO of women builds their homes." YUD or transcendence is revealed in a home. The BEIZ house ensconcing the YUD dot in the first letter of the Torah is how Judaism thrives.
Does a person not have Torah without a wife? Don't Yeshiva students learn Torah years before they marry? The Yeshiva of Elijah the Prophet teaches, "Derech Erets, (the Way of the World) precedes the Torah." We find in humanity and basic behavior more holiness than in book learning. Furthermore, one who achieves humanity and then studies Torah has a new level of Torah. The married person has a different Torah than the unmarried person. The wife's spirituality opens new vistas.
The Torah is a book made up of words and letters. These letters and words are attached to the higher heavens. When we study a word, it releases great spiritual energies. One who learns Torah therefore invokes holiness. A highly spiritual person can achieve even more holiness. Therefore, the married person achieves, through his wife's spirituality, a new level of Torah, a new connection to heaven. The wife is prevents the husband from sinning and raises the children, says the Talmud. She also introduces the man to new Torah dimensions.
There are two aspects of Torah. One is the Law as it applies to kosher food, keeping the Sabbath, and business ethics. The other aspect of Torah is the command to study Torah to achieve its lights and improve. The woman has the obligation to know the laws of the Torah, but she need not study Torah to achieve transcendence. She does not need it. The male, the "dirt" dimension, is the struggler who needs a Torah to rise above his "public" dimension environment. The female, ensconced in a heavenly spirituality, radiating the Schechinah, the Divine Presence, has no need of this. When the married man studies Torah, the man achieves somewhat the spirituality of the female, and a higher Torah. The wife shares her husband's "light from darkness" achieved as a struggler in a hostile and evil world, and she radiates Shechinah to empower him to achieve the higher radiance.
A woman is a wall for her husband. We mentioned previously that the male is the "public" dimension of darkness, while the wife is the "private" dimension of goodness. Empowered by marriage, the male approaches the "public dimension" in its awful demeanor protected by a "wall." When the evil forces of the street tempt his "earth" tendencies, the power of marriage protects him with a "wall;" he is surrounded by spiritual strength in his struggles.
A woman is the "private" dimension. Why does she not join her husband in the "public dimension"? ADAM means "earth." EVE means "life." The "earth" of Adam is not a stain. It is the challenge of evil that allows the man, with Torah, to achieve "light from darkness," which is higher than "light from light." The woman is "life" and is far removed from the evil of "earth." On the other hand, she, being angelic, must protect herself. The angelic level is too delicate to mix it up in the street. Rabbi Chaim Vital taught that an angel can come to earth, but if it stays too long, it can be consumed and dissolute. High spiritual lights can be transformed into the opposite. This is the story of the "evil angels," the fallen beings described in the beginning of Genesis. A female professor raised her daughter to achieve immorality of the worst kind. A writer noted that this was not immorality; it was dissolution. A woman can be a burning fire of holiness only as long as she remains secure in her "private" dimension. Once she enters the male world, the "public dimension," she may succeed, as many have done, but she may also fall apart. Once she slips, it is much harder for her to recover. A man can sin in the morning and repent in the afternoon. A woman, once thrown by the forces of the street, cannot recover so quickly. He is "earth" that is unstable but indestructible. She is a "bone" that can break. The female, although a higher spirituality, must be wary and careful when facing evil. She must stay away from it, as much as possible.
Therefore, the traditional roles of male and female are, respectively, the street and the home. If a man must stay at home and raise a family, he can try it, and may succeed, but it is hard. If a woman has to go into the street, she may succeed, but it is tough.
On April 16, 2,001, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Maureen Dowd, in her column in the New York Times, talked about the problems of successful women. She took off on an article in Time magazine, also in April, reviewing a book and the research of a woman who, almost by accident, stumbled upon the secret miseries of very successful women. The articles described women crying copiously when they are told they are too old to have children. They begin to think about life and family in their late thirties and it is too late even to find the right husband. There is a growing uproar about women and their roles in the public dimension. They "make it" financially and professionally, but are still unfulfilled as women. The articles paint a frightening picture of "successful" women, so that we wonder how these very intelligent people ran en masse into destruction. The problem is not going to go away, so we must discuss it. Indeed, if women are the cores of human spirituality, and they cannot be women, what is going to happen with the world? More directly important to the women is: what will happen to women? We cannot deny that the door of the home is not going to slam shut on women very soon. Instead, they will be out there in the marketplace, alongside of men in every professional area. Is there an alternative? How do Orthodox women survive or thrive in modern society? These issues are so emotion-laden that it is hard to even talk about them. Nonetheless, we must.
Once I lectured and somebody asked me, "Does your wife sit barefooted and pregnant in the kitchen?" People were shocked. Another time, a woman asked me, "Do you beat your wife?" Somebody burst out laughing and said, "Do you know his wife?" People who did not know me at all, surely not my wife, made these insults. They assumed if I was an Orthodox Jew, my wife must be downtrodden. The secular world uses these techniques to entice young women to ruin their lives. They threaten them with ignominy if they do not act like men. If ladies want to be traditional women, they receive opprobrium. The result is that, as the article in Time mentioned, there are many women millionaires who cry at their failure as women, even as their power in the business world gives them everything a man could want. The Time article, however, in almost an aside, reveals something that is very important. Not only do successful women suffer in the modern world, because they put their career above their family values, but men do also. The article quotes a man who got divorced because he had no time for his wife and children. It was wrong, he says, but, too bad. Now, in later life, facing old age in a nursing home alone, he rues his failure as a husband and father. Are his needs not worth discussing? Modern men and women live an unnatural lifestyle, pushed by the culture. Now we are learning the cost of that lifestyle in human terms: and how money and power aren't as important as family.
America was and is a materialistic country. This was not necessarily an evil. While Europe gorged itself on religious wars and the chaos of idealism, America wanted religion and idealism put where it could not interfere with normal life. It therefore evolved the brilliant idea of the public and private domain. The public domain would be business and improving life, and the religious and the secular debate would be private. Because the public dimension was about money, materialism succeeded in America.
When I grew up, boys in my neighborhood were always talking about whose father was the richest and who had the fanciest car. After that, they discussed what girl was physically desirable. Secular people grow into adulthood with these ideas. Then, almost fifty years ago, women were not so gross. Today, girls are raised and trained by the culture to be like boys or worse. Ladylike is out. A recent article showed that girls in one criminal situation were more vicious than boys. In the Orthodox world ladylike is in. A woman is a woman, not a man. In the secular world, a woman must be a man. A woman is thus debased, because she is only valuable in proportion to her "manliness." The above articles in the New York Times and Time magazines paint women in a negative light. One of Maureen Dowd's columns ends with a wisecrack from a man, explaining that men are happy to settle, so they find a wife, but women "want it all," so they never get married. This makes women look like dodos. It seems that highly intelligent young women just leap into life forgetting the most important things, such as marriage and children. Much later, they find out what they are missing and will never have, and it hurts. In other words, women are stupid—that is the gist of these articles. I don’t think that women are stupid. Women are rushing to be men and refusing to be women because society has utterly rejected women. There is not much choice in the matter.
How did a generation of the brightest women turn forty crying at night with no solace because they cannot have children, because they can't find the right mate, or because they found somebody who found somebody younger? They were raised in a world that hissed, "If you are not a man, you are nothing."
The Orthodox world accepts that a woman is a woman, and has to be a woman. The secular world posits that a woman who is a woman is a loser. She must be a man.
In the past, the woman protected the man with her "wall," and feminine dimension. Today, a man must protect a woman, by showing her that he respects her as a woman, not as a man. A man must show appreciation for the home, and the wall, that nurtures a woman. Any breach in that wall is fatal. A woman, if she is wise, will think twice about following the herd over the cliff. Many secular women have chosen to be Orthodox, not necessarily because they are religious, but because they are women.
In the general idea of a woman being a wall, we have the concept of resolution. Within an area, a man finds himself, and becomes what he could be. A woman is therefore the level of "B'ER" or "well." Water bubbles up from the deep, and fills a well, or it flows and becomes a stream. The term "well" in English usually means a structure made to hold the flow of the spring. B'ER, however, does not mean the structure; it refers to the force of the water coming from a hidden source to a welcome presence of water. The world has always prized B'ER, because people need water. B'ER therefore always has a mystical connotation, because it essentially has no physical form, as it represents a force, an energy, and a supernal level. A female can be seen, but can we know her? "And Adam knew his wife." This is a miracle.
Water is of course life, as EVE means life. A woman therefore relates to water, even as the female moon regulates the tides. The woman regularly refreshes her spirituality in the pool of water to rekindle her B'ER source, and to release her flow of Life. MIKVE means a "gathering" of water, and a MIKVEH can also be a B'ER. A woman can refresh herself either in the B'ER flowing water, or the still gathered waters of the MIKVEH. Sometimes, the sparkling stream flows to the side, stops, and becomes a "gathering" or MIVKEH. In life, we must spurt and flow, and we must stop and gather.
What is peace? Peace assumes the opposite, strife. We make peace when people fight. This is one idea, the most basic, of peace. However, the Hebrew word for peace SHALOM, is related to SHOLEM, "complete." Peace is related to completeness. How?
Every particle in the universe is not the "whole," but a "part." The part is missing the rest of the universe, and therefore, seeks "union" to achieve the qualities and the essences available only elsewhere in other things. "Completeness" is when we find our missing parts and become whole. "Peace" is when particles no longer feel alienated and isolated. No longer do they contend, each pulling against the rest; now they work together because they are together.
Marriage is the search by each gender to fulfillment, completeness, by joining with the opposite. The male is incomplete without a female, and the female is incomplete without a male. Together they are "complete," and thus have "peace." No longer are the two particles struggling against the world; they have now made peace and the world is elevated by it. They are no longer searching, they have found.
Finding is an important ingredient in marriage. The Talmud says that when a person married in ancient Israel, people would remark: "He found" or "He finds." There are two contradictory passages about marriage. One, "He found a woman, he found good." This "finding" is good. However, another passage states, "I find the wife more bitter than death." This "finding" is bad.
There is a deep idea here. People find peace when they stop searching. Once a person marries, that's it. "I found a woman, I found good." Maybe it isn't so good, but by concluding your searching, you will "find good." Things will work out.
The other fellow marries, but he compares his wife to others. His finding is present tense: "I find the woman" in re-evaluations every day. Such destroys the marriage because there is no end to searching, to comparing, to doubting, to complaining. You are not perfect, either, and if your wife compares and remembers, you will suffer.
At some stage in our lives, we must decide forever. That is very hard. In a world that prizes growth and despises the old, it is very hard to halt. The wise person, however, concludes and brakes. When we stop, we enter a new dimension, "peace." What do we find there?
"He found a wife, he found good." This person is not running and rushing. He is not "going on to new things." This person is locked into an eternal relationship, free from the ferocious forces of instability and change. When we do not anticipate negation and newness, we learn to appreciate what we have and what we are. Then we find peace.
In the new dimension, our eyes assume new properties. We see good that we never saw before. We make peace with our situation, and a strange new light and song appear, so lovely and subtle. We never saw or heard them before, with all of the crackling noises and rush to find. Now we notice that nothing is simple. Peace propels a person to "goodness." What is that?
"Good" turns "bad" to goodness, and resolves conflicts into peace. When we stop, when we accept, we turn our negations and bad feelings into good ones. Where once we powered our particularities against everything, we now merge and dance with the universe. "He found a wife, he found good." He found a resolution of conflict and lonely individuality. We find goodness in others by refusing the voracious demands of separate, contentious selfishness.
Peace brings the Divine Presence and goodness. Therefore, "male, female" in Hebrew ZOCHOR/NEKAIVO, have the numerical value of SCHECHINA, the Divine Presence. Peace pulls G-d to it, and there is goodness. My mentor, Rabbi Dr. Shmuel Toledano from Jerusalem, mentions this and adds: "The passage, 'This is the book of the generations of Adam, on the day that G-d created Adam, in the image of G-d He made him, male and female He created them, and He called their name ADAM,' has a numerical value of 5,710. This is the numerical value of ten times MAKOME SCHECHINAH or the place of the Schechinah." Ten is the full complement of the Divine Emanations, a completeness and "peace." This is the revelation of the Divine Presence through "male and female" united and complete. My mentor adds that in Hebrew "the name of ADAM" has a numerical value of the Hebrew for "male and female." The name of Adam is its completion, its perfection, and its revelation. The human completion, perfection and revelation is through "male and female" in marriage. This brings the Schechinah, because the soul comes through the efforts of three, the father, mother and G-d.
The marital act is known as "peace," not only because it strengthens the marriage, but also because the union of love brings the Schechinah. In G-d's Presence, all conflict ceases.
Becomes
a "person" (ADAM)
We mentioned before that "the name of ADAM" has a numerical value of "male and female." "Name" is an important idea. Part of the Judgment in the Future will be to say our names. We will possess names only in proportion to our completeness and goodness. Our essence as humans is determined by "male and female," the marital level.
Marriage is difficult because it is so crucial. All good and high things come only with strain and stress. Marriage, perhaps the highest of all things, has the biggest barriers to peace and love. Any problem with money, children, health or ego can damage the marriage. It is through this struggle that we obtain our "names" and true human identity. We are how much we have sacrificed and given to our marriages.
"When a man marries a woman his sins are MISPAKIKIM (we will soon translate this), as it says, 'He found a woman, he found good, and he will "POK" good will from G-d." POK means to put a stopper in a bottle, so how can we translate this? We could says, "When a man marries a woman his sins are stopped up, or blocked." The problem is how to translate the passage quoted here, "He found a woman, he found good, and he will 'POK' good will from G-d." Can we translate "and he will 'plug' good will from G-d?" Even if we do translate this, and it is awkward, what have we achieved? The teaching and its source seem unrelated. We are told that the married man's sins are plugged in a bottle, or blocked, and the proof of this is a passage that when someone marries he "POK good will from G-d", which is not plugging sins, but plugging G-d's good will. How can we infer that one's sins are blocked by this passage? Also, do we want to block G-d's good will?
PEKAK means to put a stopper in a bottle so that no liquid flows out. PEKAK is a positive thing; it seals good things in the bottle. If so, do we want to put our sins in a bottle? The passage quoted as a source is not talking about sins; it talks about the opposite, G-d's good will. Here we enter a deep idea, one that influences our very relationship with G-d and understanding of this world and the next. When we understand it, we will understand the passage and the inference.
G-d and goodness are everywhere, even in this world. We don't always see G-d or goodness. We lack the "vessels" or instruments to seize and store these lights and fine energies. They pass us by, and we cannot accumulate them for our use. Our task, therefore, in this world is to find vessels that can store infinite lights.
Where do we get these vessels? We have vessels to store many things, but not to store infinite things. "He found a woman, he found good." What does this mean? Does it mean that a wife is good? No, this is not what it means. If Solomon wanted to say that a wife is good he would simply say, "A wife is good." He is saying something much deeper. Solomon says that if you find a woman, you now have the capacity of finding something else—"goodness." The woman is the high spirituality that relates to infinite lights and stores them in the home and marriage. A man finds and stores these lights through the level of his wife. She is the "vessel" for infinite lights. These lights pass him by because he cannot store them in a vessel. Therefore, "he who found a wife, he found good." He did not just find a wife; he found infinite energy now available through his wife. What happens then?
The passage continues, "He found a woman, he found good, and he plugs Will from G-d." G-d's Will, as opposed to His deeds, is the highest of the Divine Emanations, and it is utterly removed from human understanding. We know what G-d does, at least to some degree, but we cannot know why He does this. Divine Will is thus a transcendent "goodness," but the woman can reveal it and bring it to her dimension. The man who finds a woman can now, through her, "plug" the bottle and store the highest infinite lights, the "Will of G-d."
"His sins are plugged up (blocked)." How does this follow from the passage? The passage says nothing about sins. It says that the man achieves a finite understanding of infinite holiness. However, one who achieves the level to "bottle up" and contain infinite lights, the Will of G-d, is in a different dimension. In that dimension, there is no sin, or the sin is blocked. Sin cannot penetrate a dimension so high that it is the Will of G-d. When the person obtains lights of the Will of G-d in his finite dimension, sin and evil cannot come there, and what sins he has done are "blocked" because they cannot enter his abode and environment.
We could develop a theme relative to this, that the individual escapes sins and Judgment by joining with others and negating selfish individuality. One who marries "blocks" sins because sins are visited mainly upon selfish individuals. When people negate themselves to others, especially in marriage, the Judgment force cannot truly apply to them. The Zohar mentions this idea regarding the Prophet Elisha who offered to bless the righteous woman of Shunam. She refused, saying, "I dwell among my people." The heavenly court carefully scrutinizes all individuals who stand alone on their own merit. When people merge with others, the heavenly court does not scrutinize their sins so carefully, because they have merged with the group. A self-actualized person suffers in Judgment. A self-abnegated person does not suffer so much.
The last Mishneh in the Talmud (A Mishneh is a teaching organized by Rabbi Judah the Prince around 200 CE. The Talmud is comprised of MISHNEH and the latter GEMORA) teaches that G-d could not find a vessel to hold blessing other than peace. When there is peace, a vessel exists to hold G-d's blessings. The blessings are always there. We must, however, find a vessel for divine blessings because they are infinite. Marriage is such a vessel. It "plugs" the bottle or vessel that holds infinite blessing and goodness, and creates an environment where sin and evil are blocked away.
Having concluded the TUR teachings about the benefits of marriage for the man, we return to Proverbs, and the passage "he found a woman, he found good." We now want to look into this passage in the context of the chapter in Proverbs, and we are mystified. What is this passage doing here? How does it relate to the surrounding passages?
Proverbs 18,20: "From the mouth of a man his stomach will achieve satiety, he will be satisfied with the crop of his lips. Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it, will eat its fruit. He who found a wife, found good, and he will take (bottle up) Will from G-d. The poor person supplicates, and the wealthy person answers with strength. A person with many friends will break, and there is one who loves who is closer than a brother." The juxtaposition of these disparate ideas seems a mystery.
"From the mouth of a man his stomach will achieve satiety." The mouth reaches only the stomach, and stills hunger. "He will be satisfied with the crop of his lips." This is a higher satisfaction. Not just the belly but also the entire person eats and is satisfied with the "crop of his lips." Note that the lips achieve more than the mouth. The mouth is a collective term, meaning the tongue, lips and mouth area. Yet, the large mouth can only satisfy the belly, not the entire person, because it is a collective thing, whereas the lips are smaller more particular and thus more focused. We must find focus in life. We must learn to take a small bite out of the All, and enjoy it. The mouth is too big for us, and only helps our belly. The smaller lips are more exact and smaller and satisfy all of us.
"Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it, will eat its fruit." The tongue is a smaller unit than either the mouth or lips. The mouth and lips are revealed. The tongue is concealed. This gives the tongue, because of its smaller or hidden capacity, strength that the revealed lips do not have: life and death are in the hand of the tongue. Solomon is showing us how reversed reality is to human conjecture. We assume that the larger and more revealed is more powerful. People, however, are wrong. The large and revealed mouth can only satisfy our belly, whereas the smaller lips satisfy the entire person. The hidden tongue has the ultimate power of life and death.
People assume that being a male is better than being female. A male is bigger, even his brain is bigger. He is more aggressive, and therefore, people often denigrate women. In China today, and throughout history, people were saddened by the birth of a girl, and would kill it. Solomon points out the fallacy of this. The world is suffused with spirituality. The power of life is not physical, but subtle and spiritual. The female is therefore the source of the highest benefits, unlike the nations of the world that prize the male for his hunting and intellectual abilities.
Let us continue with this series of passages in Proverbs. "Death and life are in the hand of the tongue." Note that Solomon writes "death" before "life." Speech is powerful, but silence is better. When we begin speaking, we are closer to "death" and negative achievement than "life." The Talmud says, "If a word is worth a dollar, silence is worth two." Silence speaks of transcendence, and words can only approximate the finite. Thus, words are always closer to the finite and removed from spirituality. Our task, of course, is to raise our speech to the source of the finite, the spiritual.
"Those who love it (the tongue) will eat its fruit." Who loves a tongue? We mentioned that Solomon is showing that lips are better than the mouth, and the tongue is better than the lips. Something smaller and hidden is better than something large and revealed. The spiritual world is the inverse of the physical. When we "love it," the superiority of the small and the spiritual over the large and the physical, we will "eat its fruit." We must not think that spiritual rewards are found only in the caves. A surrounding and suffusing spirituality supports nature. When we invoke it, it pours its blessings upon us.
"He who found a wife, found good, and he will take (bottle up) Will from G-d." The tongue can bring life or death, but the wife can take or bottle the infinite lights of heaven, the Will of G-d. The world denigrates the female and prizes the loud mouth. The truth is that the highest level is the female.
"The poor person supplicates, and the wealthy person answers with strength."
The female is naturally spiritual, and the male struggles to find transcendence. The male is "kindness" and searching. The female is "strength" and "justice," sure and even a bit ferocious. She is strong because she has spiritual strength. She senses her superiority; the male lacks innate spirituality on the level of the female, and seeks it from her. He "supplicates" to find what he is missing.
"A person with many friends will break, and there is one who loves who is closer than a brother." There is a taker and a giver. There is self-abnegation and self-actualization. Some people want to build up their influence. They seek out friends and create a social power base. Solomon says that the burden of multiple friendships will not bring a person satisfaction. It will, in fact, break him. When we relate to others by taking from them, and not giving, we will take, and take, until we crack. Our selfish vessels are too small to include others. When they come into our lives, our selfishness cannot tolerate it, and our vessel "breaks." On the other hand, one who "loves" others, not for selfish reasons but for true love and kindness, can take all of the love in the world and it will not break his "vessel." His vessel is not programmed to "take" but to "give." This spirituality extends the vessel into infinity, and it can take and take.
One reason for this is that love is infinite. The other reason is that when we love someone, we become one with them. We are "closer than brothers," and become as one. In marriage, the male and female become "one body." Our needs and the needs of those we love do not conflict. When in our lives we accept others that we love, they fit right in, because we are all one.
Genesis 2,15: "And the L-d G-d took the Adam, and He placed him in the Garden of Eden, to work it and to guard it." Adam was created to work and to guard. Obviously, there were forces even inside the Garden that were bad, and Adam had to guard against them. He had to work the Garden, even though it was Paradise, but we don't note any need to plant or reap. The guarding was not for weeds, marauders and animal pests; it was work and guarding of a spiritual nature. A mortal tends a farm with work and guarding; he tends a heavenly farm with spiritual work and guarding. Good deeds and sins are not mere ethical and moral issues. They are not abstract and invisible wisps of imagination defined by convention and social standard. Good deeds and sins are real forces. A good deed releases good forces and makes lovely plants in one's spiritual gardens, gardens that are real if not visible. Sins are real forces that release poisons to destroy and invade the good gardens. We are constantly "working and guarding" when we live properly, and when we err, we destroy real spiritual energies. All of this will be visible in the higher world, the world of souls. As a person walks down the street, thousands of invisible spiritual forces surround him. Every thought, word and deed a person does on earth creates an angel, a spiritual force, for good or bad. In this world, the world of choice, we are not allowed to see them. If we did, we would have little free choice. Who would sin and create such a monster? Who would refrain from doing a good deed when it creates such a lovely angel? However, it is all there. The Future World is not in the Future; it is now. We will see, it, however, only in the Future.
While it is true that Adam toiled in the Garden of Eden doing spiritual farming, it is also true that he did some material farming and worked the land. This is the level of DERECH ERETS, the "way of the world," wherein lie the lights of the "circle dimension" as we explain elsewhere. Thus, a person can find spirituality in the spiritual realm, but it exists also in the mundane. There is no mundane; all is the Will of G-d.
The idea that G-d's Garden is worked and guarded by mortals is a powerful teaching. It impresses upon people how important they are. Indeed, the Cabalists say that sin empowers evil forces. Not only does sin empower evil forces, it forces G-d, who produces those evil forces, to support evil, because G-d turned over the function of this world to people. When we are bad, we take G-d's energy and turn it over to the evildoers. When we do good things, we place G-d's energy in the service of good people. A person lives down here in the physical world, but is intimately connected to the higher world. The greater a person is, the higher their soul reaches, and the more damage they do by sinning. A lower person cannot do so much damage, because their soul does not reach so far. Thus, the higher a person rises, the more potential exists to do both good and bad. Higher souls tap into greater energies, so if such a person sins in the ethereal supernal worlds, hideous damage is done.
A person is tested, and the higher and lower worlds await the results of that test.
"And the L-d God commanded upon the Adam saying, 'From all trees of the garden you shall surely eat.'" The Hebrew connotation is not just "you may surely eat," but you "should" surely eat. The repetition of the verb "eat" tells us that there is urgency in the eating. Why, we are not informed.
One idea is that G-d prepared a table before us, His guests. We are thus to enjoy our meals. If we would be in the Garden of Eden, we would really feel like G-d's guests. We would savor every morsel, and it would fulfill us physically and spiritually.
Another idea is that even outside of the Garden of Eden, G-d prepares the world for us. Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, the genius of German Jewry in the nineteenth century, busied himself with his community and world leadership. He never went far, surely not to enjoy himself. In his old age, he decided to visit the Alps. People were amazed. In old age, people don't visit the mountains. They do this when they are young. Rabbi Hirsh explained: "I am old. Soon I will come before G-d in Heaven. He will ask me, "Samson! I prepared such beautiful mountains for you. Why did you not visit the Alps and enjoy them?"
The great saints and Cabalists were busy with "eating." There are "sparks" of holiness within the food, and eating properly raises them and releases them. Whether or not we perceive what eating achieves in the higher worlds, we are told that G-d is concerned about people's eating. In other words, not only do we affect the heavens and vast spiritual dimensions with our good deeds or evil deeds, even our mundane activities trigger great forces. "The way of the world precedes the Torah." Our eating releases great energies, even if we are not performing a Torah or spiritual task. A material and mundane deed is also intimately connected to the higher spiritual realms.
"And from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad you shall not eat from it. Because on the day you eat from it you will surely die."
This is one of the major mysteries of the Creation story. What is wrong with knowledge? One approach is that there are two trees, of Life and of Knowledge. They correspond to two knowledge systems, the intellectual and the intuitive. The intuitive means that our soul achieves knowledge from living, and not from words. Knowledge means that we form ideas from words. Knowledge is thus finite, and living is infinite.
These two levels are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. They are also "male" and "female." "Male" is the "line" and the Torah learning that leads, as on a line, one word to the next, to the next, ad infinitum. The female level of Life, on the other hand, is not processed through finite words. One lives and knows; one lives and is. Life is knowing by being. For this reason Rabbi Yochanan rose before an elderly pagan. The pagan's intellectual process was poor, but his years afforded him life and thus wisdom.
The wisdom of life is imparted by living. However, we must be sensitive to life to learn from it. We must be "people" to "life" and learn. The boor does not learn from life. It is as coarse a thing as he is. Only a good person learns from life, regardless of intellectual failings.
Here we have a sin. Do not eat from that tree. If you do, you have committed a sin, and the sin will damage the world. It will destroy the lovely plants of the spiritual worlds, and it will hurt you. It will cut into your soul, and the soul will wither. In the Garden of Eden, a sin also introduced death, and without sin, there would be no death. We see that sin affects a person deleteriously aside from the general damage to this world and the higher worlds. Furthermore, ultimately, all suffering is traced somehow to sin. Without sin, there would be no evil energies and no suffering.
"And the L-d G-d said, 'It is not good for the Adam to be alone, I will make for him a helpmate opposite him."
People cannot survive alone or on their own. They have to achieve help from others. They must live among people. Life is too hard and harsh for the individual to achieve material or spirituality success without others and their energies. Someone once said, "We don’t really have free choice. We have free choice to expose ourselves to proper influences and good people. If we live among evil people and bad influences, we cannot survive."
Adam means ADOMO or "earth." This is the struggle of the body against the soul. Man cannot win this battle without some infusion of a higher spirituality from the female. Eve means "CHAVO" related to "life." Her spirituality sustains the man.
G-d created the world to test people. They receive reward in the Future World, and some benefits even in this world, if they struggle. If they sin, they are punished in this world or the next. If man or Adam cannot past the test, why did G-d create him? If "it is not good for a man to be alone," the Creation is a failure. What if Adam passes the test only because of help from his wife? Is this not cheating? Adam passes, but not by his own merit; he gets by because of his wife. Is this not a contradiction to the Creation, where people enter Paradise on their own power?
G-d said that He would create a "helpmate opposite him." This is an oxymoron. If one helps, they are not against or opposite. If they are opposite, they are against, and not helpers.
One question prepares us to answer the other question. First, we must answer the latter question, and then we can answer the first question. Eve is a "helpmate" and yet "opposite Adam." How can she be both?
On the one hand, Eve is a powerful spiritual force. She suffuses the home with holiness that raises Adam in his struggles. On the other hand, Adam does not have an easy time getting into the house in the first place. The greatest of human struggles is getting into the house. Getting along with our families is the hardest of all tasks. This is especially true when the blazing Messianic Lights begin to shine before the Arrival of the Messiah. This is a period known as "footsteps of the Messiah." Then, "one's enemies are his family members."
Getting along with others is the great spiritual challenge. Even good people have miserable marriages and fail in human relationships. Even trying hard doesn't always work. Thus getting along with a spouse is almost a miracle. Peace in the home with children is a daily challenge. The bible tells us how these two, marriage and relationships with children, collapse in the finest families. When Jacob's sons sold Joseph into slavery, the family of Israel trembled and almost collapsed. It did not, however, because eventually everyone reconciled. The folly of youth was replaced with the experience of life, and the Jews settled down to survive the Egyptian exile. They learned their lesson, and it lasted a long time. If the Jews survived in Egypt, for hundreds of years, it is only because of the family and especially wives, as the rabbis teach.
II, 19: "And the L-d G-d formed from the ground all of the wild beasts of the field, and all fowl of the heaven, and He brought to the Adam to see what he would call it. And all that the Adam called it of the living spirit is its name."
What difference does it make how G-d fashioned the beasts and fowl? Why does the bible tell us that G-d formed them from the ground? G-d formed Adam from the ground, and He formed wild beasts and fowl from the ground. There are thus similarities between wildlife and people. Indeed, every human being is part soul and part animal. We are all from the same source, but animals return to the ground, as they have no souls, and people rise, as souls, to heaven.
This passage teaches Adam what he is. He is an animal; he is a bird. If his soul exists in such a body, Adam must struggle to serve his soul and not become an animal. The body is filled with every bad vice. In fact, because people have advanced minds and high souls, the bodies' evil inclinations tap into these higher essences and end up even more wicked than the animals and fowl. Animals never had a Paris Commune, and they never tore babies away from mothers and fathers because the parents worshipped G-d.
"And He brought to the Adam to see what he would call it." "And He brought to the Adam" does not say what He brought. G-d brought to Adam not the physical animals and birds alone, but the ideas gleaned from them. G-d did not fashion the animals just for themselves, although the world needed them. G-d fashioned the animals and fowl in the context of Eve's creation, and to prepare Adam for his marriage. Adam first had to know who he was; only then could he name animals and fowl. Adam learned that he was an animal, and his soul must struggle with it. Adam learned that he could be worse than an animal if the base instincts co-opted his higher intelligence and soul for evil purposes.
The animals and fowl were plural, yet it says, "to see what he would call it." "It" is singular; it means something Adam learned from the animals, a trait or idea. Adam must take each trait he sees, identify it clearly and apply it to himself. Thus, "it" is singular.
"To see what he would call it." G-d waits to "see" what Adam will call it. Adam is the king of this world, and G-d only watches. This theme is mentioned at length in Zohar Chodosh Genesis. This is our great responsibility, and we must never forget it. G-d is pained when we fail, because we hurt ourselves.
"…And all that the Adam called it of the living spirit is its name." What Adam sees in others is what the other is relative to Adam. If an animal has traits Adam missed or if people have capacities that Adam doesn't notice, relative to Adam these traits and capacities don't exist. Therefore, the true name, which Adam uses for each animal, is only what Adam knows. Adam thus learns that his world, and indeed the world of each person, is defined by what we notice in others. If we ignore a good trait in a person, it does not exist for us, because that person relative to us is only what we know.
This is frightening. People often fool us inadvertently so that we don't know them. Much misunderstanding exists because people think of others with limited observation and cognizance. If we would only spend more time to really understand another, we might like them. Rabbi Moshe Kurdovero, in his Cabalistic classic Tomer Devora, emphasizes the need for us to keep trying to find something good about another person, even one who did bad things to us. If nothing else works, Rabbi Kurdevero suggests, we must enter the dimension of good feeling by accepting that this person was good when he was just born! The ability to find something good in a person, anything, allows us to think without anger, and once we do, we can usually find that our opinion about the person is not the complete truth. We must struggle very hard to see somebody without our anger. Usually, the anger is about ourselves, and when we find goodness in another, even when he was a baby, we can turn off the guilt in ourselves that colors our perspectives so harshly.
In the previous passage, G-d decides to make a wife for Adam. He interrupts with this passage. G-d stops working on the Eve project, and instead forms wild beasts and fowl. He extends the interruption and brings the beasts and birds to Adam to name them. Why did G-d do this before creating Eve? Obviously, there has be a connection between forming animals and Eve. What is it? It seems that Adam could not marry Eve without this. Why?
Before a man marries, he must mature. Adam could not have a wife without a worldview. He had to relate to the outer world before he could enter the inner world of the home. Maimonides tells us that one must first build a physical home, earn a living and then marry. Only a mature and functioning male, one who has a home and a job, can marry. Not only is earning and owning a home important for the wife, it is important for the husband. He must first be a mentsh, a "person," and only then can he be a man, a husband. Adam could not approach Eve without knowing the world, the beasts and the fowl, and naming them to focus his worldview.
There is, however, a deeper idea in the maturity of Adam and the calling of names to the beasts and fowl. We must be sensitive to Creation before we begin to create ourselves in children. We must know how important a human being is; we must relate to the Creation as a human partner with G-d before we become partners with G-d in having children. A person is the purpose of creation, but is also molded by the creation. We enter life knowing from the Creation that it was for us, and that we are partners in it. G-d created the world, and we must continue to create and to sustain the world, rather than sin and destroy it.
There are those who say that we are what we eat. Others disagree. We will leave the more material aspects of this question to the biologists and physicists, such as what happens to food when it enters the alimentary canal, turns into its elements, and interacts with human hormones and enzymes. What we can say in our more esoteric discussion is that we are what we see. We are what we know. This does not mean that if we know an elephant we are one. It means that we define ourselves by how we define everything else. It also means that as we expand our horizons to think of more and more things, we expand not only intellectually, but also spiritually. What we know forms us intellectually and spiritually. We are, in a great sense, what we relate to, what we think about, what we are concerned about, and especially, what we form and create. When we form and create, we repeat the processes we know and associate with.
Adam, to marry Eve, had to define his essence. He did this by having a world, and having a view of it. He "names" the wild beasts and fowl. By so doing, he related to them. This relationship was the first step to marriage. Marriage is when the man comes to a woman and seeks to know her, to define her, to realize what she is. However, it is not so simple.
The preparation for marriage was not only Adam meeting wild beasts and fowl. G-d created them as part of this preparation. Not only did Adam have to know the outer world before he could marry, but the outer world had to be created before Adam could marry. Why?
A person before marrying is into his self. He has little interest in others. The process of marriage must be preceded by maturity, by an awareness of others, by a Weltanschauung. So great is the gap between the mature person thinking of a wife and the single person thinking of himself that it is as if a whole world was created that never existed before. As a person comes into the dimension of marriage, the world suddenly becomes different. There are new things, new "creatures," and he must deal with them. What are their names? What are they? How does he define them? How does he adjust to all of these newly created or newly found things out there? The step before marriage is to relate to the outer world as if it was new and contained things that are revealed only by maturity.
Marriage is "and Adam knew his wife, Eve." The process before marriage is to relate to others, to come to them with curiosity, with a desire to explore and find new things. The Adam realizes that as he stands and walks, new creations pop into the world, new realities, and he must "name" them. The process of "knowing" one's wife and "knowing" nature are one. A person thinks of others, defines them, and grows. He is the sum of his knowledge. He cannot go near a woman until he matures to realize that his actualization will never come from inside, but only from outside. He is not going to build himself; others will build him. He must learn, not assertiveness, but vulnerability. He will be strong and manly, but these forces will come from external beings, from nature and mostly from marriage. If it all begins with number one, it rots.
II, 20: "And the Adam called names to all of the animals and to the fowl of the heaven and to all of the wild beasts of the field, and as regards Adam, he did not find a helpmate standing opposite him."
Adam names animals, fowl and wild beasts. Why in this order? We could say that people live with domesticated animals and fowl, such as chickens, but not wild beasts. If so, Adam named the animals in the declining order of how they served and related to people: domesticated animals, fowl and wild beasts. Now we have a problem. In passage 19 we quoted above, it says, "And the L-d G-d formed from the ground all of the wild beasts of the field, and all of the fowl of the heaven, and He brought them to the Adam…" There is no mention of domesticated animals, only wild ones, and the fowl are called "of the heaven." This question is the key to understanding Adam's task. He took "wild beasts" and "fowl of the heaven" and turned them into beings that relate to people. The wild beasts became domesticated, or they stayed away from people, and the fowl no longer were of the heaven, but of the earth. What does that have to do with marriage? Everything.
Adam took "wild beasts" or two human beings who are wild in the sense that they never learned to live with another person. He took "fowl of the heaven" or a great spirituality and took it to himself and made it work for him in this world. Marriage means that a man must realize his task, to tame himself and take the great spirituality of his wife. He knows that he can easily become a "wild beast," and must wrestle with a spirituality that if not properly programmed can consume him. This is the task of marriage: build a home taming the wildness of this world and utilizing the energies of the higher world.
The "wild beasts" and the "fowl of heaven" now become tamed beasts and fowl of this world. We tame wild beasts and make them work for us, and we take infinite lights and use them in our finite world. Marriage is the taming of the wild and the constant cognizance of transcendence, the "fowl of the heaven."
"And regarding the Adam, he did not find a helpmate opposite him." Of course, he did not, because G-d had not created it. The point is not that Eve did not yet exist, but that Adam desired her, for the first time. G-d did not create a woman until Adam realized how much he needed her. A major teaching of the rabbis is that when a person enters a new phase of life, as a husband, a leader, or a High Priest, he must be coached and encouraged. How frightened we are of new things. Therefore, Adam had to be prepared for marriage. He had to want it. Adam saw the beasts and fowl related in pairs and he wanted a mate as well.
Some people marry without anticipating the radical changes in their lives. Therefore, G-d did several things before he married Adam to Eve. First, he created new realities, and they were couples, mated animals, to show Adam that marriage was natural and proper. He also encouraged Adam to want a mate.
Even after people marry, they are sensitive to what others think. A good word about a spouse is so important. A bad word can hurt the relationship.
II, 21 "And the L-d G-d caused a deep sleep to fall upon the Adam and he slept. And He took one of his sides and closed up the flesh underneath it."
(In the following passage, we will discuss in depth what "side" means.)
After a person is intellectually ready for marriage, comes a stage of "sleep." We get married without really understanding its perfection, probably because it is not perfect. We know we need to marry, that was decided previously. However, the trip will be one of faith, and this is "sleep."
The sleep is a "deep sleep," as we enter a relationship where we are often helpless to make it work. Of course, if we do everything right, we improve our chances. However, our relationships are so sensitive and delicate that even a stranger with a look or a word can make problems. Financial difficulties and health infirmities can destroy a marriage. Love is a tender flower and the world is not a tender place.
After the decision to proceed with faith indicated by "deep sleep," comes surgery. "And He took one of his ribs." A person is ripped by marriage. He has to give up his privacy, his freedom. Many people never recover from the tearing. If we struggle to recover and make the marriage work, we may merit that G-d, "closed up the flesh underneath it." Nobody sees the tear and wound. However, we may always be cognizant of it. At times, we become frustrated because marriage is blocking off our way of life.
Those involved with marrying off children and people in general know the rule: The smarter and more mature the person is, the harder it is for them to marry. As people get older and wiser, they question every spouse, and end up alone. Young people, without the benefit of worldly wisdom, are much quicker to tie the knot, and are able to grow together with their spouse, as young people are plastic enough not to harbor pain from their "tear" and their "deep sleep."
The biggest problem, however, is for the "kleiber," (choosy). A prominent matchmaker said, "Everyone can find, except the super people who are so particular." The beautiful, rich, brilliant singles don't settle easily. Older singles can probably benefit from specialists in therapy and counseling. Some are afraid of the "tear" they will experience, or they may have other issues. One Brooklyn therapist claims to have helped many along-in-years singles to marry.
G-d took from the man "one of his tsaloos." The major commentators, Rashi and Ibn Ezra, interpret TSELA as "side."
We have discussed Adam and Eve attached and separate. As long as they are attached, they cannot marry. Only the sleeping and surgery prepare them to marry.
The marriage of Adam and Eve has two essences, one, their original joining, and two, the higher level of separation. However, the original joining prepared them for marriage, when they join on their own volition, and recreate the original physical joining. G-d separates only so that man and woman can rejoin themselves, on their own power, as free and independent people. Then, and only then, do their individualities produce a proper union, one that truly reveals the power of the individuals. The cycle of union, separating and union are the emotional and spiritual forces of marriage.
II, 22 "And the L-d G-d built the side that He took from the man to be a woman, and He brought her to the Adam."
What is the meaning of Eve being a "side" of Adam? Why did it have to be "built"? The world, we explained, was created for struggle. A man struggles much more than a woman, because a man is "earth" and a woman is "life." She is the angelic level, a helpmate to the man in his struggles. He must struggle, moreover, to merit a good relationship with her. This is partially because he is "earth" and she is "life." It is also because he is "kindness" and she is a more demanding "justice."
Was Eve a functioning human being attached to Adam? Were they Siamese twins? Before she was "built," she was not a "woman," and we are not told what she was. Therefore, Eve was actualized only after being separated from Adam. Whatever she was is not discussed, although there is some indication in the Zohar that the two shared a soul that bounced back and forth.
Adam was created from the ground with Eve on his side. She was not part of his body, but separate, and yet, she was not an individual, as we know it. She was in between an individual and a part of Adam, although she was neither.
She was TSELA, the side of Adam. What does this mean?
If we take the word TSALE, or "shadow," and add the letter AYIN that means "eye" to it, we get "TSELA," or "side." "Shadow" plus "eye" equals "side."
The "eye" or being noticed, or actualized, can only happen in the "shadow." People are created in order to enter heaven with their own struggles and deeds, to be "noticed" amid the mighty spiritual forces before G-d in heaven. How are people noticed? Why are they so special that G-d and the heavenly forces notice them? They become special and actualized when G-d hides His Presence. Thus, the crucial element in forming people is G-d hiding His light. This is "shadow." When we struggle in G-d's Hidden Presence, "shadow," we merit "eye," that we are noticed in heaven, and are actualized.
The force of actualization is female. The male is "self-abnegation," or "kindness," and the female is "self-actualization," or "justice." Thus, the female was the "side" or TSELA of Adam, that part of the human equation that is "seen" or "actualized" through emerging from the shadow of G-d's hiding and shadow.
Eve was nothing as long as she was attached to Adam; people are nothing as long as they are attached to and bask in heavenly light. Eve comes into her own after "separation" from Adam. She is able to be his wife only after G-d tears her from him. A person can only relate to G-d after G-d "tears" the person from G-d's revealed light and puts it into a dimension of testing and challenge. In the "shadow" a person emerges with "self-actualization." This is the "eye," the capacity to be noticed and actualized, which exists only in darkness when the soul is "torn" from G-d and heaven.
We find the same root TSALE, or "shadow," in another Creation word, "TSELEM," or "image." Adam was created in the TSELEM or "image" of G-d. If we add the letter MEM to "shadow" or TSALE, we get TSELEM "image." MEM is the female essence, the "self," and the female Oral Law that begins with MEM and ends with MEM. Free choice and the ability to sin are also MEM. MEM is the central letter of the alphabet, and the middle of the word EMESS, or "Truth." The central theme of Creation and Truth is the self. Self is a female force, as is the Oral Law relative to the male Written Law. The Oral Law is rabbinics, the human interpretation of the Written Law that has no human input, as G-d dictated it.
Therefore, TSELA and TSELEM, "side" and "image" are both the story of humankind emerging from the darkness of the Hidden Presence to be self-actualized. The perfection of this process was Eve, as she is the female essence, and therefore, she is TSELA, or "side."
Eve, as a "side" of Adam, was a unity and a spirituality produced by G-d, and was thus without personal worth and actualization. Only when G-d produced challenge, or "separation," by tearing Eve from Adam, and allowing the two to join on their own volition, could they produce the "one" essence and become vessels for G-d's infinite lights. People who reach beyond themselves to join another negate finite separation, which is the barrier to heaven. When the barrier breaks, they are united with each other and with G-d. This is the level of TSELA, the "side" and the "eye." We now understand the female force in "eye" and revelation, and the idea of female "beauty." Spiritual revelation is the infinite shining in the finite. Beauty is not just what you behold, it is what you sense beyond what you behold. When you see something that is a key and connection to transcendence, you behold beauty.
"And the L-d G-d built the side." "Built" is another important idea. Building means that you take a foundation and build a structure upon it. You take pieces and form a whole. Maimonides in the first words of his Code of Laws writes of "the foundation of foundations and the pillar of the sciences." Note, there is a foundation and there is a pillar. The foundation is below the structure and invisible. The pillar is above the ground and visible. Building is a process of putting a visible building upon a hidden structure. The key is for the building to find support from the invisible structure. The building cannot survive if the connection between building and structure is flimsy.
A female, as we explained, is the angelic spirituality that is a bit of a stranger to this world. She is closer to transcendence than the street. G-d "built" the woman as a structure of finite essence upon the foundations of transcendence and spirituality. The first passage in Psalms tells of the pious who is "like a tree planted upon pools of water." A person is like a tree, as the bible says, "Because a person is a tree." A tree has hidden roots, and they support the standing tree. Nobody sees the roots, and nobody watches the roots drink from the pools of water, but the tall tree is only as strong as its roots.
The rabbis note that "built" BINYAN in Hebrew is similar to "BINA" or "understanding." They therefore interpret this to mean that a woman has superior understanding relative to a man. What does this mean? The Talmud suggests, for instance, that women can figure people out faster than men can. One idea that we mention briefly here is that the female "circle dimension" sees a suffusion of spirituality in the mundane and understands it intuitively. The spiritual foundation of the material world is her essence. She is the "circle" and "the way of the world that precedes the Torah." The male has to study Torah and concoct logical edifices to know this spirituality. In a sense, his struggle is "light from darkness" and therefore greater, because "according to the pain is the reward." However, this does not detract from the natural spirituality of the female, which allows her to intuitively "understand" the mundane radiating with its supernal roots.
The rabbis say that there is "wisdom" and "understanding," and they are different. "Wisdom" means to know something directly. "Understanding" is to "infer something from something else." Wisdom is direct, but understanding is tricky. How do we infer something from something different?
We mentioned previously that the female was "TSELA" or "side." TSELA was two words, "shadow" and "eye." "Shadow" meant that G-d hid His Presence and a world of challenge emerged. Humans then became self-actualized through struggle and came into their own. They were now "seen" or the level of "eye." Shadow and eye are thus opposites: shadow means not seen and eye means seen.
The woman knows the root and the branch, the hidden and the revealed, the material and the spiritual, without having to change herself in any way. She knows the material and the spiritual, and they are, to her, one thing, one unity, because ultimately, all is G-d's Will. Her spirituality and "building" allow her this "understanding." To her, the hidden and revealed are one essence, but the man must proceed logically, and spirituality for him is a separate world. A woman thus has superior "understanding" of "one thing from another." They are not two things to her, but one. The male, on the other hand, divides facts into logical sections, and they do not automatically and intuitively relate. He thus has less "understanding of one thing to another" because he has a longer gap between a thing and its roots, or two disparate things. He does not sense intuitively the connections between finite disparities.
"And He brought her to the man." The Jewish way of marriage is that everything is done through a third party. My children usually get married with the involvement of several people, rabbis, friends, relatives and advisors. The notion that people just say hello at a restaurant and live happily ever after is disproved by the fifty percent divorce rate that such unions help generate, although other problems contribute. A person should not have to go through this alone. "And He brought her to the man" teaches us that a third party should be involved, someone who can encourage the relationship, someone who can defuse the silliness that blocks a life of happiness so often, someone who can advise on how to see past stubbornness.
The confident smile you see is a sham. People are afraid. They should be. They need courage and confidence, kindness and consolation. Sometimes people have to be consoled because the right person for them is not what they dreamed about. They always wanted this or that but the proper person for them does not have this. This is the tough part, the key part of matchmaking, cutting out the frills. They don't go peacefully.
The New York Times ran an article several years ago about an apartment building in Manhattan, populated by the comers and the beautiful people. It seems that there was a divorce, and the person who remained in the building began to talk to her friends, pointing out the bad things about their marriages. Soon, another person divorced, and another. A panic set into the building, and the divorcees were quarantined. Right after I read that article I got a call from someone who told me, "My wife doesn't respect me." I was shocked. They had been married happily for so many years. I inquired what was happening, and why all of a sudden he came to this bitter conclusion. The angry husband had a guest who had just divorced. The divorced man pointed out the faults of the marriage. I told the caller, "Get that guest out of your house." There were no more complaints.
Not only do we need someone to bring us together, we need someone to keep us together. How sensitive we are to every word. The worst thing is when a person's parents or relatives criticize a spouse. A relative once told a wife, "He could have done better than you."
I once participated in a religious divorce ceremony. The wife was crying bitterly, and the husband seemed a good match. So, what were they doing here? Just then, the wife's mother, a real powerful lady, came into the room. She looked triumphantly at the husband, and I understood. Child sacrifice has never gone out of style. It just takes on different forms.
(Genesis II, 23) "And the man said, 'This occurence is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. To this will be called woman because this was taken from a man.'"
"This time" (ZOSE HAPAAM) is literally "this occurrence." The simple interpretation, or working translation, is "this time." This indicates that there was a previous occurrence of marriage. (The rabbis explain that Adam had a previous wife, Lilith, but she was too harsh and G-d made another wife. We won't delve into these deep ideas here; we hope to do so elsewhere.)
The Hebrew word for "time" or "occurrence" is PAAM. PAAM has a numerical value of 190, the same as "KETZ" or "end." "End" is an important word, especially as it applies to the End of Days and the Redemption. On the other hand, life is filled with "ends," when we go from here to there. Marriage begins only when we are at the "end" of being single. Those who marry and still like being single have a problem. To them, the spouse is a superior form of enjoying the old life, whereas a spouse deserves more. A spouse needs the realization that the old way is dead.
A pious person may marry because of family and sexual pressures. Another person may marry because of loneliness, or the need to have a family. Regardless, "ending" is important for the success of the marriage. All must accept marriage as the end of a previous life. The male enters marriage "clinging" to his wife, not in the sense of seeking a mother, but in resolving his issues and revealing his essence in the energy of his wife. No longer is he sitting alone in the spotlight, revealing and defining his self. Now, by "kindness" and vulnerability, by negating himself, he actualizes. This is a new concept, and without it, marriage struggles. In other words, the marital person and the premarital person are inverse creatures. Where once people were "they" and you were "it," things turn around with marriage. Now others are "it" and you are best ignored. From this vulnerability comes an utterly new level of self-actualization. We find it only by letting go of the child in us.
PAAM or "occurrence" and "time" is the root of the word PAAMONE, or "bell." The bell chimes and makes a noise. It calls people to notice it. Thus, PAAMONE or the related PAAM or "time" calls people to wake up and realize that something is happening. The past is ending and the future begins. When people negate themselves, remove their childish selfishness, instead of losing, they bang like a bell in a new and infinite actualization.
The marriage ceremony, especially in Jewish custom, is rich in ritual and rejoicing. The greatest rabbis and saints were famous for the extreme efforts they made to gladden the hearts of the newlyweds. The elderly and weak dancers who kept going have an important share in Jewish survival. One famous rabbi in Jerusalem went so overboard that he perspired heavily in one wedding hall, went out in the cold to another wedding, and became gravely sick. The spectacle of aged and infirm rabbis trying to dance at a wedding far beyond their comfort zone turns the younger dancers into frenzy. If the aged and honorable are dancing with all of their limited strength, young people say, why not us?
Why do we dance so much?
When someone marries, he doesn't realize what he is doing. He doesn't realize the greatness of the step, the elevation it brings him. Only after seven days of watching people honor him or her does the newlywed being to fathom what is happening. This realization conveys that there is an "end" and a "time" of beginning. Life is now entering a totally new dimension, and the husband and wife must let go of the old silliness and ego, and embark on a new life.
The pressures on an Orthodox family are enormous. There are hopefully many children, and many bills to be paid for them, including private parochial schooling and support for a few years after the children's weddings. Many children mean constant demands on husband and wife. They are people and need rest and restoration like everyone else. If the baby cries at night and the child comes home from school in a bad mood, when are parents to rest? Once a couple has a few children, any hope of vacationing is almost a fantasy. One couple vacationed by sending away all of the children, locking the door and pulling down the window shades for a few days. How do we survive?
When worn and ragged people come to a family wedding, and participate in the many joyous family rituals associated with children, new energy and joy enters their tired bones. The family is a chore, it is a burden, but it, like the Holy Ark, "carries itself." Sometimes it does not, and then, extended family, neighbors and community step up. In extreme cases, children must go elsewhere, such as when there is a death or serious illness. A community devoted to the frenzy of the wedding dances never stops. We don't have the energy to dance but we do. We don't have the energy to raise children but we do. While we do, we hear, faintly but not far away, the throbbing of the drums, the sobbing of the clarinet, the shriek of the flute, and the singing. We dance, and dance, and dance.
"This time" indicates, as we said, that Adam had a previous wife. His first wife was Lilith. For our lesson here, we derive from this that we accept our mates "this time" and not always the first time. We tried other things, and they did not work out. Perhaps those other things were superior in some respects, more interesting and inviting, but for us to marry we came back to reality and choose "this time." One who marries only because the mate is perfect is doomed. Marriage succeeds when we marry "this time," without illusions, accepting what we have, knowing full well what happened the "first time" when we tried to marry the more exciting proposal. Also, "this time" indicates not a previous relationship, but a previous standard. "This time" I am going to settle. When you settle and ignore your unreasonable or unattainable standards, you are ready for the big time.
The way I marry off my children differs from the way most people get married. Most people get married in their twenties or thirties, even forties or later. They have plenty of time. This allows them to take their leisure, experiment, get to see the world, and finally decide. My children have no such luxury. They are chomping at the bit and when the starter-gun fires, they are off, or rather, I am off, and they are off awaiting some results from me. Nobody knows the pain of a father who gets a look from an impatient daughter.
On the other hand, such pressure immediately dispels fantasy. When you are anxious to settle, you don't waste time. "This time" is immediate. By cutting to the quick, we save a lot of energy. Focusing allows us to eschew experimenting and dreaming. We have an advantage of knowing exactly what we want. We want such and such a family, and such and such attitude, and such and such a philosophy. Once we narrow it down, we know what we want, but only G-d knows what we will find. I have married off seven children, and the spouses we found for them were so utterly remote from our wildest dreams that sometimes we just sit and laugh. I always tell my wife, "You have to have sympathy for the angels in heaven who work to make marriages. They have to work so hard."
Marrying is a science, and when it is not, it is a tragedy. The very last thing we want to do is to find a mate at the restaurant and get impressed by someone's smile, and not their attitudes and philosophies. Those who go from restaurant to restaurant have an ordeal of fire. Every person they ever meet has a sexual potential, and this discolors all human relationships. Since chemistry is often stronger than it should be, people who bounce in and out of relations get hurt. Spending ten or twenty years going with this one and that one is exhausting and debilitating. We like to come into our relationships fresh and strong, and make them last. Every time we have a relationship, it sticks, and when it ends, it peels something off our soul, never to return. The next relationship starts with a heart that is scarred, and eventually, the heart is one big scar. Sometimes, we have such pain from relationships that never last, that we lose certain emotional functions, or live with fears and inhibitions. We are afraid to let go. We are afraid and anxious about our ability to find love. That is why parents have to do the work, and when we finish with somebody, nobody gets hurt. When we meet the parents who rejected our children or us we will smile and greet them. Those are the rules. Our soul is still in one piece. Our children don't know what happened. If they do know—perhaps they overheard a telephone call—it is not personal, it is not sexual, and it is not intimate emotion. It comes and it goes, and the child grows, without scars.
The passage mentions "bone" and "flesh." Bone is the inner core of the human being, and flesh is the outer revealed level. "Bone" is hard and "flesh" is soft. Every person is a duality, inner and outer, hard and soft. In marriage, we cannot accept only the external. We must match with our mate internally as well. We cannot ignore the "hard" part of the other person; we cannot dwell only on the "soft" kindness. Marriage is when we accept that our spouse has internal and external, hard and soft. These forces often are opposites and confusing. Our spouse is several people: internal one-way external another way, hard and soft, at times this and at times that. Can we keep track of all of this? Can we accept it? There is one condition: Do we feel the person is for us? Does the spouse match or mesh with our own opposite forces, our internal and external, hardness and softness? "Bone from my bone flesh from my flesh." That is the key.
A person is "bone" and "flesh." A person is a variegated jumble of conflicting and seemingly unrelated and incompatible forces. We relate to people showing one emotion while we really feel another emotion. We have a math brain that zeros in on details, facts and the trees in the forest. We have a graphics brain that ignores the details and sees the graphic and spatial, ignoring the trees and focusing upon the forest. We have a rational brain and its nemesis the amygdala that rummages constantly through our memory to find emotional responses that overpower our logic. We are spiritual and yet desire things that are material and even gross. In any given moment, we are running in different directions. Marriage can do one of two things. It can resolve these conflicts and focus us, or it can exacerbate our confusion.
If we come into marriage knowing what we want, and what we are, things can work out. If we are confused and seek a spouse to solve our problems, we may make things worse. Adam said, "This time bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh." Adam is confident of himself. He relates to Eve as he knows himself, and glories in her compatibility with what he is and what he wants. A person who is unsure of himself or confused cannot tell a spouse what he is and what he wants. When we marry, we must know who we are and what we want. Negotiations are fine, but when a person flickers and changes, when the personality is unstable, the marriage trembles. A person cannot live with a nebulous mixture and mirage.
We touch now upon a separate topic, the anxieties that infest our system. Our life experiences are engraved in the emotional memory of the amygdala. This super-fast and super-powerful part of the brain may be our strongest limb. It overpowers our logic and all else. There is a professor of psychiatry who has a phobia. He teaches doctors how to treat phobia, but he has no hope. His amygdala does not want to listen to logic. It wants to present fear.
When we say that a person is a welter of confusion, we must emphasize that the biggest problem is that much of us is utterly irrational and not interested in logic. Our sexual preferences and behaviors are rooted to a large degree in our irrational rather than rational side. There are deeply religious people who have homosexual urges that baffle them. They would do anything to be free of the pain of self-sex attractions. Many people have a great respect for others. They want to love them, they want to marry them, but they can't. Sometimes they love someone irrationally, but in the rational world, the two are incompatible. A woman once said at her divorce, "I love my husband. But I cannot live with him." The logic cannot reach the "inner self." The "inner self" cannot make peace with the logic. We are not only our logic, but also our deeper and irrational personalities. This is frightening, but it is the reality.
We are our father's frown that molded us into a sex fiend. The anxiety flowing from that frown sixty years later has no relief other than pleasures that are utterly irrational and often even evil. Grandparents molest children and very idealistic people are pedophiles because of the pain of the pedophile's childhood. We spend our lives overeating and indulging in the opiates of life, nice nor not, to assuage the pain of years and events long gone. They are not gone. They are us.
Adam said of Eve that she was "this time," meaning, I am focused now to accept her. A man is the moment. You are defined by the particular swirl of events, logic and irrationalities, emotions and experiences, at a given time. Yesterday I was a different person, and tomorrow I may change again. If so, how can I marry?
"Bone of my bones." The "bone" is the internal, the powerful irrational forces that are the foundation of the person. When the "bones" click, we can marry. "Bone" is also the transcendent spirituality inherent in the soul. When we marry, a mighty miracle occurs. Two humans swishing with striving streams and senses smile and enjoy each other, and are one. First comes the focus of "this time," empowering the present against the ravages of the past and the fantasies of the future. Next comes "bone of my bones" as we relate on the powerful internal frequency. It is a bone of "my bones." The relationship must work inside the mystical internal person. This stage must be utterly and ruthlessly selfish. You cannot fake it, and if you do, you will cut someone's heart out. The heart you cut out may be your own.
Only when we are focused "this time" and relate on the deeper emotional levels "bone of my bones," do we come to "flesh of my flesh." "Flesh" is the external covering of the bones, or "self." Here, too, a person must be compatible. There are different ways to be logical, and as strange as this may seem, two people see logic differently. All logic is based upon axioms, and words have many meanings and shades. "Flesh" ultimately relies upon the "bone," and the "bone" of the inner irrational self is defined by "this time," a mood and posture that defies axiom and logic, something perhaps inspired by a higher light, one of true love. Love in Hebrew is AHAVO that has a numerical value of "one." Love unifies all of the flying fragments that comprise a person and surely two people.
"Bone" in Hebrew is ETSEM, which means also "the basic self" or the basic thing. The internal is the basic person, the real human. We declare it with "this time," and put it into perspective, but it remains the "bone," always a threat to our logic. The solution is ZOSE HAPAAM, "this time," where we emphasize the feminine pronoun ZOSE or "this is." The female resolves the nebulous, takes infinite lights, and makes them visible in finite vessels. She is the "circle" that circumscribes and thus reveals the infinite. Her infinite spirituality reaches into the vessel of finite force. "ZOSE" is Eve taking the confusion of Adam and declaring it, revealing it, and resolving it.
If Adam declared about "this time" or "my bones" or "my flesh," he did so with the power of Eve. A man is revealed and resolved by the female. He gives to her the capacity of the circle, to be a "wall" as we discuss elsewhere and take everything into her until Adam and Eve find peace or "completeness."
G-d encouraged marital resolution by "building" Eve and "bringing her to Adam." People don't see good things in other people so easily. They need someone to point out the obvious. Smart parents know what to say and what not to say around their children's spouses. Others speak from the heart and do incalculable damage. Marriage is not a rational regimentation. It is a tender blossom needing care and sensitivity. Every word is a threat. G-d "built" Eve before bringing her to Adam. There is a great difference between seeing a woman wearing junk clothes and seeing her in bridal attire. There is a great difference in how we are presented. We all benefit from a third party "building" us and "presenting" us, opening the heart of another to our good points. However, note that G-d did not say a word. Only Adam declared this or that. A parent does not declare. A parent is smart and "builds" so that the young people are moved to declare on their own.
II, 24: "Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and cling to his wife, and they will be one flesh." A man leaves his father and mother, thinking that he is now mature and ready for life. The smart father and mother did the "building" for this to happen, and the child takes the credit for becoming mature. This is exactly what the parents want. We raise our children to leave us. What tragedies happen when parents hang on.
A child is given to us not to possess and manipulate, but to serve. We do G-d's will by raising the child, and we fulfill our obligations when the child leaves us. Our lives are therefore devoted to "a man will leave his father and his mother." If the child when ripe does not leave, the whole family can rot. When my children were still little, I teased them about "leaving." Did they enjoy it! A child has an anxiety about the future. How scary to leave home and get married. When the child knows that the parent is determined and will help, the child relaxes. The more a child relies on a parent, the less fears there are.
The more a parent pushes a child to leave and independence, the less a child fears the parent, and appreciates the home. After the child marries, he wants to return repeatedly, because the home is not a threat to independence and maturity. On the other hand, the parent who holds on threatens the child, and when the child finally breaks away, fears the parents and may be reluctant to come and visit or to maintain a good relationship.
A parent may feel that they are owed something for all of their efforts. This is counter-productive. The more a parent projects upon the child debt and obligation, the more the child resents and resists. The wise parent moves to the side to allow a child to grow. When the child comes of age, especially when the child has children, the debts will be paid.
Once a parent decides to pressure a child, things can get nasty. There are parents who hang onto children and control them with guilt. Rightly seeing the strength of the child as a threat to their designs, the parent unleashes a campaign to destroy the child's potency and ability to resist. What selfish parents do to children no fiend could achieve.
"And he will cling to his wife." It does not say, "his wife will cling to him," but "he will cling to his wife." Marriage is "and Adam knew his wife." It does not say and "his wife knew Adam." We mentioned that the female is the circle and the "wall" and the man enters there, surrounded and engulfed by her. She is the "home" and he lives within it. He "clings" to her and is inside of her dimension, resolved and revealed there.
A woman once interrupted my class to blurt out: "I can't take it. I read that men have much bigger brains than women." Men have bigger biceps and bigger brains, and this bothers secular women. Religious women have no need of big biceps and big brains, because they are not defined by these things, although men are. As long as women insist on judging themselves by the standards of men, they will be frustrated. As one feminist acknowledged, the only solution is to redesign women genetically. Women who don't want to be turned into men can either rage and be frustrated or accept the Jewish way of looking at women not as inferior men but as women. A man may be the "public dimension" but that is inferior to the "private dimension" where the woman reigns. "A man may not enter the home without his wife's permission." (Zohar) "And he will cling to his wife" and be resolved and revealed there, ensconced in her circle and "wall." How wrong it is for some secular women to consider themselves mere handicapped men!
"And they will be one flesh." It does not say that they will be one "bone." That is impossible. The internal emotional memories and even spiritual forces that determine a personality cannot be merged into one. However, when the male "clings" and negates his "kindness" essence to the female "circle," they are truly one, and can become "one" in matters of the external and logical "flesh." The relationship does not alter their individuality, but as long as the male "clings" to the female and respects her, the two can function, communicate and prosper. Surely, the inner forces will out here and there, but the "flesh" external level will deal with it.
We explained before that the man says that Eve is "bone of my bone." Yes, Adam and Eve have compatible "bones" or inner essences, but the inner essences do not necessarily become "one bone." It is possible to be companionable with an essence that will never merge into your essence or truly mesh with it. It is only possible to merge and mesh with our spouse's logic and external thoughts, as they are malleable and tend to respond to the input and example of others.