A rabbi once said, "There are two types of people. Some say, 'I am great and you are greater.' Others say, 'I am nothing and you are worse.'" If so, we can only appreciate others if we value ourselves. Therefore, if we do not recognize our value, we cannot truly admire others. This is such a challenge; whether we succeed spiritually depends on it. However, can we appreciate ourselves? There are so many obstacles. If our parents did not favor us with true love and encouragement, we grow up without self-esteem. If our teachers did not seem to notice us, how can we overcome our feelings of inferiority? If we failed in business or marriage, or in important areas of life, how can we feel good? What person merits parental support, the blessings of teachers, success in life, and a sunny disposition? The rest of us have to start while we are running backwards.

The Creation Story teaches us our significance. The Talmud teaches: "Why did G-d create the entire universe and then make one man? So that each person should say, 'For my sake the world was created.'" Can we accept G-d creating the universe for just one of us? What is so significant about one person? Only G-d knows. Our meaning is a mystery, hidden in the Will of G-d.

G-d did not create the world for humans collectively, as a race, less people think, as some philosophers maintain, that people are trivial but the human race is vital. If one person is inconsequential, can ten or a thousand trivialities be worthy? Can a million or billion nothings become something? Ultimately, we are either important because one human being is important, or the human race is unimportant. Our task is to accept the overwhelming idea that we are not only important, but the purpose of Creation, and then begin to know why. Our entire life, and even our After-life, will be about this question. It has no finite answer; heaven hides it.

When we try to appreciate ourselves, we must understand what a person is. Of course, there are various types of people. The world adores conquerors and adulates those who have power over others. Generals and slaughterers are historical icons, and decent, fine people are ignored. Judaism adores Moses for his modesty and adulates those who “are insulted and do not insult back.” The Talmud and Cabala works praise the woman above all people, as she is the abode of the Revealed Presence of the Schechinah. The West is influenced by Greek thought, and the Greeks rejoiced in might and despised any but the elite. Women, weaker than men, were utterly despised. In one of his dialogues, Plato has a philosopher define justice as “might.” Aristotle said that women could not think rationally. If we feel as the Greek-West does, we define ourselves in how much we conquer and break others to our will. If we are Jewish, however, we define ourselves in terms of how we serve others and seek piety and good character, especially humility. Western women, in a secular society that has no use for a family woman, define their value in terms of how male they have become, a hopeless frustration. A Jewish woman with a modest and appreciating husband is happy to be a woman, and appreciates herself and the honor showered upon her by her family. “Her sons rise up and honor her, her husband praises her,” the Woman of Valor of Solomon. Thus, Judaism constrains us to appreciate ourselves, both men and women, in terms of how much we give to others, to our families, to our spouses, to society and to spirituality. The reward of this self-abnegation is self-actualization. The more we ignore ourselves and think of others, the greater we become, and we appreciate ourselves in proportion to how much we appreciate others. We cannot only appreciate people as an idealism, but also as a reality of life, as we constantly give to others and sacrifice in order to do so. Thus we elevate others and in the process of negation are actualized. If we ourselves, we appreciate others. If we appreciate ourselves, we realize our role to help others, and as we help others, we elevate ourselves. Thus it all begins and ends with loving ourselves, and yet, we express this love by loving others, by raising ourselves to negation, to prioritizing others, and by so doing, we fulfill our own relevance, and become important and appreciated as people. We thus begin and end with self-appreciation and self-actualization, but this is performed by abnegation and benevolence. There is a deeper idea, as to how we actualize from helping others.

The Cabalists taught the Secret of the Scale, which featured two plates hanging from a stick. The stick is attached to the scale so it can bend in response to the changing weight in the plates. We put a weight into the left plate, and the right plate rises. We put a weight into the right plate and the left plate rises. In actual use, we place a known weight, such as a five-pound lead bar, into the left plate, and put merchandise into the right plate. If the right plate rises, it is not yet five pounds. We add, therefore, more merchandise, and the right place descends. Too much. We take off a bit, until the two plates are even. We then know the weight of the merchandise, five pounds.

The Secret of the Scales is the secret of individuals surrounded by those who are different. When we worry about number one, everyone else is competition. There are two people in the scale. One is on the left plate and the other is on the right plate. The scale cannot raise two people, and only one plate may rise. Furthermore, as one plate rises the other must descend. How do two people exist in the same scale? The Secret of the Scales is for the two people to “marry,” and become “one,” or rather, to consider themselves not as selfish individuals but as part of a marriage or society where the ideal is to give and help others, rather than to take. Let us assume that A and B are in the scale. A descends and B rises. This distresses A because he wants to rise and he wants others to be lower. A is frustrated and he complains and makes B descend so A can rise. Then B on the bottom complains, and he rises and A descends. The whole day is this one or that one complaining. What is the solution? The solution is for A and B to become one unit, of society, or, in marriage, two people think of the needs of the other.

A now descends and B rises. A is happy. He is happy because he values himself in terms of how much he helps another. This is one idea. There is, however, a deeper idea, the Secret of the Scales. A is B. A and B cannot compete because they are one. A descends and sees B rising and feels that he, A, is rising. This vicarious pleasure expands A to be one with B, so the pleasure of B is the pleasure of A as well. This is marriage.

The particular leaps across the abyss of selfish individuality and becomes the whole. The “marriage of particulars” unifies competing units. Now we have a new way to value ourselves. We redefine ourselves. We are no longer A helping B, but we think in terms of A-B, or marriage or society. At this point we expand our horizons to identify our self outwardly to others and society. We can eventually regard ourselves as the entire universe, singing in concert and doing the Will of G-d. This is the ideal.

Jewish dancing is usually done with everyone in a circle. Each individual expresses happiness as part of a group, rather than as an individual. The dancing circle in Hebrew is Mochole, related to the word MOCHALE, or forgiving. The Zohar says the way to true cleansing of sin is for us to emerge from our individualistic identity and to become part of others. When we negate our selfishness, justice seeks us in vain, because we no longer “exist” as individuals, but as part of the All, and the All cannot be punished. The highest level of this is marriage when the male and female merge into one unit. When the pious Rabbi Aryeh Levine took his wife to the doctor he said, “Doctor, my wife’s foot hurts us.”

Kindness: Does it Help or Hurt?

The “Scale” and “Circle” we just studied suggest a path to self-actualization. By negating ourselves, and doing kindness to others, we reveal ourselves in “kindness” and ultimately become one with those we help. Our expanded consciousness exalts our self-actualization, and we continue to give and grow. Kindness, actually, is a very delicate matter. When someone helps us, we feel helpless. Taking quenches an inner pride, perhaps never to be rekindled. The Talmud compares taking from others to one who is hurt by fire and water. Usually, fire and water stay separate. When we have to, we extinguish fire with water. However, when we take from others, a great pain strikes our inner soul, now mired in beggary. The flame of fire, which is our pride and self, blazes and torments us. We try to throw water on it, but alas, water is kindness, the very thing that pained us to begin with! Thus, we are “judged with two judgments, fire and water.”

The Talmud therefore instructs us to give charity only with an encouraging word. We address the hunger while we feed the pride, deeply wounded by the act of taking. Greater, says the Talmud, is the kind and encouraging word, than the actual money we give or the food. In Europe, a guest was made to feel so important that the hosts slept on the floor and the host slept in a bed. Everyone did it, and nobody felt insulted. A guest, instead of being a chore, a burden, felt such a lofty status!

A guest came to the aged saint of the generation, Rabbi Yisroel Kagan, and watched in wonderment as Rabbi Kagan made his bed. The guest demurred, and tried to make the bed himself. Rabbi Kagan said, “Do you, perhaps, want to wear my tephilin for me?” A Jew wears Tephilin each day, and a Jew must do kindness each day. Honoring a guest is the same as blowing the Shofar. This allows the guest to be not a burden but an opportunity. This is true kindness.

Secular kindness is for the helpless and infuriates those who take it. This is the problem created in America by Civil Rights and programs for minorities. Instead of encouraging people, it taught them to hate those who “caused” their problems. It taught them to be angry and get more benefits. “Help him together,” says the Torah. Help him help himself. “Greater is one who gives a loan to start a poor man in business than one who gives plain charity.” Help a person not to lose the spark of individualism and courage.

We therefore practice kindness not by telling short people they are tall, or telling blind people they can see, but by telling short people they can jump, and helping those who cannot see to find meaning in life with their strengths. If does not end with a disability, although those who suffer may feel that way. We must point out, reveal and encourage alternates to despair.

The poorest person, a Jewish saying goes, is a single person. A poor man may lack a dollar, a meal, a house, but marriage completes the person. One without a spouse is only half a person. This is a problem. This is true poverty.

Many people give up. They tried and found frustration. One person refused to try anymore. His cousins arranged a date for him, and he agreed it was something interesting, but could no longer expose himself to frustration. The time came, and he just sat in his house, refusing to go to the date. His cousins came in, lifted him up, and drove him to the date. It worked! He married. Alone, he would still be sitting in despair. He needed help, but not help to despair, rather help to succeed.

How people relate to others and even themselves depend on how others speak and insinuate. For this reason, the Torah considers common gossip where we discuss people usually in a negative sense to be a great sin. By creating a negative impression of a human being, we damage a person. “Evil talk,” says the Talmud, “damages three people: the victim of the gossip, the speaker and the listener.” Our tongue must be that of the Woman of Valor. Solomon described her, “The Torah of Kindness is her tongue.” What woman goes around speaking a Torah of Kindness? Torah means to enlighten. A Woman of Valor discusses people by pointing out their good points. Instead of gossip and cruelty, she teacher and enlightens others about the good points of other people. This is the Torah of Kindness.

When we speak kindly of others and refuse the opportunity to advance ourselves by having others laugh at our cruel remarks about somebody else, we enter the Dimension of Kindness. We are now a different person. The world, from our perspective, is a World of Kindness. Our mouth is a Tongue of Kindness. Love, happiness and positive thoughts accouter us. One who delights in speaking evil of others is also a different person after the talk. Now, the tongue has torn respect from a human being. The speaker has a tongue of cruelty, and a soul of negative judgment. His world is Cruel, not Kindness. Those winds and forces whipped up by the good laugh at someone else’s expense gather their forces as heavy and thick clouds upon the head of the speaker, and all who enjoyed his remarks.

If we think, speak and act with Kindness, we elevate ourselves to the Dimensions of Heavenly Love. Infinite song and divine lights shine our way. If, on the other hand, we think, speak and act with Cruelty, we debase ourselves to the Dimensions of Hate. The echo of our malice reverberates amid the canyons of the Deep, and drags us down to Sadness.

The human being is great and cannot know his greatness. He walks in finite steps and invokes infinite lights. When we are kind and awaken another’s happiness, we first begin to approximate what humanity is, and some of it enters our cognizance, just a drop, but a drop flaming with joy.

ADAM: Humans and Humanity

The first human being was ADAM. ADAM means “man” or “human,” or “male and female” in the Hebrew, and is so understood in the English vernacular, according to prominent author and scholar Jacques Barzun. Although we stress the individual, the word ADAM applies to the race of humans as well.

What is ADAM? What are the roots of the Hebrew ODOM, meaning Adam? The bible makes it clear that Adam comes from ADOMO, or “ground,” because G-d took Adam from the ground and molded him into a human form. G-d fashioned Adam out of earth, and breathed into the clay form an infinite soul. A person is thus a clay shell holding an infinite soul. Why is a human called ADAM for “earth” instead of "breath" for the soul? The creation was a move from the infinite supernal realms to the finite earth. G-d wanted to create a dimension bereft of His Presence, and allow people to inhabit it. He wanted people to live in darkness, to struggle and reveal an infinite light. People would thus do G-d's work, to reveal Light. G-d would then reward people in heaven, in the infinite dimension, for eternity. People cannot enjoy unearned gifts, so we must earn our reward. After a person struggles in this world, he merits the glory of Paradise without feeling shame or embarrassment. The Talmud says some pious come to heaven after they die and feel so proud of their achievements and struggles that they actually demand reward. This is "strength," the ability to sit in G-d's Presence and be self-actualized. Such an enviable situation comes only from our "earth" essence, the struggle to bring illumination to a dark world. Therefore, people are ADAM, or “earth,” rather than G-d’s "breath," and divine light. By great effort, people transform the clay dirt into divine lights, and themselves from conflicted mortals to souls sitting before G-d.

This idea allows us to be "earth" and live in darkness, and yet be very important. The darkness and "earth" is there only to allow us entrée to the inner sanctums of G-d. Therefore, ADAM has another connotation. ADAM is related to the word DOMEH, or "similar." We are "similar" to G-d, by His Will, in that we "create" worlds and lights just as He does. G-d does not interfere so much in our dimension. The collective deeds of people construe, for better or worse, the fate of the world. Therefore, we, not G-d, as if it could be, are in control of the world. The Cabalists tell us that each thought, word and deed that we perform in this world triggers great events in the infinite heavenly world. Our mortal deeds reveal and conceive dimensions and heavens. Our sins destroy transcendent dimensions of the holiest light.

ADAM is also related to the word DOME, or "silence." Although we live in a finite dimension, and the spoken word reveals limited facts, the basic human is mystery, rooted in a spiritual supernal source beyond words, the dimension of "silence." "Silence" is not negative, it implies more than the lack of sound. Silence is the song of mystery, the soul seeing and knowing the infinite, hidden from our eyes, but everywhere.

These subtle ideas build the edifice of human pride and appreciation of self. They prepare us to love and honor ourselves, and ultimately, to respect others. Society and marriage ultimately thrive or collapse from the acceptance or rejection of these ideas.

Why People Denigrate People

The world does not appreciate people in the sense we have described. Even those who accept some concepts from Sinai find these ideas a challenge. Why? There are two basic reasons. One, people sin and feel guilty and unworthy. Two, people are imperfect and weak in many ways, and do not feel that they are so important. How do we deal with these issues?

Simply put, we deal with these two issues by denying them. We refuse to accept that sin can abrogate G-d's love for us, as the prophet taught, "I am G-d who dwells among you in your impurity." The bible is filled with exhortations for sinners to return to G-d and His favor. "In the place of the penitent even the perfectly righteous cannot stand," the Talmud teaches.

The second problem is that people are imperfect and weak. However, when we realize that people have divine and infinite souls, we respect them. The clay shell of people is a challenge, not a limitation. We respect the human being who struggles in a clay husk to find G-d. A clay crust radiating holiness is a wonder.

It is not enough, however, to only state these ideas. We must live them so that we really do appreciate others and even ourselves. It takes many years of effort, and every tiny step is a struggle. Indeed, as of today, the vast majority of people in the world deny the Jewish elevation of the human being. Religions preach the opposite. Secularists, especially the reductionists, deny human transcendence. Major philosophies and religions denigrated not only people, but nature and life as well. We will study this in more detail, but for now, we will say that Judaism taught by G-d to Israel at Sinai elevates the human being. Other religions and philosophies denigrate the human being. Judaism elevated the female, as we will study, and other religions and philosophies disparage the female. The world likes powerful men, and lionizes those who conquer and destroy others. Judaism prizes Moses because he was the most modest of men. In no other culture would Moses have had a chance. Judaism prizes not physical force but spirituality, and accepts a certain spiritual superiority of women over men. Women are the repositories of the angelic level of Schechinah, as we will study. Judaism considers marriage the highest holiness: "The Schechinah comes when a man and woman are together." Other religions consider women unclean and forbid priests to marry. Christianity, in Mathew, teaches that the spiritual person does not marry. Only lower men lacking in true spirituality take a woman. A major early church figure castrated himself to prevent sliding into the evil of marriage. The churches of the Renaissance had choirs containing castrati, boy castrated so their voices would retain a high pitch. Such a hideous thing would be an abomination in the Jewish world.

The first teaching of the Yeshiva of Elijah the Prophet is: "The Way of Life precedes the Torah." Only a “person” can achieve Torah, says Rabbi Isaac Luria. One becomes a “person” with good qualities of Derech Erets, the Way of Life. Derech Erets, the Way of Life, includes marriage and social relationships. We find G-d through humanity, not by asceticism. Loneliness is the opposite of spirituality. In the process of purifying our base instincts, we may have to do some fasting or training in self-control. However, the wholesome person indulges in life with its varying glories without guilt.

Let us return to the beginning of the world and its first generations. Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Their son Cain murdered Abel. Enosh, who began paganism, was the next, or third generation. Surely, this is an inauspicious beginning. Can we praise humans and admire them? Judaism maintains that we must struggle past these questions to appreciate people. It is a hard task, but G-d created us for it. Within the mystery of people is the mystery of heaven, so we must take heart and not give up.

After Cain killed Abel, Adam and Eve realized that the world needed someone else to continue humanity. Abel was dead and Cain was a murderer. (Genesis 4,25) "And Adam knew his wife again and she gave birth to a son. And she called his name Seth because, 'G-d gave me another seed instead of Abel because Cain murdered him.' And to Seth, also him, was born a son and he called his name Enosh. Then was ceased [the practice] to call in the Name of G-d."

The first passage is, "And Adam knew his wife again." The word again means that this was "again," not a new experience. Here begins the denigration of humans. The rabbis place great importance upon the attitude of the parents during their relations; it greatly influences their children. The story we are studying, about how people began paganism in the time of Enosh, begins with the intimacy of the grandparents; Adam and Eve copulated "again," rather than feeling a fresh and exciting spirit about having children. In truth, we can't blame them; they failed, their sons failed, and now they had to try again, albeit without enthusiasm.

Eve named the boy: "Because G-d gave me another seed instead of Abel because Cain murdered him." Again, we find disparagement. The child is "another seed instead of Abel." He is not worthy on his own; he is a replacement. His name means, "giving" because, "G-d gave me another seed in place of Abel." What is the significance of "giving"?

Eve named Cain that because "I have obtained a son from G-d." She obtained, gained and owned. These positive terms declare the glory of a woman in achieving a son. All of this turned to ashes when Cain became a murderer. Eve, a failure, says, "G-d gave me another seed." G-d gave me a child; I did not obtain it. She did not gain or “own” him as hers. She omits mention of herself, and no longer feels worthy to be a partner of G-d in creation. Seth, the son born in place of Cain, is thus the connotation of human failure and disfavor. His birth is attributed to G-d's "giving," not people obtaining him by their merits.

"And to Seth, also he, was born a son." Here we have the sadness flowing freely. "Also he," it says, not "he." He was "also," rather than the builder of a new world. His forefathers failed, and he came along “also,” not to rectify the world. “To Seth was born a son" is a passive phrase. It does not say Seth had a boy, or Seth's wife had a boy; it says only that the boy "was born." This passive phrase denigrates Seth and adds to the mood of gloom. Seth named the boy Enosh. Enosh is a word related to NOASH, or "despair."

"Then people ceased to call in the name of G-d." Why did people stop praying in the Name of G-d? We mentioned that they despaired of finding favor with G-d. The despondent people feared to deal directly with G-d and sought out intermediaries. Lower and lower they sank, until they worshipped idols, snakes and other mortals. It all began with despondency, indicated by the name of ENOSH, which means, "despair." However, why should people not despair? Wasn’t defying G-d in the Garden of Eden, Cain murdering Abel, and a general malaise leading to paganism enough? How can we judge them? How can we complain at their failure?

In life, we see unhappiness, often misery. How can we love G-d? The answer is to sense the transcendence lurking in the shadows. Although darkness and shadow pervade, inside is light. Even gloom and shadow have light. Indeed, darkness and shadow radiate the greatest light. “Light from darkness is greater than light from light.” How do we see the light? We attune ourselves beyond finite failure, and project ourselves into the infinite. We tune our souls to transcendence. We call in the Name of G-d, the Transcendent Name. Our only key to the Transcendent Name is our struggle with obscurity. We slip and fall until a light pierces the cloud. We are no longer afraid. No longer do we doubt. We call in the Name of G-d, and feel His Presence. We know the Presence is part of the darkness. We know the Presence is only revealed by groping and failing. We have faith to see the whole light. Indeed, our faith and patience will transform evil in the End of Days, when questions will become Answers. We must “call in the Ineffable Name” when we see nothing. From this, we merit a glimmer of light. It encourages us, and we continue.

In the time of Enosh people ceased "calling in the Name of G-d." Here, G-d is the Ineffable Name, meaning utter transcendence. Can utter transcendence have a Name? Yes, it does. Jews pray from prayerbooks where the Ineffable Name is written. They do not pronounce the Name, but they do read it, think it, and invoke it. In thought, even if not pronounced, the Ineffable Name unites the Jew with G-d directly and elevates the Jew to a heavenly sanctity. In the time of Enosh, this ceased. People no longer prayed in the Name of G-d, using the Ineffable Name. They used other names, such as the holy name ELOKIM, which means G-d as a revealed power. What they could see of G-d's handiwork they appreciated and accepted. What they could not see, the transcendence of the Ineffable Name, they refused to use for prayer. When people no longer struggled to reveal the Ineffable Name, they lost its encouraging glimmer. They fell away from G-d and had nothing to sustain them spiritually. Eventually, they denied G-d and became pagans.

Maimonides teaches that paganism came in stages. What were they? First, they refused to use the Ineffable Name in prayer, and rejected dealing with transcendence. They used the Name ELOKIM, which has a numerical value of the word “the nature.” They no longer felt worthy to deal with the supernatural. Now they no longer had courage from the Ineffable Name. No longer did they find light in the dusk.

Gradually, they ceased praying directly to G-d. They prayed instead to angels, then to stars, then to strong people, and finally to images.

The great Cabalist from Komarno said, "Being happy is not one of the commands of the Torah, and being sad is not one of the sins mentioned in the Torah. But happiness can bring a person to a spiritual level that no command can; and sadness can bring a person lower than any sin." Therefore, the Torah describes the decline of people not in terms of their sins, but in terms of their sadness.

The bible then continues in a new chapter (5,1): "This is the book of the Generations of Adam. On the day G-d created Adam, G-d made him in the form of ELOKIM (G-d)." This refutes and disputes the hopelessness of Enosh and his generation. Adam was created in the form of ELOKIM, G-d. Thus, there G-d and people are somewhat similar. This does not mean that people are divine; it means that they are not remote from G-d; indeed, they have similarities, and these similarities classify people as worthy of a direct relationship with G-d. We study the Torah that G-d studies. We pray to G-d and He listens. We perform kindness as G-d does. All of this encourages us to feel elevated and not to despair of G-d or ourselves.

The Ineffable Name

The last time you saw someone acting foolishly or cruelly, did you consider this person to be "in the image of G-d"? How can people who are so often foolish, wicked, and cruel be in the image of G-d? We cannot love others if we do not overcome our aversion of their misdeeds and shortcomings. How do we do this?

We mentioned the Talmudic phrase, "In the place where the penitent stands, the perfectly righteous cannot stand." In other words, people achieve a higher level after they fail than if they were perfect all along. "The righteous falls seven times and rises." He rises to a level that reveals the purpose of his falling. Falling and failing no way conflict with man "in the image of G-d." The Talmud says that the generation of Sinai and King David were pious. The Israelites who heard the Ten Commandments from G-d should not have worshipped the Golden Calf. The pious King David should not have taken another man's wife and murder him. However, G-d forced the power of sin upon these people in order to elevate eventually the power of penitence. Our falling and failing conceals the highest light. This encourages us when we fall; also, when we see others make mistakes, we still appreciate them.

Exile, or GALUT in Hebrew, is related to GAL, or revelation. Although Israel has suffered exile for thousands of years, our determination to follow our religion has not weakened. We saw, in the worst of times, what only GALUT or exile could reveal. All darkness is designed by G-d to reveal supernal lights.

Esau was the brother of Jacob. Often, the worst exile is in our own families. No quarrel is as terrible as with loved ones. The challenge to appreciate another is nowhere greater. The suffering if we do not is nowhere worse. The greatest darkness is that fierce anger that consumes a marriage, the love of one's youth, and the family. Within even such darkness is the greatest light, and perhaps, if we really try, we will find it and be guided out of the morass.

The bible, in the first chapter and three passages of the second chapter, begins with the Creation story. It recites the Creation narrative from day one to the Sabbath, the Seventh Day. Then the narrative repeats: "These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, on the day that the L-d G-d made the earth and the heaven." Until this passage, the Ineffable Name is not mentioned in the bible, only the name ELOKIM, Powerful One, which represents a “finite” revelation of G-d, G-d revealed by His Powers and Deeds. The Ineffable Name represents a transcendent G-d, infinite and beyond mortal comprehension, not revealed in the mortal mind, only in the soul. The Ineffable Name begins the Creation narrative about Adam and Eve and their sin. For the first time in the bible, the Ineffable Name is used. It is revealed only in human endeavors, the darkness of exile, and the challenges of life.

We find a similar theme in Exodus 6,3: G-d rebuked Moses for not appreciating the Jews in Egypt. True they were sinners. They worshipped idols and did not keep the Torah. On the other hand, suffering itself, the exile, created a light, a Torah of its own. Moses did not see this. G-d told Moses, "And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, in the Name Almighty G-d, but I was not known by the Ineffable Name." Only the exile revealed the Ineffable Name. The Jews in Egypt lacked piety but their suffering, revealed "light in the darkness" and the Ineffable Name. Human struggle even as failure is a mighty force.

People despise losers. Everybody likes a winner. History is the story of those who destroyed others. The victims are the pitied refuse of human affairs. The Jewish way is to regard a person struggling as a repository of holy light. A rabbi in the Talmud died and his soul went to heaven. He was revived and his soul returned. (This may be the phenomenon much studied in modern times called "near death experience.") He told what he saw: "Those low in this world are high there, and those high here are low there." Struggle and falling has its own currency, only revealed in the infinite eternal dimension. We must appreciate ourselves when we fall and we must appreciate others who fail. To be human is high and holy. To be human is to fall and fail, as long as we do not use such as an excuse. On the other hand, this is easier said than done. Even Moses failed in this regard.

Moses Hits the Rock

In Egypt, G-d told Moses to tell the Jews of their impending redemption. Moses replied, "They will not believe me." G-d rebuked Moses, and said, "They will believe, but you, in the end, will not believe." How could Moses, the greatest of the prophets, “not believe”?

The Jews had no water in the Sinai Desert. G-d told Moses, "Take your staff and speak to the rock" to bring forth its waters. Moses hit the rock, and did not speak to it. For this, G-d punished Moses that he not enter the Promised Land. G-d considered this sin to be, “not believing,” but we don’t understand why. Why does hitting a rock become not believing? Also, we cannot fathom why G-d told Moses to “take your staff” if Moses was not to hit the rock. Obviously, taking a staff implies using the staff, perhaps to hit the rock.

The answer is that G-d told Moses that there are two possibilities. If the Jews are worthy, speaking to the rock is enough. If the Jews are not worthy, it will be necessary to hit the stone. (Bamidbar 20,7) "And G-d spoke to Moses saying: 'Take the staff and gather the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock in their sight and it will give forth its waters. And you will bring forth for them water from the rock and water the congregation and their cattle.' And Moses took the staff from before G-d as He commanded him. And Moses and Aaron assembled the assemblage to the face of the rock, and he said to them, 'Hear now O rebels. Can we take forth for you water from this rock?' And Moses raised his hand and he hit the rock with his staff twice. And much water went forth and the congregation drank with their animals. And G-d said to Moses and to Aaron: 'Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assemblage to the land that I gave them.'"

A worthy people merits great miracles, and an unworthy people merits smaller miracles. Were the Jews worthy or not? This would depend on their level at the time of the approach to the rock. Moses had to be prepared for either eventuality. Perhaps the Jews would merit water by his speaking to the rock; perhaps the Jews would be on a lower level, and Moses would have to hit the rock.

G-d told Moses that the key was "assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock." The key is the phrase "Aaron your brother." Aaron was the brother of Moses, of course, so why did G-d mention it? The hint was that Moses and Aaron were “brothers.” In other words, Moses, to succeed, had to emulate Aaron. Aaron was the man of peace and love, and of appreciating others. Moses would succeed only by uniting the Jews in communal love and by loving them as well. Even if the Jews were not on a high level, the sight of Moses and Aaron as brothers would raise them to the proper level.

If the Jews were thus elevated, Moses could take water from the rock merely by speaking. If, however, Moses failed to inspire them to rise to the proper level, Israel would only merit water if Moses hit the rock.

When Moses came looking for the rock, the Jews complained. “Why look for a particulate rock?” they asked. “Any rock can bring forth water.” Moses was antagonized by this, and he berated the Jews, and called them “rebels.” He decided that they were not worthy. G-d told to Moses to “speak” to the rock, even though Moses held the staff as well. This meant G-d told Moses to raise the Jews higher than the “staff” level into the “speak” level. Moses “did not believe” properly in the level of the Jews. He refused to accept G-d’s hint to elevate them. G-d thus accused Moses of “not believing” in His words. Moses could therefore not enter the Promised Land.

This tragedy transpired because Moses did not manifest proper love and appreciation for Jews. Only that could have raised them to a high level. When a teacher believes in a student, the student responds and improves. When a teacher does not believe in a student, the student fails. Ultimately, the teacher is responsible. Indeed, the problem of appreciating others has never been solved. Even Moses failed in it. For us to appreciate our family members properly is also an incredible challenge. Human nature blinds us to the qualities of others, although we readily notice their faults. A rabbi used to pray, “May we merit to see the qualities of our fellow, and not their faults.”

Note that Moses and Aaron were both supposed to speak to the rock, but in the end, only Moses spoke. The fact that Aaron was missing indicated that the capacity of love and peace, the forte of Aaron, was missing. The level of love was missing, and this was disastrous.

"Moses and Aaron gathered the assemblage to the face of the rock." There is a difference between the "rock" and the "face of the rock." The rock is the inner rock; the face of the rock is its external façade. Moses could produce the level of “speaking” only by reaching out to the “inner rock.” By speaking only to its "face," the rock did not give forth its waters, until Moses had to hit it with his staff. When we see someone externally, we see the “face” of the person, but not the true person. The results are usually negative, as with Moses. We must “believe” in the goodness of others, especially when we don’t see goodness, only faults. G-d told Moses not to believe in Jews was the same as not believing in G-d. G-d made the world for Israel. If we despise them, we do not believe properly in G-d.

When we speak to a person, we can do one of two things, either engage the real person, or speak to his "face," or external façade. If we want to speak to someone and raise them with our love and appreciation, we must reach their inner essence, the "rock." Otherwise, we merely reach their "face," and not their heart. Moses did not achieve the level of love of the Jews necessary to reach into their hearts. As a result, he failed in his approach to the rock. If we loved others, the "rocks" would flow with sweet water, and we would not need to hit anything.

G-d told Moses, "gather the AIDO." That is, the community is called sometimes KEHILA, or gathering, and sometimes the higher term, AIDO, which is related to the word ADE, or testimony. When the Jewish people are on a very high level, they are suffused with the Shechina or Divine Presence, and offer testimony to G-d's Presence. They are thus AIDO, or testimony. Otherwise, they are simply an assembly of people, or KEHILA.

In G-d's instructions to Moses, He only used the term AIDO to refer to the Israelites. However, when Moses approached the Jews, it does not mention the term AIDO. Instead, it mentions the term KEHILA. After the water gushed forth, when Moses hit the rock, the Torah says that the AIDO was watered. Thus, G-d and the Torah consistently referred to the Jews as AIDO, the high level. However, Moses and Aaron did not see Israel’s high level. To Moses and Aaron, Israel was only a KEHILA or assembly. This was the sin. Because of it, Moses and Aaron could not enter Canaan.

Israel is like every other country, having land, hills, desert, rivers, valleys, and beaches. Not everyone sees in Israel the lofty holiness and special attributes that G-d placed there. Only one who can look deep into the "rock" and learn to love and appreciate it can lead the Jews to Israel.

When Jews first began arriving in Israel from Russia and Eastern Europe in Israel a few hundred years ago, they endured terrible experiences. They hungered, suffered from the inhabitants and government of the land, earthquakes, disease, etc. Rabbi Mendel of Vitebst wrote from Israel that the land hides her face and only reveals it to the worthy.

In those days, a rabbi left Israel to raise money. He came to a prominent Jewish community in the Diaspora, and told the local rabbi about the glories of the Holy Land. The local rabbi was so impressed and inspired that he resigned his position and went to Israel. Alas, he did not see the "treasures" he heard about, and saw only problems and challenges. He complained to the rabbi who told him of the wonders of Israel. "Where are they?" he asked. Eventually, the rabbi from the Diaspora went to the Israeli rabbi and said, "At last, I do see the treasures."

After Chaim visited Israel he asked his rebbe, Rebbe Shneur Zalman, "I don't understand. Where are the high souls in Israel you told us about? The people seemed quite ordinary to me."

The rebbe said nothing, but merely asked, "Let us see your gems." (The Chosid was a merchant of jewelry.) Proudly, the Chosid displayed his wares.

"I don't see anything special about these stones," said the rebbe.

Indignantly, the Chosid replied, "Rebbe, you have to be an expert to know stones."

"One must be an expert to know people," said the rebbe.

The Spurned Light becomes Evil

Often we convince ourselves that people are bad because they do bad things. People have energies and forces that can become very good or very bad. Rabbi Yosher Ber, the progenitor of the famous Soloveitchik family, said that the Jews are compared to the stars and to the dust. A very high force can be very high, or it can collapse, and become the opposite. Nuclear energy can be channeled properly, and if it is not, who knows what can happen, heaven forefend? Therefore, pure evil can be just a twist away from pure goodness. Once a person leaves the exact boundaries of goodness, he takes spiritual powers in the wrong direction, and they can flip quickly into mischief of the worst kind.

In short, the greatest evil is often the greatest good that is lost.

Such a person was Leibel. Leibel was a Yeshiva student in Russia whose heart was aflame with idealism. He saw the oppressed poor in Russia and moaned, even while his brilliant mind delved deep into the page of Talmud in front of him. Leibel was a natural leader. The head of the Yeshiva saw with consternation that Leibel influenced others to drink from wells not filled with kosher water. Those were pre-revolutionary days in Russia. Czar Nickolai sat upon a shaky throne; the ground trembled with agitation and even open battles. The head of the Yeshiva finally expelled Leibel. Leibel became Leon Trotsky, whose military genius turned Russia into a Communist state. The communists enslaved the majority, destroyed Yeshivas and religious life. Ultimately, Stalin murdered Trostsky. Stalin also plotted to slaughter the Jews, a project interrupted only by his death.

The Chofetz Chaim, the senior saint of the generation, refused to speak to the head of the Yeshiva who expelled Trotsky. Interestingly enough, there was another student, just like Leibel. Yosef was brilliant, powerful, personable, and he, too, wondered about Communism and socialism. All night the Chofetz Chaim spoke to him, and in the morning, the student resolved to remain in the Yeshiva, and become a rabbi. He became one of the greatest Yeshiva heads. His good deeds are the opposite of those of his fellow students who slipped into the maelstrom in those agitated times.

The highest spirituality, according to the Cabalists, is in the female. Thus, the greatest evil came from spurned women, Lilith and Timna, the mother of Amalek. Let us study them a bit. We will begin with Timna, because her story is easy to understand, if not tragic. Lilith is Cabalistic, and requires a special approach.

Timna

Timna (see Medrash Rabo Braishis 82) was the sister of a powerful ruler, Loton. She was consumed with the desire to marry into the spiritual family of Abraham, but alas, nobody wanted her. Despite her wonderful spirituality, her family was famous for incest and producing bastards. Finally, she settled upon becoming a concubine to Abraham's great-grandson, Elifaz. Elifaz was the son of Esau. Who was Elifaz? Of all of the seed of Esau, Elifaz was the most spiritual, and indeed, "grew up in the lap of Jacob," the brother of Esau. Esau told Elifaz to murder Jacob. Elifaz came to Jacob and told him his predicament. Jacob suggested, "Take my belongings, and the poor is considered as one dead." At any rate, Elifaz was the best of the seed of Esau, and Timna surely one of the most spiritual of her time, or any time. From them came Amalek. Amalek is the mortal enemy of Israel, whose progeny think only of destroying the Jews. Why and how did this happen? The rabbis explained that the Jews rejected Timna; this caused the good in her and Elifaz to emerge into utter evil and hate, Amalek.

When the Jews left Egypt in triumph, and miracles saved them from all evil, the nations trembled, except Amalek. Amalek fearlessly sallied forth to make war on the Jews, even as they sat comfortably and securely in the bosom of the Schechinah and the Holy Cloud in the desert. Joshua left the camp to battle Amalek, and killed many of them. However, Amalek made his point. Now people did not fear so much. It became easier to oppose both Jewry and its G-d.

G-d then declared, "My Name and Throne will not be complete until Amalek is destroyed." Such an evil, a spurned holy fire, can shake the Throne of G-d and damage, as if it could be, His Holy Name." Those who deal with divorces understand this.

Why did the family of Abraham reject Timna? Was she not utterly sincere and spiritual? There is, however, an ugly side to Timna, albeit not of her doing. The Medrash Tanchuma (Vayashev 1) tells that Elifaz, once the disciple of Jacob, became evil when he grew older, and slept with the wife of Sayir, the former king of the land where Esau lived. From this illicit union came a daughter to Elifaz, a bastard, Timna. He sinned again by marrying his bastard daughter, and from them came Amalek. Thus, although Timna was very righteous, desired greatly to marry into the seed of Abraham, and admired their holiness and spirituality, her parentage left much to be desired. The House of Abraham, rooted in family decency and sanctity, refused to accept her.

The Yalkut Shimoni (Genesis 30,129) says that Timna was from a noble family and could have married very high. She begged to marry Jacob, but he refused her. She offered to be his concubine, but he refused. She then said, "I will marry Elifaz, the reject of the holy family of Abraham, and not become a princess and queen in the royal families of others." For rejecting her, the Jews were punished. Amalek emerged from Timna’s union with Elifaz.

Not all was lost from the issue of Timna. True, from her came Haman, the Persian Prime Minister who plotted to utterly erase Jews from the earth. And yet, "From Haman issued a teacher of Torah to Jewish children in Bnei Braq." From great light came great darkness. However, that darkness ultimately revealed great light. From Timna’s spoiled spirituality, Amalek, came the pure lights of children learning Torah. Light-from-darkness blazes in G-d's Name and Throne. G-d waits impatiently for the sparks of Timna’s goodness to return to the fold. From such returned light G-d builds His Name and Throne, and reveals Torah to the world. Until then, G-d’s Throne “is not complete.” Timna's anguished and searching sparks of holiness give no rest to the Divine Name or Throne, and somehow, her tears must turn to joy.

In practical terms, the Jewish people must inspire the nations of the world to love Israel. This builds G-d’s Throne and prepares for Redemption.

The Jews, even as they are ensconced in Torah holiness, must appreciate the spirituality of the nations. They surely must not reject it. Israel must not only respect the nations, but behave in such a manner as to merit love and respect from the nations. Without such respect, Messiah cannot come, says Rabbi Moshe of Cousy (the author of SEMAG, an acronym for the famous classic The Large Book of Commandments).

Whereas the main intercourse between Jew and gentile is in business, the important thing, the rabbis tell us, is to impress the gentiles with Jewish honesty. From this the gentiles respect the Torah. If Jews are dishonest, gentiles hate the Torah. The Torah in Deuteronomy teaches about honest weights and measures, and follows this with the story of Amalek. The juxtaposition of honesty and Amalek teaches that honesty defeats Amalek, and dishonesty empowers Amalek. Jewish honesty inspires the nations to love Israel and the Torah. Jewish dishonesty antagonizes the nations and emboldens Amalek.

The Medieval period in Germany, France and Europe was a time for Crusades. Zealot soldiers slaughtered and burned Jews. Frenzied mobs kidnapped children. Rabbi Moshe of Cousy, one of the greatest scholars of that time, traveled to the bereaved communities of Jews to comfort them. He urged them to put their hopes in the Messiah. Messiah cannot come, said the rabbi, until the gentiles accept that Israel is honest and worthy of redemption. Therefore, he commanded, Jews must deal with gentile money even more stringently than the Torah requires.

Lilith

(Our discussion of Lilith is subtle and even mystical. You may wish to skip to the next topic.)

We now turn to Lilith, the first wife of Adam. G-d presented her to Adam, but Adam could not appreciate her and G-d then fashioned Eve. Lilith then fled and became evil. We cannot completely understand the very deep ideas surrounding Lilith. However, we can accept Lilith as a high spiritual force transformed to great evil by being rejected and spurned.

Lilith was the first wife of Adam. However, the Zohar tells us that Lilith figured in the earlier days of Creation, long before people arrived. The earliest biblical discussion of male and female I have found began on the fourth day, with the male sun and the female moon. (We have much to discuss about that, but patience, patience.) Guess who else was there? Of course, Lilith. Thus, we have a male (the sun) and two females (the moon and Lilith). Although we have Medrashic stories of the sun and the moon, we have no idea why Lilith is there. We are not entirely disappointed. Lilith is the challenge of evil. She is spurned light. Her essence is deep in the Will of G-d to make a world of challenge. We are limited in our approach, therefore, to Lilith. Once we accept our limitations, we are able to see something, and learn what we can about Lilith, perhaps the primordial female essence.

As if being a silent player is not bad enough, Lilith began, in those far-flung supernal days, as evil! This is days before Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the forbidden fruit. So the mention of evil is amazing. The passage begins, (Genesis 1,14) "And G-d said, 'Let there be luminaries in the firmament of the heaven." The word luminaries is usually spelled with a VOV, but here the VOV is missing; thus, instead of "luminaries," we have "curses." This, says the Zohar (I,33:) indicates the creation of Lilith. Together with the sun and the moon G-d created "curse" or "death" as Lilith. What does this mean? One thing we can obtain is Lilith as the primal force for evil. Whereas all evil must return to goodness, and since primordial evil is simply G-d’s will, we must respect Lilith. She is the beginning of a world of free-choice. She is also the guarantee that all darkness will return to light.

This was the fourth day of Creation. On the fifth day, G-d created fish monsters. The Zohar says (I,34:), "These monsters were Leviathan and his mate, and Lilith." Why were there, again, a male and two females, one good, and one bad?

The female is the force of self-actualization. Once we actualize, we must deal with G-d. One way is to negate ourselves to Him. The other way is to sin and rebel against G-d. These are the two “females,” or rather, the two “selfs” and their disparate ways with G-d in a world of free-choice.

If you are still there, we offer another take on this subtle issue. The male represents mercy and the female represents justice. G-d wanted a world of justice, so people would come to Paradise completely cleansed of sin and merit perfect reward. He saw, however, that perfect justice would destroy the world, because people always sin. Therefore, G-d made the world with justice joined to mercy. However, the true will of G-d, one reserved for the truly pious, is pure justice without mercy.

Adam represents male mercy. Eve represents female justice tempered with mercy. Lilith represents pure justice. Most people cannot tolerate such a level. But it is the Will of G-d. Lilith, the ultimate challenge of pure justice is therefore a lost creature, just as is the Will of G-d. This is very deep stuff, and we stand apart from it to take only what we can digest, which is really not very much.

If the world as we know it is mercy-joined-to-justice, it is a compromise with G-d’s real Will. Of course, G-d does not have two Wills. Rather, there is a harder challenge for the greatly pious, and there is a lesser challenge for others. Lilith represents the ultimate challenge to create perfection in people. Unfortunately, people do not willingly accept such challenges. Therefore, the challenge of Lilith is manifested in mystical ways, in great difficulties and challenges, despite our effort to find only mercy and light justice. Ultimately, in ways only known to G-d, the Will for pure justice will be revealed. Only then will the force of Lilith be manifested properly. With mystical detours, the flaming justice of Lilith takes detours into evil until the end of days when it will power the greatest lights and the Redemption. Here again is a topic so fraught with confusion it has led many good people astray. We therefore mention is only in passing, not because we want to deal with such delicate material in detail.

On the sixth day, says the Zohar, G-d created Adam and Eve. Adam slept first with Lilith, but she was not a helper to Adam, and he could not live with her, so G-d gave Adam another wife, Eve. What happened to Lilith? It wasn't very pleasant. She was spurned. Although she was a very high energy, it now became evil. Lilith was created to marry, but because Adam rejected her, or because he could not tolerate her, she became the mother of demons (Zohar II,267). Instead of taking the lights of men in marriage, she took them with evil. Sexuality, the highest holiness, thus becomes something illicit, and is the source of great evil. This, however, is only the shell of the story. We are not finished with Lilith and the demons.

The Zohar says that Adam was formed of dirt or clay, and then received the breath of life. Then he rose and went about. Eve was attached to his side. A soul flitted between Adam and Eve, attached in the same body. G-d made Adam sleep and took Eve away from him, formed her into a woman, and Adam awoke and married her. When Lilith saw Adam and Eve united before G-d in the marriage ceremony, she fled. Before then, however, she had slept with Adam. It is very interesting that Lilith was the first wife of Adam. This indicates that she was somehow the ideal, and that Eve was only secondary. If so, how did Lilith become evil?

Even more interesting is the creation of the demons just before the Sabbath. G-d did not have time, as if it could be, to provide the demons with bodies, only souls, and then the Sabbath came, and no more creation could be done. The demons thus remained without bodies. Note this: A demon is one without a body, but has a soul. Can such a being be inferior to people, who have a body? A body drags the soul down; without a body, the soul is unhindered. If so, the demons should be higher than people.

To keep it as simple as possible, evil is actually a good and holy force that could not find a finite receptacle. What we see as evil is a divine energy that is so infinite that the finite perceives it as evil. In the exile, in falling and failing, people at last come to grips with these forces, and they turn into good. Within these evil forces are the greatest lights.

The world was designed for light and darkness. During the "light" phase man deals with his wife "Eve," that is, people have finite experiences. During the "night" phase, people deal with the higher lights concealed in darkness and even evil, and these surrender their sparks and are transformed into goodness. The process of the world is to ultimately transform all evil to good, to rescue all of the lost sparks, and to redeem the world from all evil and suffering. Thus, Lilith and Samoel, the two major forces of evil, have a numerical value of TORAH, because Torah is revealed in its true lights only with the hidden sparks trapped in darkness.

The demons created just before the Sabbath had no physical form; they were infinite beings. Because they had no finite forms, they became evil, relative to us, although the Zohar says that just as there are good and bad people, there are good and bad demons. Their evil was an energy concealing the highest light, one appropriate for the end of creation, just before the Sabbath. Recall, that the Creation went from lower to higher things: first inanimate objects, then trees, then fish, then animals, then people. With people, Adam came first and then Eve. She was thus higher than Adam. After them came the demons, who were even higher. Obviously, the final creation of demons had to contain a very high energy. It is revealed in exile, falling and failing, to tell us that life is about struggle. Within struggle are the secrets of the supernal sefiroth, or divine dimensions.

Lilith, as the first wife of Adam, was central to creation. Her lights are perhaps the highest ones, and she is probably higher than Eve. As we go through life, the challenge of evil raises us to the level where we find those lights seen as evil but containing the highest goodness.

The Zohar explains that Lilith did not provide help to Adam, and it didn't work out. A wife must be a helpmate, as the bible says, "It is not good for a man to be alone, I will make a helpmate opposite him." What does this mean?

A person comes into the world to accept challenge, and to change darkness to light. It is like baseball. The pitcher throws the ball, and you swing the bat. If you do it right, the ball is hit, and if you hit it wrong, you are out. Of course, if you or I would go out and deal with ninety-mile-an-hour pitches, especially those with the dips and the curves, we would strike out. G-d must match the pitch to the batter. However, within each person, there are levels of challenge, higher and lower.

The harder the challenge, the greater the effort and pain required to persevere. This is the allegory of man and two wives. Man comes into the world, a world of struggle, and he, being an ADAM, which means "earth," must fight his way through. He can't really be expected to persevere, however, unless he receives an angelic and spiritual force to aid him; it appears in the person of his wife. The female Eve is "life," as "she was the mother of all life." This life is not just biological life, but spiritual life. Here we meet a serious problem, one that revolves upon the purpose of creation.

A person came into the world to earn by struggle. "According to the pain is the reward." If so, why help him? The more he does things on his own, the more reward he receives. If his wife helps him, he has smaller reward. The wife is thus a contradiction to the very purpose of creation. Enter Lilith. Here you have it all. Adam has a wife, and she is hard as nails. She doesn't help a bit. Who knows, she may help him by adding challenge to challenge. If so, he will have even more reward. Isn't this the way things should be? G-d therefore created Adam and gave him Lilith. Adam couldn't take it. Why not? We will come to that, but for our purposes now, he couldn't take it, and G-d gave him Eve. Eve was kinder, and Adam accepted her. Was this not a level B marriage? Yes, but it is better than no marriage. It is not better than a working marriage with Lilith. Lilith, thus spurned, fled and became evil. When Adam and Eve broke up, for 130 years, Lilith would visit Adam and take his lights. She would have preferred to have them the proper way.

There is a lesson in this. Adam was created with Lilith, not Eve. Somehow, he must fulfill his function ideally, with Lilith. This happens in the exile. In falling and failing, people live a life of such challenge that they approximate the level of Adam and Lilith, rather than the lower challenge of Adam and Eve.

For 130 years Adam left Eve because of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. During this period, Lilith took Adam’s lights at night while he slept. These are didactic and prophetic events. This is exactly what happens in the exile, when people are cut away from light, and live alone in darkness and failure. In a way, they give their seed to create demons, and they do. People in exile often do bad things, such as the Jews who embraced Communism and tortured religious people. Somehow, in a way known only to G-d, the demonic period has a purpose, has a path, and it leads to something better. In the Future World, and only then, we will understand.

LILITH in Hebrew means, "me, me." Ideally, a wife is "me, you," but Lilith was not kind. Kindness contradicts struggle, the purpose of the world. Lilith demanded perfection, which is too bad for the husband. What should Adam have done? To understand, we must repair to the text of the Creation story.

Adam and Eve in the Garden

(Genesis 2,25): "And the two were naked, Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed." "And the two" is redundant. Why not just say, "And Adam and his wife were naked and not ashamed"? There are, however, two levels of nakedness. One, we have no clothes. We are embarrassed to be seen by others. Yet, “and the two were naked” and not ashamed of each other. “Adam and his wife” indicates cohabitation. Even this did not cause them any embarrassment. One reason is they had no evil inclination, and everything they did was on an angelic level. Thus, there was no shame. Secondly, only two people existed, so they had nobody to fear in their nakedness. Thus, “and the two” means only two of them existed, and they had no reason to be ashamed. However, the snake saw.

Rashi tells us that the snake sought to seduce Eve after he saw Adam and Eve cohabitating publicly. Rashi says that the snake saw this and "desired them." However, it seems that he desired Eve, not Adam, and spoke to her and eventually slept with her, not Adam. Why does it say, "and he desired them"? The idea of a snake, which is obviously a heavenly agent of testing, lusting for Eve, is very strange. What does it mean?

Most difficult to understand is what Adam and Eve were doing in the Garden. They had achieved the epitome of human experience, reaching the Garden of Eden. The holiness blazed from every nook and cranny. Why were they not praying, studying the secrets of the Torah, or doing something spiritual? Why were they sleeping together?

Although in other religions sex is a lowly thing, and priests are forbidden to marry, in Judaism the High Priest cannot function unless he has a wife. In the Talmud, a young genius was brought to a senior rabbi. The senior rabbi refused to look at the face of the young genius, because he did not wear the garb of a married man. Sexuality is the highest holiness, because “the Schechina rests upon the parents who are together." (Ramban, Letter of Holiness) Of course, if sex is secularized, and turned into the sad thing it is in the media and general culture, and a woman becomes, not a repository of the highest spirituality, but a geometric pleasure machine, sex is sick and not spiritual. In the Garden of Eden, rather than pray and study, Adam and Eve invoked sex to achieve union with holiness. Within the union, vulnerability and assertiveness of their marriage, they achieved the power of creating a human soul, and pulling its energies from the highest supernal spheres. The Satan saw this, and acted. Why? The rule is, that whenever people attempt to achieve spiritual things, the snake or Evil Inclination tests them. It is that simple. The snake "desired them." The snake, or Evil Inclination, is created to desire all holy sparks and forces, try to consume them, and wax strong by so doing. The snake saw these mighty forces released by marriage, and decided that they would do him just fine. He desired them, the pair's unity during marital process. He then plotted to test them and take the holy lights away for his own purposes.

This is what the Satan does. For this G-d created the Satan. Eventually, the Evil Force will retire, because testing will end, in the Future World. Then G-d will remove the letter MEM from the Evil Angel Samuel, and he will become the holy angel without that letter. (The letter MEM is the feminine or self-actualization force. In the future, we will no longer create ourselves, but be what we were in this world for infinity.) He is a faithful fellow, the Satan, and just does what he is supposed to do. Unfortunately, not all creatures are so loyal, and obedient.

However, we are sad that G-d created such a situation where the snake could do his thing. What could poor Eve really do, or what could Adam have done, to prevent the sin of eating of the Tree of Knowledge?

They key, as Rashi tells us, is the cohabitating in public. Had they done this privately, it seems the snake would have left them alone. He was aroused by their public display. What does this mean?

Let us return now to Lilith. The Zohar says she came to Adam and they had relations. Adam tried to make a go of the marriage, but she did not "help" him. She was "the harsh level of hard justice" and Adam could not take it. So, G-d made Eve, who is less justice and more kindness. Seeing the success of Adam and Eve, Lilith fled.

Let us go back to the first marriage, that of Adam and Lilith. Adam and Lilith have marital problems. What should Adam do? He can't live with her. She is just too harsh and hard. LILITH means, “for me, for me.” Who can take it?

One moment. Who made Lilith? Who gave her to Adam? Was it not G-d? Did He, heaven forefend, make a mistake? Did G-d not know that Lilith was harsh and hard?

Remember what we said previously, that man was created to struggle. The more help man gets, the less reward he receives in heaven. "According to the pain is the reward." If so, Lilith was the ideal wife. She was a perfect woman, the purest spirituality, the Life essence. She was the perfect trial, offering no help, only challenge. This is exactly what G-d wanted for Adam. Living with her, Adam would have to struggle, but his goal was perfection. Adam said, "I can't take it."

Adam made a mistake by not accepting the Will of G-d. Obviously, G-d knew exactly what He was doing. If He gave Adam Lilith, then Lilith is the right wife. Whether or not she helps is irrelevant. G-d made her, and that is that.

Sometimes we understand the way of G-d, and sometimes we do not. When we do not see, we take it on faith. G-d has credit. We will eventually understand. Adam refused faith. He wanted to see with eyes, and know with his mind. He would not take a woman without seeing that he could make a go of the marriage. He refused to enter the dimension of hard and harsh challenge, because he did not know how he could survive it. He should have had faith. If Adam had accepted Lilith on faith, his "eye" would not have been involved in his marriage. Only dark faith would be involved. On the other hand, the "eye" of the Satan would not operate, either. Once Adam decided to marry with his "eye," and not faith, he opened his marriage to the "eye" of the snake. Only faith could have protected Adam and Eve as they cohabitated in the Garden publicly. Only Adam and Lilith could have done such a thing, and not arouse the Satan.

The problem, however, was deeper. Adam’s rejecting faith and seeking to "see" and know with his mind created a momentum for destruction. The Satan came to Eve and suggested that she do what Adam did, reject faith and "see" with her "eye," and eat from the Tree of Knowledge. (Genesis 3,5) "[the snake speaks to Eve] 'Because G-d knows that on the day you eat from it [the Tree of Knowledge] and your eyes will be opened and you will be like G-d to know good and evil.' And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and that it was a lust for the eyes, and that it was desirous to understand, and she took from its fruit and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate." We have italicized the phrases that indicate our point. The sin of the Garden of Eden, of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, was Adam and Eve's plunging from faith to knowledge. This was rooted in Adam's rejection of Lilith, who could only be married to Adam with blind faith. The "eye" and the need to "know" could not produce a marriage with Lilith. Adam rejected Lilith, and thus forfeited the protection she would have given him in a marriage of blind faith. Lilith would have shielded their marriage and public intimacy from the Satan, who would have been unable to see them in an evil way, because they had "no eyes" and so the Satan would also not have power of "eyes." Instead, Adam chose Eve, "eyes" and "knowledge" over blind faith. This empowered the Satan over any public display of marriage. Marriage of "eye" and "knowledge" is the dimension of the Satan.

Trapped by his own error, Adam acquiesced to the desire of Eve, goaded by the snake. He ate from the Tree of Knowledge, to have a life of seeing with the eye, rather than “the righteous lives with his faith.” Had they opted for faith, the Satan would not see what they were doing, and they would be completely safe from all evil influences.

What does this mean to us?

When we marry, G-d gives us mates. We are also given family, communities and societies. Often, our "eyes" do not see what is so good about our spouses, family and associates. People are not perfect. We are attempted to break off our relationships. We cannot take it any more; it is too harsh, too hard. Wait. G-d gave you this spouse, this family, this associate, etc. Shut your eyes and pull some faith into your heart. When you do, look with a higher view at others, until you find good there. Keep trying, and you will find it.

Samson told his parents, "This woman is good in my eyes." For this, his eyes were gouged out, says the Talmud. A woman is not good "in my eyes," although, of course, in the practical world we have to begin that way. We must know that a mate is from G-d; marriage is a divine intervention. We do not marry because we "see" with our "eyes" alone. We rather accept G-d’s creation of our marriage. Yes, G-d can create a Lilith for Adam. He can create challenges for men and women of a similar or worse nature, heaven forefend. We try, when possible, to apply faith, and to find goodness in a person who seems bereft of it. Of course, if we try, go to counseling, get rabbinical advice, but can't make it work, there is always the option of divorce. If there are children, that may or may not be an option, depending on how bad things are. The point here is that there is something higher than the "eye." The marvels of the Creation, DNA, the solar system, physics and biology do not end at the marriage ceremony. They only begin there.

Holy rabbis confessed that they could not see the goodness and beauty of the land of Israel for a long time of testing. So, many of us cannot find the goodness and beauty of our spouses and family for lengthy periods. There are married people who struggle for years to find each other. Others give up. Moses was faulted for not seeing the goodness of the Israelites of his time. How natural, therefore, for us to be blind to the goodness of our sometimes angry, querulous and arguing spouses. However, let us try, and perhaps, we will enter the Promised Land.

Jacob, Leah and Rachel

As we note the failure of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, we are sad. When we read about the sin of the generation of Noah and the Flood, we are disappointed. We come to the story of the Tower of Babel, and shake our heads. Then we come to the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and we start feeling good about the human race. Now, here is progress, until we get to the story of Joseph and his brothers. Now we are just too stunned to be sad, disappointed or to shake our head. What happened to the Jewish people when they sold Joseph their brother into slavery?

Can we imagine it? Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel and Leah, the most outstanding family that ever existed, produced a generation whereby the majority sold a brother! Indeed, the generation that sold Joseph was "the Twelve Tribes of Israel," the founders of the Jewish people! How did this come to be? More important, what can we learn to do to avoid such things?

Rabbi Yisroel Salanter once explained how a prominent rabbinical family produced an armed robber. "The grandfather," he explained, "was wont to 'borrow' interpretations said by other rabbis in his lectures. The father learned to 'borrow' the money of others through fraud in business, and the grandson learned to 'borrow' with a gun."

A child is extraordinarily sensitive, and picks up things that we think are concealed. The child then "builds" upon small failings to make them worse. As time goes on, the fruit falls far from the tree.

Abraham quarreled with Sarah about Hager's son, Ishmael. It was completely correct and G-d adjudicated their dispute. Such arguments happen in every family, although perhaps not with the intensity of a wife angry with another woman and her son. The issues were completely resolved. However, the argument had made its mark, as all arguments must.

The next generation saw a difference of opinion between Isaac and Rebecca over Esau, the first-born son. Isaac was partial to Esau and Rebecca was partial to Jacob. This was not based upon a judgment that one son or the other was better or worse. It was, says the Zohar, a personality issue. People have different temperaments. Isaac shared a temperament with Esau, and Rebecca was like Jacob. This is very common and completely innocent. In the end, Isaac and Rebecca both accepted that Jacob would lead the Jewish people and not Esau. However, the argument and the division of the family into Esau and Jacob made its mark. It had to, especially now that a pattern had been established of two sons splitting, one leaving the fold, and the other inheriting the Jewish mantle. What would happen next?

Jacob married two sisters. The eldest was Leah and the younger was Rachel. This was permitted before the giving of the Torah. After Sinai, Jews may not marry two sisters.

Leah and Rachel had children. This would have made a problem of its own. But there was a bigger problem. Jacob loved Rachel and not Leah. Indeed, he was bitter at Leah who tricked Jacob into marrying her. Jacob, a man of truth, could not tolerate such a thing. Leah, however, was right in wanting to be a mother to the Jewish people. Furthermore, she was a prophetess who had the majority of the sons of the Tribes of Israel, including the Levites and the Royal Tribe. Even Rachel helped Leah trick Jacob.

Leah's children felt that their mother was not loved. This was a ticking bomb in the Jewish home. Eventually, the children of Leah sold Joseph, the son of Rachel, into slavery.

What went wrong? We have traced the selling of Joseph back to the milder family problems in the Jewish family. On the other hand, we still don't understand. We may never. What can we learn from this mystery?

First of all, we learn that very spiritual people can fall apart in family matters. The same person who gives away his last penny cannot take pain from his spouse without reacting ferociously. The hardest challenge is family. Even the greatest of the great have family problems. Even the wisest of the wise cannot see the good in another person. This is one perspective that we gain from the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers. The Torah did not write the terrible narrative of Joseph's suffering because it was insensitive to the greatness of the founding generation of Israel. It warned us: we are never free of envy. We are never safe from family feuds. Nobody is safe.

Another lesson is that in a family everyone must be content. Any competition for favor is deleterious. Parents have their inclinations, like it or not. Not all children are equal in the heart of a parent. This is clear from the Torah. Isaac liked Esau and Rebecca liked Jacob. Sometimes, we are so obvious with our unbalanced affections that we cause great damage. The child we embrace becomes hated, a barb for the envy of the other siblings. We can destroy a child's happiness by embracing him. Sometimes, we must curb our emotions, and present a balanced smile.

Then there is the unintended impact of a parent on a child or even a spouse. Let us take Jack. He is full of cheer. He has dozens of friends. He comes into the house, smiles here and cracks a joke there, turning everyone on. Jack is destroying his son Harry. Harry has no role except to listen to Jack's performing. A loud parent challenges a quiet child, and competes with a loud child. Can you be yourself around your children? Actually, you can be yourself, but a child is not an audience. You are the audience.

When a parent is around children, the slightest look or lack of notice can make or break someone. The simplest word can do damage or develop confidence. A parent should exercise the same caution around children that he would in a minefield. One false step…

Someone asked Rabbi Yisroel Mayer Kagan, the saint of the generation, how to succeed in the rabbinate. He relied, "You have to work very hard." A parent must "work very hard." A spouse must "work very hard." There are always pressures bubbling up here and there. There are no solutions, just struggles.

Let us return to the House of Israel and its family problems. The most obvious one is that the first-born children were always failures. Abraham's first born was Ishmael, who turned into a wild man. "His hand will be against everyone, and the hand of everyone will be against him." Ishmael repented before he died, and did many good things, but his wildness and warring destroyed the world. The first born of the next generation, Isaac and Rebecca, was Esau. Esau, too, was "a man of the field." His style was that of the sword and shedding blood. Esau, too, as Rome, founded Western civilization. The problems for the Jews, however, from Rome, are known.

The younger sons of these two generations, Isaac and Jacob, emerged as spiritual giants. The first born of the third generation was Reuben, and he, too, failed, and lost his primogeniture. Although Reuben remained in the Jewish fold, his behavior relegated him so that he had no rank or importance.

This is the curse of the ideal. Just as the first women created by G-d, who was surely perfect in every way, became Lilith, so did the first born of the Jewish people become "wild men." There is a lesson here. The ideal cannot easily survive in real life. The Cabalists say that Esau had a soul a thousand times higher than that of Jacob, but such a lofty soul could not survive, and he became terribly evil. This is a new way of looking at evil. We noticed it with Lilith.

What this means in practical family terms is that gifted children need special care and concern. There are children who have "a thousand times" more potential than others, and they are busy with drugs. It is not easy to be "a thousand times" better than others intellectually or any other way. The sensitive, thinking children are in danger. How tragic it is that precisely the quiet, shy and sensitive child becomes the butt of jokes and derision. The pain builds until we have what we have—a high percentage of lost children. It doesn't matter if the parents are good people. It doesn't matter if they are successful. A therapist told me that he makes a living from successful families. Life is upside down. A great gift is sometimes a curse. A successful parent can destroy a child. The ideal is not. This is the fearsome forum of humanity. We must tremble. "Happy is he who lives with fear, and he who hardens his heart will fall in evil." Destruction awaits the arrogant, the fearless, and pride.

In the secular and materialistic fifties, when I wore a yarmulka head-covering, it was a scandal. I remember the reactions of two adults. One assailed me vehemently, barely able to contain his fury at the ways of a boy. Another person smiled and was polite, which in those days was an act of kindness. The first person came from a strong Jewish background, and when he saw a yarmulka, it bothered him. He felt guilty. He was angry at himself, and took it out on me. The second person was utterly disinterested in anything but making money and materialism. He had no problem with a religious boy. If I wanted to be a nut, so be it. Here we see that the act of evil is often rooted in good, and the good act is often rooted in something that is not good. Life is tricky. We must respect it, and then, we may succeed. We cannot understand people unless we understand this.

A spouse who is furious at us for something is not necessarily evil. The anger may be rooted in goodness and concern. A person who smiles at us may just not care what happens to us.

On the other hand, such idealism can be very destructive. The greatest destruction and evil comes from good intentions. A rabbi once heard of an unheard-of evil deed, and said, "Undoubtedly, the person did this for idealistic purposes." There are barriers to evil impregnable to all but good goals.

There are parents who have plans for their children. They want their child to succeed. These are sometimes the best parents, and sometimes the worse. There are children nurtured and encouraged who made it, and there are parents who pushed a child too far until… A teacher told me, "I have a parent who has nothing to do with his child, fortunately." It is often better to do nothing than to do something.

Having said these things, we must now bite the bullet, and find out exactly what caused the selling of Joseph. There is of course the idealism of Joseph. He accused his brothers before their father Jacob and claimed that they were wicked. This was the first barrage in the war that led to Joseph becoming an Egyptian slave. But it was not the beginning. Children often continue what their parents started. In the House of Jacob, the problem began with the marriage. Jacob loved Rachel and Leah was "disliked." This, more than anything else, was the key. To be fair to Jacob, we must explain the whole picture.

Jacob and Leah was a replay of the tragedy of Adam and Lilith. Just as Lilith was too much for Adam, so Leah was too much for Jacob. Thus, he did not like her. Only this time, the marriage managed to survive. When it came to the children, however, the problems surfaced and "what happened, happened."

Note that there is a pattern, going back to the first emergence of allegorical gender roles with the sun and the moon, of an additional, unattached female, known as Lilith. Lilith is a great challenge, perhaps overwhelming, and sometimes the husband cannot take it. However, this challenge must ultimately be resolved in the human experience. What began as Adam and Lilith, and utter failure, ended as Jacob and Leah, and great success. From the challenging woman came super-fruits. The great tribes of Israel are from Leah. Levi is the tribe of Moses and Aaron, and the priests and Levites. From Leah issued Shimon, the tribe of Torah teachers. From Leah issued Reuven, whose character was so pure he had was not jealous when his primogeniture was taken from him and given to Joseph. In fact, he, of all the brothers, wanted to save Joseph. Judah was the tribe of Monarch and Messiah. Leah’s had Issacher, the tribe of scholars who produced Deans of the Sanhedrin. This is the reward of a Lilith-wife. The husband suffers. However, ultimately, the fruition of such a wife brings the two together.

Leah achieved this greatness because she was the fruition of the failures of Lilith. Even while Jacob fought his tendencies against Leah, he was putting a knife into the heart of the Jewish people. Fortunately, for Jacob, he stayed with Leah, and Israel achieved what it did.

Here is the fast pitch, frightening in its intensity, which presents us our life, and the life of our children. Will we fail? Will we accept another person, a spouse, a family member, or reject him/her and our life, too? Will we summon our stubbornness and hang on, and swing for the bleachers? Patience and purity of intention can save us from our simple inclinations. When Jacob held on, he created the Jewish people. However, because Jacob’s attitude was not perfect, Joseph became a slave, and the fractured Jewish people never really recovered. Indeed, the Second Temple was destroyed because even though people were pious and studied Torah, they did not respect each other. Things haven't changed very much since then.

The sin of Jacob is the sin of our times, the eternal stain on the Creation, "vain hate," or SINATH CHINOM. Why is it "vain"? Because the person we reject could give us what we want. If only we were stubborn, we would find the light in the darkness. We hate someone else "for nothing." Our complaints are false, based on lack of understanding. Joseph misjudged his brothers and considered them wicked. This was “vain hatred.” The brothers adjudicated Joseph to be a wicked and dangerous person, deserving to be sold, but erred. Often the person we reject holds the key to our success, After we have plunged the shaft deep into the heart of our relationship, we will wander into a long exile looking for the lights that we extinguished. Of course, sometimes we must divorce, and sometimes we must cut. However, we don't mortgage our hopes to our egos, even the bruised kind.

It all began with Lilith, the "odd mate" of the sun, the male Leviathan, and Adam. She represents the treasure we despise. There is something we don't like in all of our relationships. If we persevere, we will find what we want. Life, however, is not a one-day affair. The life of the human race saw Lilith go from level to level, culminating in Leah, and success. Moses and David, the progeny of Leah, are the blazing lights that Jacob almost discarded, but did not.

The numerical value of LEAH/LILITH is 516 (In Hebrew, letters are numbers). SONG in Hebrew is numerically 515. The number 1 is ALEPH, the first letter of the Jewish alphabet. ALEPH is a silent letter. ALEPH represents transcendence. Silence is the opposite of song. However, if we add 1 to 515, if we add "silence" or "transcendence" to "song," we get 516, the same as LEAH/LILITH. How can we add silence to song? When the song sings of transcendence, that is LEAH/LILITH.

The revelation of Lilith by Leah is the song of secrets, the Song of Songs. "I am black, but I am beautiful. Do not look at me blackened, for the sun has darkened me." The fire of the sun turns white, the level of kindness and male, into justice, ferocity and the female force. This frightens people. Lilith repelled Adam. Leah deterred Jacob. The "black" darkness, however, contains the greatest lights. One who perseveres merits them. As the human race continues, little by little, the glory of Lilith settled down into a finite form. We find Lilith now silhouetted by the whiteness of kindness, amid the storm of ferocious strength.

G-d created the demons just before the Sabbath, and they had no bodies. They are lights so high that there is not for them a finite vessel. The Sabbath will reveal them, and so will the struggle in the dark, with faith and stubbornness.

Lilith was not the only super woman whose lights made people tremble and flee. There were actually four super women, and all of them ended up rejected, or rather, devoid of human relationships because they were too high and terrible for people. Within nature are much beauty and sweetness, and much pain and terror. The chirping of the bird is nice, but the hyena baby eating its sibling is not. Nature reveals G-d, and it hides Him. In those areas of "demons" exist a darkness that conceals transcendence. We can see it and deny G-d, as many do, or we can insist on hanging on, until Lilith becomes Leah, and we understand what we cannot.

Naama was one of these women. Her names means "pleasant beauty." Some angels sinned with her. Now, angels do not run after people who work in restaurants. Naama and Lilith were "darkness" that people could not tolerate, but the angels felt right at home.

Sometimes, we must become angels to deal with others, but what is wrong with that? There are people who began their marriages without peace, and persevered, to reap great pleasure from their relationships as well as a successful progeny. If we would see Naama we might not think she was lovely. We might not notice her "pleasant beauty." Perhaps she would appear to be hideous. G-d did not create hideous things, but He created us to think that some people are hideous. We must somehow turn our perceptions and relationships into "pleasant beauty."

People relate to others with cognitive intellectual insights. We look "with our eyes," and form opinions. Messiah will see by "scent," a prophetic intuition better than eyes and ears.

YAACOV/LEAH (Jacob/Leah) has a numerical value of "scent," the power of knowing beyond the intellectual range. Jacob and Leah cannot survive with the intellectual level alone; all Jacob sees is darkness. "The eyes of Leah were dim." This means that the level of the eye, the intellectual level, placed Leah as a nothing. Jacob had to rise to the semi-Messianic Level of "scent" to merit a good marriage with Leah. From their union came King David and the Messianic Level.

King David sang to G-d, "All breath will praise you." This is the level of "breath," of the intuitive powers of the soul to know transcendence, and to sing the song of mystery, the Song of Songs, as we described before. The acronym of "All breath will praise you" has a numerical value of "Messiah the son of David" plus 11. Eleven is the force of evil and darkness. In it, in challenges that we don't understand, are the great Messianic lights. Even without Messianic lights, all of us find deep things in our challenges, especially when dealing with marriage and people.

Because the greatest lights are found in the challenges of marriage and society, the Satan fights tooth and nail to make us dislike others, proffering idealism, usually. There is the husband who says, "I won't have a wife who is different than my mother, this is not how I was raised," and the wife sings out, "My children won't see a father who is lenient about such and such." Without idealistic excuses, how could people destroy their lives and children?

There is much to say about Leah and Rachel, the two wives of Jacob. They are the mainstays of the Cabala. For now, however, we want to return to Adam, Eve and Lilith.

Adam, Eve and Lilith

Most interesting is the process of Adam and Eve. First Eve was attached to Adam. He slept, and G-d cut Eve away and made her into a lovely bride. They were married, and Lilith, who was the first wife of Adam, fled. What does this mean?

The Cabalists tell us that there were two major stages of creation, before the "breaking" and afterwards. In other words, G-d fashioned a world, and its imperfection was that there was no "breaking." Then, came "breaking," and a new world, one that we understand, came into being. Who needs "breaking"?

Esoterically, we understand "breaking" as the negation of the "whole." The "whole" of reality overwhelms us. We must see a piece at a time. Thus, before the "breaking" there was invisible infinity, or "everything." "Breaking" produced visible "pieces," or the finite. Once the "whole" was broken, people could see and know it. Therefore, "breaking" produced "knowledge." Without "breaking" there could not be knowledge, only mystery and transcendence.

Adam and Lilith married without "breaking." Not only did the marriage not work out, but Lilith became enmeshed in evil. She hung around until she saw Eve in her radiant beauty at the Garden of Eden wedding ceremony, and fled. What made Lilith run away? What could she possibly gain from that? Obviously, the power of Eve frightened Lilith. What power did Eve have that frightened Lilith?

G-d created the world so that people would have reward by withstanding challenges. "According to the pain is the reward." Originally, there was no "breaking," and no vulnerability. Each essence in the universe was suffused with the "strength" of its own presence, and struggled against all else. This led to "breaking." When the world "broke," the pieces were suffused with vulnerability. Lacking completeness–each was only a part of the whole–they sought out completion by joining others, or "marriage."

Adam related to Lilith before his "breaking" or "surgery." Only after Adam slept and G-d removed Eve surgically did Adam marry Eve. Adam and Eve, pulled apart, were “broken.” Marriage solved their "breaking." When they married, they achieved a higher level than the pre-"breaking" world. When Lilith saw it, she fled. Lilith was from the pre-broken world, and could not compete with the marriage of "pieces."

The great difference between the world of wholeness and the world of breaking was vulnerability. Before breaking, each particle fought for its essence, and rejected others. After breaking, each particle sought union. By “marrying” other particles, each particle was resolved and revealed. This began with negation and breaking, and the realization how hopeless it was for each particle to war against all others. Now each particle realized that it must have a mate. When joined, the particle achieved a new level. Together with others, the particle achieved a level higher than the wholeness of the pre-breaking era.

The universe is a process of broken pieces mating. There are positive charges seeking negative ones. There are men seeking women. Just as the positive and negative electric charges cannot exist alone, so people cannot exist alone. Of course, someone in jail is alive, but he does not experience true humanity. Humanity, life and self-actualization come only from mating. When two opposites mate, they become "whole." Their wholeness does not preclude others. They have solved the problem of being whole and being an individual.

In the pre-breaking world, particles pulled away from harmony. This led to "breaking," as everything pulled the whole apart, going in different directions. In the "broken" world, the pieces felt vulnerability, and sought to join other particles. These particles in turn sought other unions, until the universe was a symphony of joining and mating.

Ideally, a person joins with others, one's family, marriage, community and society. We are always seeking to find ourselves by knowing others. The more we join with others, the more we are aware of them, and the higher we become. The more we turn inward, the less we regard others, and the smaller we are.

Adam was created with Eve on his side. He could not marry her. Their soul went back and forth between them, in the seminal act of marriage. However, their bodies were locked apart and they could not truly integrate. At this stage, Adam slept with Lilith, because she was from the unbroken world. However, that dimension is only about pulling for yourself. So, LILITH means "me, me." Such could not be a marriage, and when Lilith pulled, she destroyed the marriage. And yet, she did not leave until she saw Eve. G-d made Adam sleep and removed Eve, making her into a beautiful bride. The sight of Eve made Lilith flee. Eve was "a helpmate opposite" Adam. She helped, and yet opposed. Vulnerability and assertiveness is a cycle that powers marriage and all human interaction. Lilith, accustomed only to take, fled from the perfection of "a helpmate opposite."

Therefore, the Creation story is one whereby people were lost as long as they were locked in one body together, but aroused to high levels after G-d made Adam sleep and cut Eve from his side. This is the story of suffering and its impact. A world of darkness, pain and struggle produces a process of mating. "Sleep" and "cutting," freed Adam and Eve to find their true potential.

We thus see that there were two marital levels: Adam-Lilith failed, and Adam-Eve succeeded. Before we marry, we must "sleep" and fall from our ego-control. Within our personal exiles and wanderings, we become eligible for marriage. As long as people have not "slept", they are usually unprepared. The exile is "sleep," and so is the uncertainty and fears of the pre-marital years. We are molded by them, and hopefully, prepared by them for life.

Somebody once said that because the process of dating is very difficult, we appreciate marriage when it finally comes. If marriage is easy come it is easy go. Our hearts are pulled here and there, and we are frustrated when we repeatedly cannot get what we want. Once we do marry, we realize how precious it is, and we remember our previous travail and stay together.

There is another side to this. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidic Jewry, said that people are like an acorn. Only when the shell cracks does a mighty tree emerge. The difficulties in pre-marital dating, the long dry spells, the rejections, all break our "shells." When we are good and broken, we begin to see goodness in what we once rejected.

A Hassidic rabbi introduced dozens of couples successfully. He said that everyone can get married except the "kleiber," the picky person, who is filled with demands. The plain, ordinary people can find quicker than the people with everything. The people with everything are waiting while the rest of the pack is busy with children. The acorn is not going to turn into a mighty tree that way.

Let us return to the idea of Adam and Eve, who are unable to marry until Adam "sleeps" and has "surgery." We said that the Jewish people in exile go through a similar experience. Also, people find in suffering what they would not otherwise.

Let us turn now to the story of Purim. Around 2,500 years ago, the Jewish people were exiled in Persia. A wicked Prime Minister, Haman, tried to destroy the Jews. The Queen was a kidnapped Jewish woman, Esther. She convinced the king, Achashverush, who did not love Jews, to counter the decree. Haman was hung and the Jews saved. We celebrate Purim each year, and read the Book of Esther.

The Book of Esther says that Mordechai, the uncle of Esther, sent her to King Achashverush to plead for the Jews. There is a question if Esther was married to Mordechai or merely his niece. If she was indeed married to Mordechai, says Ibn Ezra, and afterwards the king married her, could Mordechai continue dealing with Esther? The king would surely kill him. On the other hand, there is an opinion that they were married. Some hold that even while she was married to Achashverush, she remained married, secretly, to Mordechai.

Ibn Ezra tells us something that seems a compromise. The Book of Esther writes that Mordechai "took" Esther, which seems to say, as a wife. However, it says, he "took her as a daughter," and not as a wife. Ibn Ezra explains that because she was so beautiful, he wanted to marry her. Therefore, it hints in one way that they were married, although they were not, because of Mordechai's desire for her.

This is incredible. Esther was a niece of Mordechai, and she lived in his house for many years, even decades. He wanted to marry her, according to Ibn Ezra, and she was a great beauty. Yet he did not! Why not? If Mordechai and Esther lived in the same house for decades, and both of them wanted to marry each other, and yet, they did not, this is sinful. Only after Acheshverush took Esther do we find that Mordechai and Esther actually married. This makes no sense.

However, in keeping with our chapter, it makes plenty of sense. Mordechai and Esther were a replay of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were attached, and could not marry, until Adam "slept" and had Eve "cut" from him. Until Achashverush took Esther into exile, Mordechai could not marry her. In the exile, in the "sleeping" and suffering of losing Esther, the two could marry. Indeed, the rabbis tell us that the Book of Esther contains many very deep thoughts. Purim is a day of "until we don't know" or transcendence. The story of Purim, of Mordechai and Esther, contains many secrets and hints about deep matters. The marriage of Mordechai and Esther teaches us that we cannot marry our "bashert," or the one chosen for us by heaven, until we "sleep," and enter exile.

Of course, people don't have to be kidnapped in order to marry. Esther and Mordechai represented a very lofty union of mighty souls, and needed such suffering to consummate their relationship. Other people don't need such dramatic "sleep" and "breaking." But everyone goes through something.

The rabbis tell us of a period before Messiah comes of turmoil and terror. Before marriage there is also a period of difficulty. This is "light from darkness," greater than "light from light." Marriage is so great that it requires some darkness. Indeed, the rabbis taught, "There is no writing of the Kesubo (marriage ceremony) without a quarrel.” This quarreling, between two families joining in marriage, is part of the "sleep" and "breaking" that is necessary before we are married.

An elder member of our community told me the following. He was to be married and loved his in-laws so much he could not imagine them fighting. The Talmudic teaching that marriages are accompanied by fights bothered him. He therefore went to Rabbi Yaacov Kaminetski. Rabbi Kaminetski told him, “There will be a fight, even if you like each other.” However, the wedding day drew close, and there were no quarrels, none at all! Finally, the wedding itself began, and Rabbi Kaminetski began to officiate. Suddenly, someone called out: “One moment, please. This is not the way we do things in our family.” And so, there was a “fight,” as if it could be!

Perhaps, such “breaking” fights are good and ultimately bring peace!

Segment Two – Women

A Man is Blessed with Marriage (TUR Code of Laws)

By Rabbi David Eidensohn

©Copyright May 3, 2002 by author

Writing about Gender "Roles"

Eve was Adam’s wife. G-d created her to be “a helpmate opposite him.” A helpmate is not “opposite,” so what does this mean? One explanation, relative to our topic of gender roles, is polarity. We help someone not by showing him a replica of himself, but rather by allowing him to expand his horizons. Eve raised Adam to a new level as a “helpmate” by being “opposite him,” and offering him a polarity. Yes, men and women are “poles apart,” and thus are a perfect polarity. Polarity creates resolution, renewal and then fruition. Each particle and individual seeks “help opposite” to the original.

DNA powers life. DNA is a molecule in the shape of a chain. The links of the chain are genes. Genes determine the characteristics of a living thing. Genes contain four bases, called A, T, C, and G. (A actually stands for a long name we won’t use, and so do TCG.) The four bases pair up, and their pairing creates life. The ATCG bases only pair in certain ways. For instance, A and T mate, but A will not mate with C or G. Also, C and G mate, but C will not mate with A or T. Thus, at the primeval level of life, we have “gender roles,” or polarity, or unions of disparate elements powering life and the formation of cells, life and its characteristics. There are parts of the genome filled with AT combinations, and some with GT combinations. Both have unique characteristics.

Stars and planets, the sun and moon, dance together and react to each other's mass and forces. All of these diverse species somehow function without marriage counseling, something humans should emulate, but do not. Gender issues–so fundamental in nature–often dissemble with humans. Today, marriage and gender relations confuse many people, and things are getting worse all of the time.

I edit these words in June of 2003. The June 22, 2003 issue of Newsweek has an incredible article by Kathleen Deveny, entitled “We’re Not in the Mood.” You can just imagine what it is about. The article explained the epidemic of sexless marriage is because of both parents working and raising children. Also, women are angry with their husbands for not helping enough, etc. Well, they must be pretty angry. I don’t believe people can get that angry over the things the article discusses. Obviously, there is another factor, completely ignored in the article. Women are angry with men because the culture teaches them to be men, to compete with men, and that men oppress women. If I was married to someone who oppresses me, and if my standard of self-actualization was to free myself of the malevolent hegemony of such a person, how much would we love each other?

Men are fed up also, as the article points out. The article, however, does not go into the real issues.

The article puts a lot of the blame on children. Children destroy marriage by sleeping in their parents’ beds. Poor parents. Then the dog wants to come in also. At that point, you need to dab your eyes. When I read about children coming with their parents to restaurants, I want to scream! I have ten children, and one of them coming into my bed was an extremely rare situation. Only when a child is sick or frightened about something, such as a bad dream, would it even occur for a child to sleep in my bed. You know what else? I don’t have a dog. That’s right. I save my money and my energy for my family. They need it more than some furry friend.

At any rate, this article is quite important, simply by telling of the “sexless marriage” problem. It follows by about a year another crucial article published in Time, about aging successful women. The article there was about a book written by a woman who researched successful women. She was surprised to find out how miserable they were when aging ruined their change to have children, or even to marry. A fertility doctor told one lady millionaire “What are you doing here?” Nature does not favor forty-year-old mommies.

Marriage and family are clearly failing. The culture trains people to hate the opposite gender, and we wonder why families fail. That shows how clever our society is. Anyone who can write an article about failed marriages and not mention feminism may be politically correct. However, this is how society ruins women and family. If ladies want to be men, they are going to be lonely. If ladies are manly, men are not going to marry them.

Someone said to me, “You know, I appreciate religious women more than secular women. A secular woman is not a real woman.”

And yet, 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.

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.

We, as finite individuals, sit upon the fabric with finite force. It bends, and maybe it groans! (When I stand on my scale, I groan.) Our finite force attracts finite ideas and energies. The entire universe is particles and people pulling others by their very existence. Where are they pulling them? The universe, the cosmic-fabric, pulls everyone together, beyond the finite into mystery and transcendence. Marriage unites two individuals and raises them to new dimensions.

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 as 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. However, 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 we affect even those farther away. 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’s sensitive spiritual energy attracts flies 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 my daughters see a boy, it is for real. The idea of unleashing transcendence with a dozen people is simply unwise.

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 often refuse 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 circular dimension called Life.

The linear dimension is logic and words. The circle dimension is transcendence. Words cannot reveal the circular dimension other than on an external and superficial level. Still, we will discuss the female essence. We are not inhibited, because "it is Torah, and we must study." As we do, 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 in how I express subtle ideas.

Rabbi Isaac Luria taught that we seek wisdom. "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. (We of heard the story of the GOLEM, a clay man brought to life by a Cabalist rabbi, but here GOLEM means just clay.) What shapes the clay? The “clay” has lights that flash and flicker in finite words, tempting us to find their souls and transcendence. We “reveal” the “clay” of “wisdom” with words. We reveal them with our hearts and hopes. Ultimately, all of our words and finite thoughts must merge and fuse into something beyond words, the Circle Dimension. The “clay” of wisdom is similar to this.

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 do not fashion the clay with culture clashes or gender politics.

We can now study about the Cabalistic female and male. If some idea rings a bell of appreciation, let it chime. Otherwise, let the words pass in silence. You can always re-read the topic after you have covered more ground. You will hopefully be ready then to find what you missed the first time.

Women: as Taught in the TUR Code of Laws

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." This is a play on the biblical verse that Eve was a “helpmate opposite” Adam. The Jewish woman is a “Rock” of stability. Although historically men are not reliably religious, women are. Therefore, the Talmud says women are sure of Paradise but few men are. The section called Even HoEzer (The Rock of Salvation) 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 cleave to his 'helper' that He made for him."

What was the role or level of woman in Creation? On the one hand, Creation went from low to high creations, from grass to animals to people, and finally to Eve. Eve was the final creation. Eve is therefore the highest creation. This certainly coincides with the Cabalistic view that the woman is higher than the male. On the other hand, if G-d created Eve as the sinecure of creation, why does the bible call her “a helpmate opposite” Adam instead of the chief person and purpose relative to Adam?

Another problem: Historically, women are heroic in testing and men are weak. Beginning with the Golden Calf, when men worshipped it and women did not, Jewish women have been resolute, the true “Rock of Salvation” to the Jewish people. If so, why is the bible Patriarchal in the sense of rabbis being men?

Another problem: Why does a man needs a helper? How does Eve fulfill this role? Is she not a creation just like man? Also, the phrase, "crown of her husband" indicates that just as a crown is higher than the head, so the woman is higher than the man is. If so, why did Moses and not Miriam redeem the Jews from Egypt and receive the Torah? A senior rabbi of the past generation told me, that in Cabala, the female is higher spiritually than the man is. 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"?

The Talmud tractate of Blessings teaches that women are assured of Paradise. The Talmud tractate of Menochose teaches that men are not assured of Paradise, and most have a hard time in that regard. Are women closer to heaven than men are? Why are the major prophets men?

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. When then 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. Men must develop understanding out in the marketplace. Women have 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. This noble goal was as futile as Rabbi Salanter’s other prayer, for the brilliance of Rabbi Elijah of Vilna. Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaye Karelitz 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 are. A woman is an angelic gift to struggling men. G-d created the world for struggle. He wanted Adam, which means "earth." Man is greater than angels are. Man struggles and angels do not. Angels are "light from light" whereas people are "light from darkness."

Man holds center stage but cannot thrive spiritually without an angelic and spiritual woman. In marriage, the two merge into "one body." All thoughts of superiority vanish. The man must be "kindness" and self-abnegation; the female is "the crown of her husband" in self-actualization. A crown is higher than a person is, but a crown without a person is not a crown. The female resolves the family. The angelic level is not really the main goal of this world of struggle. However, for the female to come to this world and resolve those struggling, spouse and family, she becomes elevated. Her crown is the glory of her family radiating her lights.

By participating in his struggles and helping Adam, she becomes a partner in struggle. 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 brings many benefits to the man; they are:

Goodness

Blessing

House

Torah

Wall

Peace

Becomes a person

Sins are blocked

What does this mean?

Goodness

"Goodness" is a form of holiness. It connects us to the source of good, G-d. Goodness 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 must not be satisfied only with itself. It must resolve the previous night. 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. Such 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. Light and better times must also answer our questions about the past. Light must resolve obscurity. A woman resolves the evil and darkness in a man. When Adam comes from the public "earth" dimension into the purity of the home, his “night” becomes “day” and goodness.

Eve 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. However, you can sense the Schechina in the home. Eve as the source of "goodness" rules there 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 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 male is superior for his struggles. Eve receives the level of conquering darkness from Adam. Adam, in turn, receives Schechinah and resolution from Eve.

The woman is "a helpmate opposite" the man. She resolves him sometimes by helping ("helpmate") and sometimes by opposing ("opposite.") She blocks the unstable lights of the man and arranges them. Therefore, the above Medrash says that men are unstable sand, which dissolves in a few drops of water. The woman, however, is the sturdy bone. We are not talking about emotional stability, or intellectual stability. The man is at war. His "public" or "earth" dimension role forces him to struggle. A struggler cannot be very smooth and lucid. He needs the female to stabilize him.

The Creation was for the struggle of the "earth" 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.

If, for reasons known to G-d, a male or female has no spouse, we accept this as a decree from heaven. One should never allow such a sad situation to lead to depression.

Blessing

The next item Adam receives from Eve is "blessing." The simple meaning of blessing is that good things come with the woman. Her spirituality and Schechinah domicile bring goodness and negate 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 finite man in the material world receives "blessing" and unites with the infinite. This is the female level, “connecting” to heaven. What does "connecting to heaven," mean?

Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, in his commentary to Song of Songs, says although people want to rise to heaven, bringing G-d to earth is more important. This 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. The world is filled with blessing and goodness when the finite radiates the infinite. G-d’s Presence on earth is the ultimate female essence, or Schechinah. This is blessing.

House

A woman provides the husband with a "house." This does not refer to the physical abode. A man can have fancy brick house and live alone. 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. This Derech Erets “precedes the Torah.”

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 character formation and even religious values than what a person learns from books. The great rabbinical families usually had an absent father. He 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 Elimelech of Lizensk. His famous brother, Reb Zusha, 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. The home raised the greatest Torah lights.

Solomon taught, "The wisdom (CHOCHMO) of women builds their homes. The Zohar Chodosh in Genesis tells us that the first letter in the Torah is BEIZ, which means “house.” Inside of this “house” is a dot (known as "DOGESH”). This dot is similar in form to the letter YUD, the holiest letter. YUD is a tiny dot, representing the small understanding we have of “wisdom.” What we grasp of heaven is mostly from the home.

Torah

Does a person not have Torah without a wife? Do not Yeshiva students learn Torah years before they marry? Yes, they do. However, the married person has a different Torah than the unmarried person. The wife's spirituality opens new vistas. The Yeshiva of Elijah the Prophet teaches, "Derech Erets, (the Way of the World) precedes the Torah." We find in humanity more holiness than in book learning. Furthermore, one who achieves humanity and then studies Torah has a new level of Torah.

The Torah has letters and words 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.

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 transcendence. 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 "earth" dimension, is the struggler who needs a Torah. The female, ensconced in a heavenly spirituality, has no need of this. A married man who studies Torah achieves a higher Torah. The wife then shares her husband's "light from darkness."

Wall

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. The married male approaches the "public dimension" 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.

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." Such light is higher than "light from light." The angelic woman is "life" and removed from the depredations 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. If an angel tarries in this world, said Rabbi Chaim Vital, dissolution awaits it. High spiritual lights when damaged become the worst darkness.

In Genesis, we find “the fallen ones” and the “evil angels.” Who were these angels? When G-d created man, these angels expressed contempt for people. G-d told them to respect people who struggle in this world. The angels felt the world was not such a great challenge, and therefore the Torah should be given to angels, not Israel. They came to this world and tarried, because they had not respect for the challenges of people. As a result, the “earth” dimension swallowed them and their spiritual energies became evil. This is a lesson for all fiery zealots who denigrate others. Their spirituality can become a curse and bring them to the lowest rungs of evil. Many such people made fights that ruined families and communities. Who knows what punishment awaits them in the Future World. Just as the angel must guard against falling into the void, so much all spiritual people protect themselves.

A female professor raised her daughter with the worst education. 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 a dangerous challenge.

A woman is the level of “life.” She is also the level of "B'ER" or "well." Water bubbles up from the deep, and fills a well, or it flows and becomes a stream. Thus, the female “B’ER” connotes the life force powering up from the hidden depths. She is also the power of resolution, as the water rises from the hidden caverns beneath the earth and bubbles up into a well or pond. Here the water it “gathered,” whereas the underground force pushing up the water is “life.” Either a woman can refresh herself in the B'ER flowing water, or the still gathered waters of the MIKVEH. In “life” we spurt and we stop and gather ourselves. We leap to new dimensions and then we pause and gather our thoughts to resolve our new level.

If a Torah woman is a powerful spring or a lovely pool of water, the secular woman has problems. In pain, we mention them.

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, about the secret miseries of very successful women. Some lady millionaires cry 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 hard then 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 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 core of human spirituality, and they cannot be women, what is going to happen with the world? More directly important to a woman 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 even to 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 an Orthodox woman 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. 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 says that not only successful women suffer in the modern world, 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 are not 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 put religion and idealism 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 were. 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. He explains 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 do not 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 with no solace because they cannot have children, because they cannot 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.

Peace

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 missing qualities. "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 bitterer 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 is not 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.

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.

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)

What is a person? Rabbi Chaim Vital says the Torah is given “to a person,” and not to someone who lacks humanity and character.

Sins are "Blocked"

"When a man marries a woman his sins are blocked, as it says, 'He found a woman, he found good, and he will stopper good will from G-d." We are told that the married man's sins are plugged in a bottle. The proof of this is a passage that when someone marries he "will stopper good will from G-d." The passage tells us about stopping up good will. How does that prove married men plug up sins by marrying? Also, why should we stopper 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 plug up our sins in a bottle? These questions lead us to a deep idea. It influences our very relationship with G-d. It helps us understand this world and the next.

G-d and goodness are everywhere, even in this world. We do not 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, 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. It is thus utterly removed from human understanding. We know what G-d does, at least to some degree, but we cannot know why He does anything. 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. Furthermore, what sins he has done are "blocked" because they cannot enter his abode and environment.

This is similar to another subtle idea. Each individual escapes sins and Judgment by joining with others and negating selfish distinctiveness. 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. He 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 [1] 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. However, we must find a vessel suitable for divine blessings. Because they are infinite not every vessel can hold them. 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.

"He Found a Woman, He Found Good"

Having concluded the TUR teachings about the benefits of marriage for the man, we return to the passage in Proverbs "he found a woman, he found good." We are mystified by the context of the passage. How does the passage relate to the surrounding passages? Indeed, all of the passages seem disparate ideas and unrelated to any central theme.

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. The large mouth can only satisfy the belly, not the entire person. Because the mouth is really a collective term, comprising tongue, lips and mouth area, it achieves limited success. It stills the pangs of hunger in the belly, no more.

However, 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 often 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, despite the nations of the world who prize the male for his physical 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 the “life” female force. 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 is. The spiritual world is the inverse of the physical. When we "love it," meaning 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 “poor person” is the male in the “earth dimension.” The female is “the wealthy person answers with strength.” Solomon expressed a similar thought at the end of Proverbs, “and she laughs at the End Day.” A man would never laugh at that, of course. Only a female is secure in her eternal reward. The female is "strength" and "justice," sure and even a bit ferocious. She is strong because she has spiritual strength.

"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. In fact, it will 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.

The Creation of Eve

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." G-d created Adam “to work and to guard.” Obviously, there were forces even inside the Garden that were bad, and Adam had to guard against them. Did Adam plant or reap? Perhaps 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 mortals work and guard G-d's Garden 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.

II:16 "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. The Torah does not inform us why.

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 do not 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 food. 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. N only do we affect the heavens with our spiritual 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.

II:17 "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 intuitive 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 "live" 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.

G-d said to Adam and Eve, “Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge.” 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 in the physical world. It will cut into your soul, and the soul will wither. In the Garden of Eden, a sin also introduced physical death. Without sin, there would be no death.

II:18 "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."

G-d does not need Eve until Adam is given an opportunity to sin. Immediately after G-d told Adam not to sin, He created Eve. This strengthens the theme we have discussed that man needs a woman to be saved from evil and to thrive spiritually.

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 does not 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 buckled. 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."

G-d created “wild beasts of the field.” It does not mention domesticated animals. G-d created “fowl of the heaven.” It does not just say “fowl.” Why?

The answer is that G-d created wild beasts unfit for people. He created fowl of the heaven, far from people. Adam, by naming wild beasts and heavenly fowl redeemed them for humans. Now beasts could domesticate near man, and the fowl could come to man rather than being remote from man in the sky.

Why does the bible tell us that G-d formed wildlife from the ground? However, 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 a soul in an animal. 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. People have advanced minds and high souls. Therefore, the body’s evil inclinations tap into these higher essences and become more wicked than the animals. Animals never had a Paris Commune, and they never tore babies away from mothers and fathers because the Jewish 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 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. The creation of the animals prepared Adam for Eve. 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. “The heavens are the heavens of G-d, and the earth He gave to mankind.” Adam is the king of this world. This is our great responsibility, and we must never forget it.

"…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 does not notice, relative to Adam these traits and capacities do not 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 do not 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 Kurdovero 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 poor opinion about the person is not the complete truth. We must struggle very hard to see somebody without our anger. 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 a 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 is a connection between forming animals and Eve. What is it?

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." Only then can he be a man, a husband. Adam had to know the world, the beasts and the fowl, and name them to focus his worldview. Only then could he approach marriage.

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 relate to the Creation as a human partner with G-d before we become partners with G-d in having children. The Creation, or our concept of our relation to it, comes with us to build a home. For this one family G-d created the universe. This is how we must feel.

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, and what we are concerned about. What we create with our lives and family reveals our other attitudes.

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. In marriage, a 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 before existed. 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? Prior to marriage, one’s mature curiosity opens new vistas.

Marriage is "and Adam knew his wife, Eve." The process before marriage is to relate to others. Adam is curious and desires to explore for new things. Adam notices new creations, new realities, and he "names" 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. What begins with number one turns in and does not prosper.

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 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 in the forests. The fowl served people as well. What does that have to do with marriage?

“Wild beasts” represent our inner evil inclinations. People have anger and envy and can become “wild beasts.” “Fowl of the heaven” symbolize angels and spirituality. Man must deal with these two opposite aspects of his essence, soul and body. By naming animals and controlling them and his animal instincts, Adam tamed his evil inclination, and prepared for marriage as a “person.” Adam recognized his soul champing at the bit to rise too far for the body. He made boundaries for both body and soul.

Adam now was ready for marriage. Marriage engages the “wild beasts” and powerful energies of the body. It also invokes the highest spiritual lights. We can go too far to the animal side, and neglect the soul. We can also go too far spiritually, and not take proper care of our body until we get sick. Therefore, the mature Adam had to name and resolve the conflict between “wild beast” and “fowl of the heaven,” the corporeal and the transcendent.

"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. 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."

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 delicate 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 former 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 grow older and wiser, they question every spouse, and some end up alone. Lacking worldly wisdom, young people, are much quicker to tie the knot. They grow easily together with their spouse. Young people are plastic enough not to harbor such 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 do not 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 Adam and Eve join on their own volition, they 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. Marriage is thus a cycle of union, separation and union. We believe marriages are made in heaven. Thus, the souls were united, and knowing this strengthens us when we need encouragement in 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"?

G-d created the world for struggle. G-d rewards us according to our pain and efforts. A man struggles much more than a woman, because a man is "earth" and a woman is "life." She is the angelic level. She is 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," what was she? The Zohar indicates that the two shared a soul that bounced back and forth. This is the ultimate “union,” and the true goal of marriage. At least in spirit, Adam and Eve should return to their primal state of being one body and one soul.

Eve was TSELA, the side of Adam. What does this mean?

TSELA is two Hebrew words: TSALE for “shadow” and the letter AYIN that means “eye.” "Shadow" plus "eye" equals "side."

The "eye" or being noticed and actualized originates in the "shadow." People are created in order to enter heaven with their own struggles and deeds, and to be "noticed" there 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 become aware of 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. 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 him 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." The “female” Oral Law 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 Torah. The Torah Written Law 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. Eve is therefore TSELA or "side."

Eve, as a "side" of Adam, was produced by G-d, not her own deeds. As such, she was without personal worth and actualization. Only when G-d tore Eve from Adam and allowed the two of them to realize challenge, did she begin to emerge into her own. Tearing and separating of Adam from Eve allowed the two to join on their own volition. Their successful unit captured 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" being nothing and then actualizing.

We now understand the female force in "eye" and revelation, and the idea of female "beauty." Spirituality 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. However, 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 its supernal roots.

Women, say the rabbis, have superior “BINO” or “understanding.” "Understanding" is to "infer something from something else." Women have the ability to do one thing that accomplishes two things. She thus functions on duel levels. Some things are manifested in more than one way, and she understands both manifestations. Thus, she sees something and sees two things. Because a woman is spirituality in a finite world, she is a dual essence. Even her finite perception is dual-capacity. In physics, the ability to describe a hidden system based upon a known system is called “symmetry.” A woman has the ability to discern A from B. She has “understanding” and applies symmetry to see deep into something and to relate one thing to another as a man does not.

We mentioned previously that the female was "TSELA" or "side." TSELA was two words: TSEL "shadow" and AYIN "eye." "Shadow" meant that G-d hid His Presence and a world of challenge emerged. Humans then 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. However, the man must proceed logically from step to step. 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. He does not automatically relate intuitively to these disparate dimensions. 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. A couple needs someone to 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 foolishness and the frills.

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 woman, 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.

"This time" – Focusing on the Relationship

(Genesis II, 23) "And the man said, 'This occurrence 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 will not 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 religious 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.

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. A large family has many bills 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 and burden. However, like the Holy Ark, it "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 do not have the vigor 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. They were 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" and accept what we have without illusions. We know what happened the "first time" with the first 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 an attitude, and such and such a philosophy, and such and such a personality, etc. Once we narrow it down, we know what we want, but only G-d knows what we will find. The spouses we found for our children are often so utterly remote from our original plans 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. We do not want to be impressed by someone's smile rather than 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 that we lose certain emotional functions, or live with fears and inhibitions. We are afraid and anxious about our ability to find love. That is why parents have to do the work. When parents check someone out and it is “no,” 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.

"Bone" and "flesh"

The passage mentions "bone" and "flesh." Bone is the hidden inner core of the human being. 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 our mate internally as well. In marriage, we accept our spouse’s internal and external, hard and soft. These forces often are opposites and confusing. Our spouse is several people: internal one-way, external another way, at times soft and at times hard. 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 brain sector 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 amygdale. The amygdala 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 another as 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 self-sex attractions.

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 occurrence," 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. "This occurrence" empowers 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 a focused "this occurrence" 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.

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 to “leave,” the less fear there is. The more a child senses a parent’s reluctance for the child to leave, the more the child fears the parent and rebels. This begins a war. The child to survive pulls away from the parent, and the parent, using guilt, or whatever power is available, tries to break the child’s independence. Ultimately, the family is broken, and the child may be part of the bargain, never to recover.

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.

Segment Three - Sexuality and the Bible

By Rabbi David Eidensohn

Copyright © April 28, 2002 by Rabbi David Eidensohn All Rights Reserved

Jewish and Western Sexuality

What is the Jewish-Torah attitude towards sexuality? Sexuality is natural; it is procreation and part of the Creation. The mundane and the material are part of life, even Life. "The Way of the World precedes the Torah." Our task is to find G-d, not in the cave, but in the bedroom and dining room, in the business and the market. In Life, we sense Transcendency. The Schechinah, the Divine Presence, is suffused in our daily lives, and certainly in intimacy.

In Segment II, we learned that women are the pinnacle of spirituality. We found that intimacy elevates a couple to infinity. Procreation is the highest level of humanity; people transcend their pettiness and achieve creation. The High Priest in the Temple could only function if married. One who has no wife has "no Torah, no blessing, and no life."

At one time public lectures were given on sexuality in the synagogue, as taught in the holy classic, "Two Tablets of the Covenant," or "SHELO." Sexuality came from marriage, which in Hebrew is KIDDUSHIN, or "holiness." Holiness was not just the marital bond, but the marital function, the Life actualized in intimacy. The Talmud is quite open about sexuality, in a way that would shock a modern Western. Why is this?

What is the Western attitude towards sexuality? The New Testament, in Mathew, demands that the truly spiritual refrain from marriage completely. The third century Church theologian Tertullian commanded women to dress in mourning and accept that evil is because of them. A major early church figure, Origen, castrated himself to avoid the temptation to go near a woman. He promoted the Greek idea that matter and the material world are implicitly evil. The Greeks, who utterly despised women, influenced the early Church. Athens rejected women and reveled in homosexuality. Therefore, the Jewish and Western ideas of sexuality are far apart. To the Western moralist, sexuality is evil. To the Torah, sexuality is holiness.

Because Judaism treats marriage and sexuality with such reverence, and because Judaism acknowledges the superior spirituality of the female, Jews respect sexuality and bawdiness never became part of Jewish culture. Western religions despised women and sexuality so that biological relief created remorse. A person satisfied his natural needs with guilt. He felt removed from spirituality. Once fallen, he was ruined and eventually ended dissolute. Thus, in every Western society where religion debased women and created unnatural restrictions on sexuality, the culture sustained incredible insults to decency. In Catholic countries such as France where divorce was prohibited, marriage was almost meaningless. The Catholic Church taught for thousands of years that going near a woman defiled a man spiritually. Today the church is awash in priest pedophiles. One extreme leads to another. Any culture that does not allow one’s biological needs expression will create the lowest forms of dissolution.

Sex as secular entertainment and enjoyment is quite different from Jewish modesty and sanctity. Modern secular ideas about sexuality promote what biblical people consider perversity. It would seem that the anti-biblical sexuality of the secular culture and academic community would have nothing to do with the Church view on sexuality. This, however, is a mistake. Once society accepts from the Church that women are things, and that sex is naughty, and that marriage is only for lower people and removed from true spirituality, or is only for procreation and kingdom building, it is but a small step to fulfill one's biological needs by creating a Hollywood woman who is a physical toy. In addition, by pouring guilt on the sexual drive, one is unable to deal with his natural passions without feeling evil. Once evil is served, the helpless person is on a slippery slope. Historically, a society that refuses divorce was one that made marriage into a joke. A Pope once told a woman, who needed an heir in order to provide the Pope with what he wanted politically, "A smart woman knows how to become pregnant." Throughout the history of the church, fornication and homosexuality were common at the Vatican and surely elsewhere. Some popes had children. In monarchical France, marriages were made only for financial reasons, with no expectation of fidelity. There is thus a linkage between one's attitude towards women and sex and the two faces of the Church and secular sex. The impossible demands of the Church, denigrating sexuality, prohibiting divorce, forced many people to accept that what they had to do was evil, and they then went to adultery and heinous sins as if on a trajectory.

The Western man needs four women, at least. He needs a wife for procreation, financial arrangements and respectability. He needs the mistress, who is what a wife should be for emotional and continued sexual support. He needs a concubine for regular sex, and a prostitute for experimental sex. Of course, there is always the affair with someone else’s wife, for instance. Despite all of these women, he never “cleaves to his wife,” and never finds relief emotionally or sexually. A Jewish man who accepts a mate as G-d’s gift creates an environment where family is this world and the next, ideally.

Newsweek of June 22, 2003 featured an article “We are not in the Mood,” about modern married people who just don’t have sex. They sit all day in offices with people just looking for affairs, watch television and movies to arouse the worst instincts, and come home and night and cannot make it into bed. That is secular society. Talk all day about sex and don’t have it. Nature does not tolerate a sick sexuality.

We cannot discuss secular sexuality without mentioning Sigmund Freud and the secular study of sexology. Although we will not go into Freud in depth in this segment, we mention here one important idea: The sexual habits of people in modern Austria, in the most fashionable salons where Freud's patients lived, were unsatisfactory. Even today, things are not good, as we just mentioned.

According to Freud, frequent masturbation and coitus interruptus caused melancholy, anxiety and hysteria. People don't have a proper avenue for their sexual needs. Unmarried people can contract disease from prostitutes, married people have problems with maintaining their ardor—at one time, they had problems with unwanted pregnancies. Freud worried that condoms interfered with the proper release of libido energies and caused mental illness. The sexual forces in people must have a proper release, Freud felt, and he was right. He also said, rightfully, that people have problems with these releases. These problems have led people, as we will mention, to reject either heterosexuality or even any partner sexuality, and to find release anyway they can, even through auto-excitement. This is the present state of sexology, seeking to find a path to sexual fulfillment, even as we slide down the slope culturally and socially away from it. What is sad is that a century after Freud began his study of sexuality, the basic issues he raised have not been properly resolved. Indeed, they are part of larger issues that are the challenge of the future, such as the study of consciousness, the connection between the mental and chemical, ideas and hormones, as well as the neurological process of sexuality. The farther science retreats into reductionism and the smaller things, the more it wants to break away and find the total picture, which is quite a trick. We hope to discuss the Jewish counterparts of some of Freud's phrases, but not in this segment, because it deserves a focus of its own.

When we eat and enjoy, we feel less spiritual than when we pray or study. Indulgence fills our primitive appetites, not our souls. This led the Church to teach that the material world was so remote from G-d that He had to create an intermediary deity to deal with it. The devil controlled the material world, and demanded from the Creator a payment of the death of an intermediary deity. Judaism feels that G-d created the material world as an adjunct of His Holiness, which suffuses nature and matter. We have no need of an intermediary to deal with the material world, and indeed, every pebble radiates with mystery and transcendence. To the church, sexuality was the ultimate denigration of the soul; the rabbis taught the opposite. Sexuality was the pinnacle of spirituality, an act of creation, and a partnership directly with G-d. G-d is not removed from materialism, and He is not separate from sexuality. He is revealed in it. The Cabalists teach that the unity of male and female unite the supernal letters of the Divine Name in Heaven.

In 270, inspired by a Church teaching to renounce one's possessions, Anthony retreated to a tomb where he claimed that demons assailed him, even striking him, to draw him back to the sensuous world. Thus began Christianity's idea that matter, sensual pleasures, and this world are the domain of the devil. The monastic priests of the Church spread this doctrine, that earnings and sexuality are lowly things. Judaism insists that people have earnings and support their families. The Cabalists say that the highest lights reverberate in the acts of buying and selling, if done honestly.

The rabbis taught that Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden cohabitated unclothed. After the sin, they were ashamed of public nakedness. Whereas some religions taught that the expulsion from the Garden of Eden denigrated people in G-d's eyes, Judaism denies that sin can do this. No sin can destroy G-d's love for us, nor can any sin deny us the opportunity to return to G-d who awaits us. Even sexuality after the sin is beloved, and matter and nature are still suffused with transcendence, albeit privately and quietly. We see the great difference in the attitudes of the West and Judaism regarding humankind, sin, and sexuality.

Is Sex Shameful?

Even though G-d made us that way, we are ashamed of nakedness. So shamed are we of our nakedness that we clothe ourselves. Sexuality is the deepest nakedness and we embarrassed by it. It can only be consummated in utter privacy. Sex may be natural and procreation, but something about it seems incompatible with the nobility of rational and regal man. Sexuality is surrender to something irrational, and base pleasure demeans us, somehow.

The biblical story of Adam and Eve says that they were naked before they sinned. After they sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, they were ashamed of their nakedness and needed clothes. This is such a strange story. Why, when they were holy and exalted, nakedness was no shame, but when they sinned they were ashamed of nakedness? How did eating from the Tree of Knowledge produce shame?

However, there is Life and there is Knowledge. Life reveals G-d by living. Originally, before the sin, mundane activities revealed G-d, such as eating and copulating. After Adam and Eve sinned, their bodies declined and were no longer sacred vessels. Now, their minds had to find light amid the darkness. Eating and copulation now had a new aspect, not of holiness, but of corporeal sensuality that could supplant spirituality, such as in Western “sex.” Now nakedness was a shame. Eating and sexuality were still capable of bringing a person to creation of others and “the way of the world that precedes the Torah.” However, this requires effort and struggle. We cannot go about naked. We cannot spend the day eating and invoking sensuality. Only at certain times may we eat and copulate, and then privately. This teaches us that the world is polluted and we must hide from it to find spirituality in corporeal activities. However, within marriage and the confines of privacy, sexuality and eating are human processes that lead to the highest levels. The great Hassidic rabbis spend the holiest hours of the Sabbath eating while their followers sit in awed respect and watched.

A Greek philosopher regaled his disciples with the importance of rationality, and complained how sexuality without higher logic was objectionable. As far as anyone could tell, the professor was as good as his word. He had nothing to do with women, but was engrossed constantly in study and deep thought.

Finally, the professor's barbs about sexuality reached new heights. The students decided to see just how pure their professor was. They sent him a prostitute to him. Bursting into his room at the appropriate or rather inappropriate time, the students confronted their master. "Now," said he, "I am not your master."

There is in this story, true or not, two ideas, and they are both true. One is that sexuality is emotional and not commensurate with hard rational thinking. Two, even people who prize rationality are human. Anyone who does not realize the power of sexuality may easily be burnt by it. We therefore seek to deal with this mighty force by feeding our needs, not by denying them. The incredible pedophilia and homosexuality scandals engulfing the Catholic Church today show what happens when one denies marriage.

I was once a partner with a Catholic Priest in a certain project, which received the blessings of senior rabbis. We decided to honor a senior Bishop. The Bishop spoke at the dinner, and began his remarks by saying that he decided to become a priest before he was ready for celibacy. I discovered later that this Bishop did have sexual problems, went to school and got a high degree in counseling, and is now busy with other priests. There are calls for change, but the Church was founded with the attitudes enumerated above, and to alter them will rock the foundations not only of the priesthood, but also of the theology. ABCNEWS, on April 26, '02, showed a picture of top Vatican prelate Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger slapping the hand of an ABC correspondent. The correspondent asked Ratzinger about Father Marcial Maciel. Eight Catholic men in their sixties have come forth to charge Maciel, the head of a legion to make priests out of children, with molesting them in his secretive domain near the Vatican. Despite the furor, the Pope continued to praise Maciel. Today, the world realizes that the Jewish way given at Sinai is the correct one. As I write these words in May 2,002, sixteen priests accused of pedophilia have committed suicide, and an archbishop has resigned. Two senior American Cardinals, Law of Boston and Egan of New York, are being deposed or working with the DA's office, and are under heavy pressure for covering up priestly pedophilia. Law, perhaps the senior Cardinal in America, resigned under fire.

Even outside of the Church, the idea that sex is wrong, or that it must be confined to procreation, makes problems. The guilt associated with sex has turned it into an anti-social thing like gambling and drugs. Instead of people getting it properly, they deny it, until something bursts and becomes adultery, the ruining of a woman, or people simply run across town.

It is easy to understand the error of the Greeks and the West. When you have sex, you lose yourself, you decline, and you are degraded. Sexuality is a lust that does not reflect the higher powers of man. Sex thus became naughty, and women, "things." All of this is utterly contrary to Judaism.

The problem is that if rationality and logic are the highest aspects of man, how can we reconcile sexuality to them? Sexuality is done with other parts of the mind, the emotional or primitive faculties. What pride does Judaism sees in this act? If sexuality overwhelms the logic and rationality of man, this is because one enters the infinite realm, not because he becomes an animal. Sexuality is one of the many times that a person in this world tastes of the higher one. We say this not because of the physical pleasures involved, but because of the actual spiritual energy that is sexuality.

What is the Sexual Force?

In its failed form, sexuality is fantasy, disintegration of the ego, and sad surrender. Proper sexuality is not degenerate; rather it is transcendence. One surrenders to emerge as something higher. Separate men and women become “one flesh." There cannot be a fully fulfilled man without a woman, and a fully fulfilled woman without a man. Nature does not tolerate a positive charge without a negative one, an electron without a proton, so it is with people. Only in marriage do we find out what we really are.

A person has a body and a soul. The universe has material and spiritual forces. Just as a rock is real, so is the soul, and so is spirituality. There are orbs of fire and rock racing through space, and there are lines of light that lead to and from G-d. The key is that the material and spiritual merge, fuse, and reciprocate each other's essence. Material life is suffused with spirituality; spirituality inspires us to better the material state of the world. Marriage, the highest material reality, leads to and reveals transcendence.

According to my friend, internationally renowned sexologist Edward Eichal, the concept of sex being a physical energy was entertained by Freud and now is being studied by modern physicists. However, the idea of sexuality being a physical force has nothing to do, per se, with spirituality. It means that the psychosexual process invokes waves of energy and forces that are similar to light and sound, or that it is somehow rooted in physiological processes, or that it is hormonal. We can accept that sexuality is both physical and spiritual. The new science may indeed find a way to measure the waves of energy in sexuality in purely physical terms, and yet accept the transcendence of sexuality as spirituality beyond physical measurement.

One may consider sexuality as physical energy, or even a transcendental force. David Bohm, a major scientist and philosopher, proposes that there is what we see and detect with scientific instruments. This he calls the explicate. An example would be words written on a page. We know the words; we can study them. There is, however, an environment. We write words on a page. The environment of the page has the ability to reveal letters that form words. The environment of the letters he calls the implicate; the letters are the explicate. There is, in addition, says Bohm, a super-implicate. This environment is above time, and percolates down into the temporal world as a creator. A thing in the lower world connects to the super-implicate and achieves new and creative properties. All life and particles grow and develop by sending the force of the super-implicate.

The idea in secular terms is very rough and scientifically controversial. One objection is that if there is such a thing as the super-implicate, everything should develop perfectly and not fail. Indeed, since all things in the universe are connected to the creative guidance of the super-implicate, how can clashes and wars exist? Obviously, the idea is wrong on the physical level. It further violates a law of physics called entropy. Entropy says that all order becomes disorder; all organization becomes disorganization.

Nonetheless, we congratulate Bohm's effort to connect science to transcendence. That is the way things are moving. Judaism has always united science and spirituality. Judaism believes “there is no blade of grass that does not connect to an angelic force that causes it to grow." Because the super-implicate defies physics and entropy, as we explained, Bohm's idea of all particles connecting to a super-implicate is correct only if we admit the existence of spirituality. All particles in the universe live in a pot of destruction, entropy. Entropy pressures us to fall, fail, and disintegrate. We must reach past the physical forces that bind and lower us, and find eternity, the "angelic forces" and G-d. We then can rise above our finite shackles and realize our true potential.

We can thus define human spirituality as the effort to evade the destructive pressures of the finite by finding the source of life in transcendence. In marriage, we have daily problems and pressures. They are relieved, and the marriage sustained, through sexuality and its invocation of higher energies. Love, revealed during sexuality and maximized by it, is infinite.

Early scientism barred spirituality because the Church and Greeks taught that matter is unholy, even evil. Today, we seek to unite matter to spirituality, which is a Jewish idea.

Sexuality allows us, when properly done, to connect to the true spiritual "super-implicate." Whenever we perform sex, we put the key into the motor and it connects to the supernal sources of light and spiritual energies. If we love and are loved, the process is perfect, and we emerge whole and renewed. If we "take" and not "give"; if we are actualized and not vulnerable; if we demean and do not respect; mighty powers of transcendence and spirituality flow down, but they are corrupted and become evil and meanness. Sexuality is a primal force, a blastema; it raises one to the heavens or plunges him to the abyss. Sexuality can love, resolving, spiritual, transcendent and happy. It can also be compulsive, addictive, perverse, and menacing.

Spirituality, according to Judaism is a reality. This is enforced scientifically by the studies of many who died and came back, called "near death experiences." People brain dead without heartbeat were revived. They then told what doctors and emergency personnel said and did while they were dead. This proves that there is a soul. Dead brains do not remember anything. Scientifically, therefore, we accept a soul, and thus spirituality. In sexuality, we see either its purest form, or the opposite.

"Spirituality is Autoeroticism"?

A senior secular sexologist said, "Spirituality is autoeroticism." This is a terrible mistake. While it is true that one can attain a primitive pleasure by fantasizing and masturbating, the masturbatory orgasm is surely not spirituality. In secular distorted sexuality, a higher human becomes a capricious fantasy. When there is no woman to resolve a person’s ego, it disintegrates, and his self vaporizes. He seeks drugs and any pleasure to relieve his incessant anxieties from unresolved issues. Purely physiological sexual pleasure is not spirituality; it is unfulfilled or even toxic sexuality.

"Auto" means one alone. "Autoeroticism is spirituality" implies the lone self. Nothing is said about a partner, male or female. However, he did not say this because he was strange or evil. In the secular world, heterosexuality and surely homosexuality is so riven with problems that people endure it rather than enjoy it. Spirituality, to this professor, sincerely stated, is autoeroticism. He massages certain erogenous zones, stimulates the blood to flow over nerve endings, and claims to be "spiritual." Lest we laugh, we must realize that in the secular world, sex is a challenge rather than a pleasure. People are always trying this or that because they are frustrated with the old ways. Eventually, just masturbating in the privacy of one's home brings relief without the mess. We can understand that, even as we disagree with it. However, is this spirituality?

In the sixties, secular people began to search for spirituality in drugs. Professor Timothy Leary of Harvard influenced many young people to take dangerous mind-altering drugs such as LSD. People claimed that the twisting of the mind with chemistry was "spirituality." Will wonders never cease?

Sexuality as "autoeroticism" or even as erogenous arousal is shallow, and manifests only the processes of the nerve-endings and biological responses. Jewish spirituality is communication, "and Adam knew his wife." He did not fantasize; he knew something. He understood Eve on a deeper level. Adam saw Eve and a higher transcendence than he had ever known. This revelation and knowledge, not the fantasy, afforded him a communication that recreated his own soul.

We thus sum up our comparison of Jewish and secular/Western sex. Judaism considers sexuality a spiritual energy and insight, a knowledge, that unites two disparate elements, man and woman, and propels them to deeper dimensions, deep insights, lights of infinite power and immeasurable pleasures. These pleasures are not merely spiritual or chemical. They are the hope of the lone individual to escape the prison of his own limitations, and to find freedom, strength and a spiritual renewal through intimacy. Pleasure is usually related to something important. We must procreate, or the species disappears. We must eat, or we die. Therefore, both of these are pleasurable. The need for a person to connect to challenge, renewal, expansion, freedom, strength and intimacy with others is an infinite need, and its pleasure is infinite.

When the greatest sage in the world in Babylonia, Rav (250 CE) was old, he heard some people discussing Solomon's teachings on sexuality. He groaned. Those who heard the groan said, "Obviously, Rav no longer is sexually virile and potent." The Talmud records this. What is there to record? That an old man groaned?

Rav was a saint who founded the rabbinical schools that completed the final and authoritative Talmud. That such a man, in his aged state, should be pained by his lack of virility shows that sexuality is a very high knowledge and spirituality.

Rav's opposite number, in Israel, Rabbi Yochanan, was the founder of the Jerusalemic Talmud School. He once remarked, "Such and such a potent restored me to my youth." Maimonides made medications for virility. Sexuality to a Jew was not the consuming vice of the Arab. It was the consummate spirituality.

Modern sex fails almost eighty percent of the time. The emphasis upon the physiological and the denigration of the act make it almost impossible to succeed. One can only succeed with sex when he realizes that it will elevate him, make him more rational and heighten his spirituality. He enters the room as if he was in the holy of holies. There are those who recite special prayers before going to bed. G-d is together with the parents in the selection of the soul. The parents tremble that their love not be marred, something that will blemish the soul of the child. Even if no child is born, souls are created by procreation, and the parents are reborn.

Secular person begins sex without the moorings of the rational and regal self, and without the excitement at the spiritual dimension of the act. What is he looking for? The woman senses his powering on as an insult and threat, and hardens in fear. The rest is disaster. This happens in the majority of the time with secular sex.

The Jewish marital act takes place, when people are young, after a menstrual period. The husband suffers, for a week or two. The woman watches her husband climb the walls. She is counting the days; he is dying; so be it. Finally, she goes to the Mikvah, a ritualarium filled with well or rainwater. He is home, excited as if he was just married. She goes into a building swarming with ladies and helpers. She showers and chats with her friends. There is enormous tension in the night, but it often evaporates in the quiet talking. Ladies on the staff of the Mikveh help her get ready, and call her to come to an available pool. She goes down the few stairs into the water, and immerses totally. She feels something spiritual and new. She is not the old person. The old weaknesses are going to have a hard time in this body. She rises from the pool, and goes home. What is important for us to note in her attitude is this: SEX IS SACRED!

Note that the most pious ladies are escorting the woman. Some women will wait in their private rooms until a senior lady is available. They want someone very special to lead them to the water. They want to invoke the senior lady’s presence. They want to hear from this saintly woman some blessing, one that will bring more meaning to the Mikveh, and blessing to the marriage and children. A Mikveh is at least as holy as the synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

The lady comes home. Her husband knows the rules. HE MUST BEHAVE. He wants to rush, but he better not. If he does, the wife might tell the rabbi. Secular woman is not going to call the police, but you had better believe that religious lady would call the rabbi. And if she does…

The woman is intensely excited, as is the man. Now is the time to relax and chat, and enjoy something to eat. When the woman is ready, not before, there will be action. She is not nervous. She is in control. The Talmud tells of the senior rabbi who taught his daughter about sex. "Don't let him grab anything," he told her. First this, and then, that, and then… Secular woman just hopes for the best. But when she leave it to biology, she feels like the grizzly bear females who flee at top speed when they notice a male in heat. A man in heat is a grizzly bear. It takes a lot of training to make him into a human. A rabbi told me of the forensic report he had read, of a man who killed his wife during intercourse, not from cruelty, but from the violence of his movements. He simply tore her apart. Many women are not torn apart physically, but what they go through emotionally is almost as bad. Sexuality is a great challenge. Either do things right, and achieve wonderful things, or do things wrong, and suffer.

Those secular people, men and women, who have had enough, retreat to their dens and announce, "Spirituality is autoeroticism." Pity them. Pity such a world.

Sexuality, Spirituality and the Angels

We find in the Creation story that Adam and Eve copulated publicly, naked, yet without shame. Only when they sinned did they become embarrassed without clothes. Thus, sexuality itself is spiritual. However, sexuality by people with sin and stained souls is shameful. We therefore accept that there are two levels of sexuality, one glorious and one embarrassing. In our world, sex must be very private. We shut our eyes when praying out of respect for the Schechinah Presence that stands before us. We seek darkness and privacy in sexuality for the same reason. Only in the Garden of Eden, when people openly consorted with the Schechinah, could sexuality be public.

Outside of the Garden, sexuality continued to be a spiritual force. Indeed, the first teaching of the Yeshiva of Elijah the Prophet is that after the Expulsion, we relate directly to G-d through Derech Erets, the "Way of the World." This "comes before the Torah." Whatever relationship we had with G-d in the Garden of Eden is now hidden and quiet. In the privacy of our homes, even in our mundane functions, we find true spirituality.

Because sexuality is so linked to heavenly forces and spirituality, when we violate the ethics of sexuality, when we defile and profane women, we turn the heavens upside down. This happened, literally, in the generation of Noah, when men began to "take women," and do as they pleased. The bible tells us of the Fallen Ones, who were angels, hurled to earth by the sexual sins of men. Men violated women, thus uprooted the foundation of spirituality and toppled angels to earth. In the twisted turmoil of the times, these angels were pulled to earth by the beauty of women, a spirituality ruined and made suddenly toxic by the acts of men.

The sins of men thus caused two things to happen in the time of Noah and the Flood. They toppled angels and corrupted spiritual forces. Sins corrupted the animals, which now mated with other species and engaged in homosexuality.

Genesis 6,4: "The fallen ones were in the land in those days (just before the Flood of Noah.) And also afterwards, when the Sons of Holiness came to the daughters of man, and bore for them. They are the mighty ones who were the famous people from days of yore." Some say the "mighty ones" were called "fallen" because all who saw them trembled and fell down. Others, however, object to translating "fallen ones" as causing others to fall. "Fallen ones" mean that they, not others, fell. Yet, if they fell, how could they be the progenitors of "mighty ones"? The answer is that angels fell from heaven, married women, and produced giants. (See Baal HaTurim 6,4) Rashi says the same thing on a previous passage, "And the Sons of G-dliness saw the daughters of man that they were good, and they took them for wives, from all that they chose." This means that angels took women.

The bible tells us that sex can topple angels. The "fallen ones" of early Genesis were angels who were carried away by desires for lovely women. What did angels see in females? We mentioned one solution previously; angels were toppled in the turmoil of human sin. By violating women, the sacrosanct font of spirituality, the spiritual forces of the very heavens were toppled, and some angels fell down to earth. These angels, again, from the toxic spirituality, were attracted to women. On second thought, angels attracted to women may not be so strange, after all.

Angels have no bodies, so their interest was not as we would assume. We mentioned the spirituality of the female, and perhaps the angels liked that. If so, why did they decline and fall from their relationship with women?

Sexuality and the female can raise a man to heaven, or fling the angels into the abyss. It depends on our attitude and respect for the female. The angels "took" from "all that they wanted." Women meant nothing to them, only as a toy. Such resulted in tragedy and falling. Men who approach a woman with respect, however, invoke the spirituality she possesses and rise to the heavens.

Some say that the angels fell from heaven to marry a woman, Naama. What did the angels see in Naama? Naama means "lovely." NOAM is comfort and pleasantness. We are happy. We have no problems. Naama also has a connotation of aesthetic loveliness. When we gaze upon a lovely thing, its loveliness energizes us. There is a fragrance-like power in beauty. Beauty is related to transcendence and mystery, and even the angels were impressed with it. Surely, people can be inspired by beauty. What is beauty? What is loveliness?

The angels, swayed by the charm of Naama, were not necessarily impressed with her lipstick. Her name "lovely" indicated a higher dimension where even angels had to look. This "loveliness" of the spirit is often replicated by physical loveliness. This is the principle in physics of symmetry, whereby variegated dimensions produce similar phenomena. The spirit produces beauty and the manifestation of that loveliness can often be reflected in other dimensions, such as the finite and the physical. A lovely woman is often a lovely soul, a lovely spirituality. The angels did fall for Naama, but not just for her physical form.

A human being has many levels of consciousness and knowing, from the soul and deepest emotions to the coldest calculating and logic. We have the energies we require to escape from our finite confines and to know better things. We seek a higher spirituality to find freedom. Others, failing, utilize a drug, a drink, any force that can save them from the doldrums and limitations. We are finite, and it bothers us. We are trapped within our bodies and restrictions, the crush of entropy and decline, and we want to fly free. Perhaps, in our fantasies, we take wing and float in the warm air over an island in the ocean, in a paradise of birds and breezes, and we gently rock on the clouds, free of fear and pressure. Alas, it is all fantasy. For biofeedback, this is great, but we know it is only an exercise to relieve tension.

Along comes a lovely thing. Suddenly, we are happy, we find something new; we are floating on a cloud. Where did that cloud come from? This is surely better than biofeedback. It is real. Why? One idea is as we explained, that physical beauty radiates with higher beauty and true spirituality. It can be corrupted, but nonetheless, the force is there. It can raise us to the heavens or fling us to the abyss. There are beautiful women who are righteous such as Sarah who founded the Jewish people, and there are beautiful women like Vashti who hated Jews and made Jewish girls work on the Sabbath. From one comes life and from the other comes evil and destruction. High forces are very delicate and can easily be corrupted. However, the Talmud records famous prostitutes who became righteous, such as Rahab, the wife of Joshua, and another in the generation of Rabbi Mayer. One idea is that these lovely ladies were immoral and repented. This is acceptable. "Nothing bars the path to penitence." However, there is another idea, in keeping with our discussion. The beauty of a woman resonates on spiritual and material levels. The higher beauty is easily corrupted; sexuality with its spiritual content easily slips down into "sex" and evil. These women, such as Rahab, the wife of Joshua, were lovely, and this indicated that their souls were very high, but captured by the evil force. In the merit of righteous people, these spiritual lovely forces broke free until even the physical woman returned to goodness.

Within this idea is another, deeper concept, taught by Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, the saint and scholar of nineteenth century Vilna. Rabbi Salanter taught that in nature there is always balance. Thus, something very good attracts great evil, and something very evil attracts goodness. Practically speaking, this means that a good person has a good exterior, but a poor interior system. There must be balance, because "G-d made this opposite that." The world is one of testing. There must always be balance in the challenge to choose good over evil. There must be evil to test us. What happens when a person becomes pious? Do the evil force and inclination leave? Rabbi Salanter taught that the evil force in a good person re-entrenches and makes the good person filled with evil inclinations. Alternatively, a bad person has a bad external system, but internally, the good forces pour in and concentrate. The inner force waits for something to pierce the shield separating it from the external. Once that barrier is broken, the inner force explodes its pent-up energies, and the person is flooded with an opposite force.

Obviously, this deserves more attention, but for our purposes, we will return to the prostitutes who became pious. When did they taste the light of goodness? While mired in utter evil, the power of balance asserted itself. Here, in the muck, was an imbalance, and something had to be done. Good forces poured into the evil prostitute, and hid behind the barrier. When something happened, in the case of Rahab, the conquest of Canaan and the revelation of G-d's might, the good poured through a breach in the barrier, and she converted to Judaism and became pious. A similar story is told of the wife of a Roman emperor, a renowned beauty, who married Rabbi Akiva in his old age.

People who live in the dregs of life, running to and fro with prostitutions, fornication, and who knows what else, simply increase within their hearts, deep down but somehow sensed, forces of good that can balance the force of evil. The pain felt by those with compulsive and addictive behaviors reflects in part the good forces that cry out with each step into the quagmire. Of course, this outcry simply reinforces the anxieties that drive the person to seek relief with the evil behavior. As tragic as this is, there is a good force building with each failure; ultimately, all of that good can come out and prevail.

Psychosexual and Spiritual

In his classic work, The Two Tablets of the Covenant, Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz writes, (Volume III, page 149b) in the name of Rabbi Isaac Luria, that food and material things contain spiritual elements. A person who eats feeds his body and his soul. The material in the food feeds the physical body, and the sparks of spirituality sustain the soul. He writes, "There is nothing in the lower world that does not have a spiritual influence from above that brings it to actuality and says to it, 'grow!'"

The last phrase is a quote from the Talmud, "no blade of grass exists without a heavenly angel that deals with it and tells is to grow."

Every aspect of the material world is intimately involved with spiritual energies and is guided by heaven. Corporeality is spirituality, despite its seemingly mundane trapping and the challenge of its negative capacities.

In terms of sexuality, we also have two domains, the physical and the spiritual. Because sexuality may invoke the entire repertoire of human emotion and thought, the physical is variegated. The spiritual is also multi-dimensional, even more than the finite.

The spiritual world itself has many forces, and the material life we lead, especially in marriage, invokes a wide range of spiritual forces, depending on our spiritual level. Our emotions, when good and pure, invoke high spiritual forces. When we are angry, when we are selfish, when we feel small, we invoke the other, lower kind of supernatural forces, evil.

Many things go on during human interactions, especially in intimacy. The male needs the female resolution, and the female needs the male penetration, his entering into her "home" and "circle essence" to be resolved and revealed. Sexuality tugs at the deepest personal level, defining and creating, resolving and revealing. Sexuality invokes G-d, so that "three partners, the father, the mother and G-d" create the soul of the child. G-d is not removed and abstract, but a veritable partner summoned by the spirituality of sexuality. There are various levels of procreation. The Talmud teaches that the level of the child's soul is determined by the love of the parents for each other during intercourse. Obviously, intimacy is exalted. Having said this, we must keep in mind that the mighty engine of sexuality is fashioned not in heaven but in our relationships with our parents. Our childhood forms our psychosexual attitudes and forces, although there are genetic, social, inter-uterine and hormonal influences as well.

The psychosexual drive is rooted in our relationships to our parents and others. The capacity to relate to others is part of our mind or essence. The relation force within us has many levels. There is the casual relationship and there are deeper relationships. The highest level of relationship requires the deepest emotions. When we want to join physically with a person, it is partially because of the mental and spiritual need to relate with another. We also relate to others in order to expand our horizons and to inform ourselves. We have sex in order to grow and to be actualized. The sexual relationship however is quantitatively and qualitatively different, much more intimate, and sometimes searing than other relationships. In order for one to have a sexual relationship and invoke these deeper emotions, one must call upon previously prepared parts of the person. If these parts, designed for deeper relationships, are scarred, the sexual experience may be damaged, even sick.

This can lead to negative sexuality. Instead of involving the soul and the deepest healthy emotional responses, one has sex without the help of these essential emotional and psychological tools. Still worse are impaired emotional and psychological tools twisting the power of sex into perversion. There are people who have sex that is tender and vulnerable. There are people who have sadism and masochism. Sex can send a confident person to the stars; it can fling a broken person to the depths.

Sex is not only an emergent from our emotional essence. Sex re-creates our emotional essence. Sex not only utilizes the soul or denies it; sex creates the soul or destroys it. In every area, emotional, psychological, biological, spiritual and medical, sex can improve or damage. We are not the same person after sex than we were earlier. Sex is atomic energy. We do not know all that much about it, but it is very powerful. The angels came to Naama the lovely one and became evil. Others had sex and became angels.

We said before that a human being has many levels of consciousness and knowing, from the soul and deepest emotions to the coldest calculating and logic. These are piled together in one person and yet they are different, separate and conflict. The flow of signals and demands coming into the human consciousness leaves no rest. Where is the focus?

Enter beauty. Let us talk about a painting. It has a blue sky and a brown dog. The artist is not telling us about a sky or an animal. The artist is painting a picture. The artist is suggesting a system. In the system the dog and the sky are partners and do not conflict. This is beauty. The painting has many hues. All of these are one picture, and one beauty. The unity of disparate things captivates us. This is splendor. In Cabala (and cubism), "splendor" is capturing opposite forces and letting their "push-pull" synergy create beauty and Truth.

If the dog and the sky are not the picture, what is? Beauty is a force that connects the finite to the infinite. We feel mystery and transcendence silhouetted just beyond our cognizance and limitations. It beckons us to sense that within the dog and the sky, inside of our finite fingers and limited mind, are lodes of transcendence, sparks of infinity. Beauty is this peek into the beyond. It raises our parts and us. It unifies them in hope and healing.

Modern art and culture are busy, for the past centuries, not in old-fashioned beautiful art, but in abolition, surrealism, and dada, which means ridiculous poems without meaning. For this, Jacques Barzun considers our age one of decadence. There is much to discuss about this, but for now, in the confines of our topic, we note that beauty is not available to everyone. The modern painter must find beauty by painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, and by destroying, by revolting, by anti-synergy and anti-art. It is no accident that this age is also a time of the breakdown of sexuality in marriage. Up to eighty percent of women cannot enjoy intimacy. This again is a challenging topic and it is not for us here to digress upon it. We note however a connection. An age where beauty is dead is an age where sex is dead. An age where music is talking, shrieking, playing notes that jar the senses, is an age where people suffer during intimacy.

Naama, "lovely," is the epitome of beauty. Only one organized to know beauty could see Naama's beauty. The person whose inner system is chaotic, who has not surety of human and natural unity, cannot know beauty.

Sexuality is about "and they will be one flesh." It ends that way only if it begins that way. A person whose quiddity is clear and wholesome will see beauty. A person who seeks the elements of the whole with anger cannot see the forest; even the tree is ugly. Lovely means a forest where the trees and the birds are all part of a body. Ugliness is reducing the forest to trees atomized and without meaning or light. An age where reductionism reduces the whole to invisible and strange parts is an age that reduces the whole of the person to flickering shadows of doubt and fear.

The eyes of a person who is confident in his totality and inherent cohesiveness see the positive in the other. The eyes of a person who is confident that truth is reduction must reduce the obvious until it disappears; there cannot be beauty in the reduction.

Someone can see a lovely woman and reduce her to various organs. Another can see a woman silhouetted against the infinite mysteries of Pure Unity. To the first fellow the female is a thing; the second person accepts that he does not know what the female truly is because of her transcendence and loveliness. This is a physical beauty radiating with something else. True loveliness is more than what we behold. Reductionism is the search to negate what we behold, to make it smaller and ultimately disappear and reappear as something even smaller and less significant.

Let us talk about NAAMA in a deeper vein. If it is too subtle for your tastes, just skip down the page. In Hebrew, letters are also numbers. The Hebrew spelling of the name NAAMA, the "lovely" woman, is numerically the same value as for the Hebrew words for "shadow" and "man." The word "TSEL" or "shadow" figures prominently in the Creation narrative. We develop this elsewhere. Regarding NAAMA, we find the numerical value is "shadow-man." What does "lovely" have to do with "shadow-man"?

A simple idea to explain the connection between "shadow-man" and a lovely woman is that female beauty is buttressed by modesty. The Medieval commentator Meiri writes that a woman is loved when she maintains her dignity and modesty. An English poet made a similar point that the longer a woman's dress the greater ardor in the heart of her man. Naama means "lovely" and its numerical value is that of "shadow-man." Beauty is revealed by "shadow," when we conceal it. When "man" trumpets himself, he is deformed and despised. A "man" or woman of grace, dignity and modesty reveals "loveliness" from "shadow" We may never know who we are, who our mates are, or what anything is. We can, however, invoke the "shadow" and the concealed light, and adjust to it. We grow in sensitivity through life until we feel the pulsating infinite suffused in human relationships, especially marriage. Thus, the "shadow" of modesty reveals and elevates the "man" to transcendence.

In the good old days, a woman was paid for sex. Today it is free, and with the pill, means nothing to the man. A woman is a free toy.

A young woman attracted a very virile and dashing man. She moved in with him and they lived the life of those in their biological prime. One day, she saw some Orthodox Jews on a date. She compared them with her life. She decided to leave her partner. He told her, "If you leave, I will kill you." She knew that he meant it, but she was not going to live like that anymore. She fled from him and became Orthodox. Thousands of secular women are flocking to Orthodoxy not because they want G-d necessarily, but because they want to be women. Perhaps you need G-d to find a sexual attitude that is respectful. If life is evolution and survival of the fittest, a woman is in big trouble.

A shadow is the negation of something, darkness rather than revelation. A shadow adumbrates a reality but does not reveal it clearly. Why does "shadow" then represent Naama as beauty and loveliness? We have explained that beauty is revealed through modesty. Now we will go deeper.

NAAMA is both a finite and infinite force. Through her, a man resolves his finite forces and connects to the infinite. She is thus the "shadow" of "man," in that man must seek, from the finite light, the mystery of darkness, beyond ken. This unseen infinity is "shadow." Beauty and loveliness are transcendent energies that connect a man trapped in entropy to the renewal of infinite mystery. NAAMA, or loveliness, is thus the connecting force. When we gaze upon beauty we sense this higher energy, and it frees us and encourages us.

Albert Einstein said, "The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science... To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness…" This is a very tricky statement. It says that we "experience" the "mystical." It claims that something "impenetrable" "really exists." It describes this impenetrable mystery as "the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty." It avers, "Our dull faculties can comprehend [this wisdom and beauty] only in their most primitive forms."

Einstein was talking about our "beauty" as "shadow." Beauty must unite with transcendence. When we see wisdom and beauty something clicks within us and struggles to see further. This struggle is the true wisdom and beauty of life. Wisdom and loveliness invoke a veil and halo of transparency. Our mind must summon our soul. The soul, however, cannot be seen clearly. Therefore, wisdom and beauty draw us to their hidden source, or "shadow."

NAAMA, or "loveliness," is the numerical value of two words, "shadow" and "man." Man is a term that includes male and female ("male and female He created them and called their name Adam"). When male and female reach their zenith of actualization, they have achieved "wisdom and beauty." They must next find the hidden spiritual and supernal source of their relationship. Each step in marriage and intimacy reveals another depth to the "shadow" of the soul. The soul touches and teaches wisdom and beauty. It informs the mundane facts of humanity.

We have perhaps entered an arcane area, but we must go further. Our topic is crucial for not only understanding wisdom, beauty and humanity, but also to comprehend our present era and the sexual problems it spawns. Sexuality is the expression of the person, and the person is the sum of his beliefs. The problems of modern sexuality and gender are rooted in our world outlook, our Weltanschauung. For us to have a full sexual experience, we must fulfill our humanity and our view of life. What does Judaism say about this? What is the failure of the West in this regard?

There is a great difference between Judaism and other idealisms and religions. Judaism does not allow a mortal to declare religion. "No prophet may innovate." A prophet can adjure and encourage, but not declare law. A prophet certainly may not declare basic principles about the deity. Judaism therefore is free of the mortal battles defining the deity that divided the West. Many if not all nations of the world rejected Sinai as G-d's charge to Israel. Once bereft of G-d's revealed Law, the nations of the world had to invent not only a Law but also a deity to go along with it, because they had no tradition. This led to the mighty wars that consumed the West. What wars they were! There was the Hundred Years War and the Thirty Years War. At the end of the Thirty Years War, according to historian Jacques Barzun, the exhausted religious camps in the West introduced secularism and constrained religion. From that time to the present, the West has survived, or at least attempted to, by imposing a secular boundary between religious camps. In other words, in the West, religion is dangerous, and secularism is a savior. In time, secularism became idealism similar to religion, and began lopping off heads for secular purposes. The past centuries saw the French Revolution, Communist slaughters, and the Nazi regime.

The West failed in its effort to curb religion and idealism. Furthermore, religion and idealism represent terror. This led in the West to a fear of the positive, of Truth, of searching, because it always ended up with mass murder. America was built with the ideal of making money and putting idealism and religion safely aside. The fear of religion and idealism produced a negative attitude. This explains the decline of nineteenth century art into abolitionism, surrealism and dada, all aimed at uprooting Structure. Structure means Truth, and Truth is dangerous. We therefore escape the danger by living in an anti-truth. We paint mustaches on the Mona Lisa and write nonsensical poems, prized for their nonsense. Sense is scary, so nonsense is in. What does this have to do with sexuality?

Sexuality is "and Adam knew his wife." Sexuality is Truth; it is the clearest knowledge. It reveals you and the supernal source of mystery. Sexuality cannot function in a world of dada. Sexuality must liberate the inner spirit and find a finite home for infinite energies. Sexuality cannot survive nonsense, negativity and fear of Truth.

The modern age knows that religion and idealism are fearsome, and that Truth is dangerous. Western man fears Truth and does not dare know himself. He functions, he gets along, he makes rules for the betterment of human mechanical function, but the mystery and the soul are not there. When it comes to sexuality, the negatives obfuscate and deny fulfillment. The modern age painted mustaches on the Mona Lisa and drew clouds upon contentment. It confused people, and denied them the Truth of Intimacy. Up to eighty percent of women in some studies told of their anguish at sex with men. The man does not have his essence together, and therefore cannot be "kindness." The female does not have her essence together, and therefore cannot be "strength" and "justice." Each confused person seeks something from the other, and from intimacy. They do not realize that intimacy is not a therapy for confused people. Sexuality multiplies their original confusion. Modern sexology therefore pursues other areas. A major professor said, "Spirituality is autoeroticism." Let us repeat that. "Spirituality is auto-eroticism." Spirituality is being alone, masturbating, and finding… How sad. How inevitable.

Naama or "loveliness" is the human knowing Truth. Truth begets Truth. We meet another person who has Truth, who knows what Life is, who has no fear of religion and idealism, and is confident in their worldview. Two such people find themselves focused in intimacy, and sexuality ratchets up the Truths originally known. This is "loveliness." Those without religion and focused idealism come to intimacy searching and fumbling; sex has no worldview to explain it. Therefore, people utilize the entertainment culture with its grotesque caricature of sexuality as "sex." Without transcendence, where do people go in their unions? They go their separate ways. They go away, far away, farther than they ever imagined.

Sex, Evil and the Flood

There is an evil potential to sexuality, and nobody is safe from it. Some say that Cain murdered Abel because they fought over a woman. That nice sweet man over there may be a child molester. Beware of sexual enticement. That is what the bible, especially in Proverbs, teaches.

The story of the Flood of Noah is about a world of immoral sex. Even the animals, sensing the evil vapors from human conduct, became ruined. The Flood was the response to this. How did this happen? The Flood story in the bible is in Genesis chapter six. Chapter V begins with some hints about the decline of the human race that led eventually to the Flood.

(Genesis 5,1) "This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day that G-d created Adam, He made him in the likeness of G-d."

The bible begins about "the generations of Adam." It immediately interrupts, "G-d created Adam." We know already that G-d created Adam. Why did the bible repeat this fact? Why did it interject this in the story of Adam and Eve and their posterity?

The key to procreation is intimacy, and the key to intimacy is to know what a person is. From this, we can be "male and female." Without knowing what a human is, without a direct connection to the supernal sources of the spirit, we cannot be human. We become dada and abolitionists. We rebel and take drugs. There is no positive way for us.

Therefore, when describing the progeny of Adam and Eve, the first step is to elevate Adam. The bible therefore says that Adam was created in the likeness of G-d. G-d has no physical form; however, emulating G-d elevates a human being. As the Talmud says, "Just as G-d is kind, so must you be kind." We create light from darkness, just as G-d did. We fight evil and promote benevolence because G-d wants this and has assigned such a task to us. We are therefore in "the likeness of G-d." When we procreate, we do so, not mired in dada or "sex" in the secular sense, heaven forefend, but "in the likeness of G-d."

The next passage says, "Male and female He created them, and He blessed them and He called their name Adam, on the day they were created." Adam could not deal with Eve until he realized that he was "in the likeness of G-d." The two of them became one, "Adam," and shared the Truth and self-confidence of G-d's grace and "likeness." Only then, could Adam and Eve begin procreation, and hope to preserve in their progeny the optimism of "Adam."

For ten generations things held, until powerful men stole women and began sexual improprieties. G-d then brought the flood. What happened?

(Genesis 6,1) "And it was when the man began to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them."

Decline began when "man began to multiply upon the face of the earth." What does multiplying have to do with decline? Why mention man was "upon the face of the earth"? Did he perhaps multiply upon the face of the moon or sun? This is of course redundant, and redundant passages contain deep ideas.

There were two major failings of the human race after the Expulsion from the Garden. One, three generations after Creation, the generation of Enosh despaired of a close relationship with G-d, and turned to intermediaries and paganism. This was an intellectual failing, but people still maintained themselves as human beings. There was then no biblical discussion of floods or destruction. (The rabbis, however, mention a small flood.) Now, in the tenth generation after Creation, the passage tells of something else, not a mere intellectual deterioration, but a sexual one. Once people become involved with sexual sins and the world was mired in it, G-d made the Flood. Rabbi Isaac Luria says that paganism, even as it denies G-d, does not corrupt the inner essence of the person. It is an intellectual sin, and the intellect is only on the surface. Sexual dissolution, on the other hand, is utterly ruinous to the human being.

How did the sexual decline set in?

First, men began to multiply upon the face of the earth. Originally, there were only a few people. People felt important because they all knew each other. People who feel worthy marry properly and exalt in the proper procedures of procreation. They have no need for illicit sex. As people multiply, there is a decline in their self-confidence.

Not only are there many people, but also they "multiply upon the face of the ADOMO (ground)." Note that the word ADOMO is used for "world." ADOMO means "earth" or "soil." Earth and soil have no specific form or shape. Here the individual is negated. Also, people multiplied “upon the face of the ground.” ADOMO or ground itself has a deeper connotation as the life force. “Truth grows from the earth.” However, the “face” of the ground indicates superficiality, an external and not innate level. People no longer felt significant.

People lacked self-confidence. Male "kindness" requires the self-assurance of one ready to "give." A broken man cannot give; he can only take. As people multiplied and became less important, as they gravitated downward from the "likeness of G-d" to "the face of the ground," couples were unable to have proper intimacy. Men now became "takers" and did not "give" to women but "took" them. A person who feels inferior to others finds strength by conquering others.

"And daughters were born to them." Note the passive tense. Daughters "were born" to them. It does not say, "They gave birth to daughters." Daughters "were born" without the parents feeling important before or afterwards. Parents who had no pride in themselves had no pride in a child. A daughter became a thing, similar to the secular woman who is taken and spit out.

Now began the desperate need to feel strong. People were locked into a life of "ground" and lowliness. They wanted to find power and freedom. They wanted to soar and not crawl. They did not feel in the "likeness of G-d," so instead, they became rapists. They did not come to "know" women; they came to ruin them. The secularists, when talking of intimacy, use words that indicate that the act is an obscenity. This is not cuteness or secular cleverness. This is an accurate description of what secular man thinks of secular woman. She is a thing, and sex is the realization of lowliness, the opposite of the biblical procreation in "the image of G-d."

After the Second World War, a Japanese soldier explained how he felt when he first murdered an innocent civilian. He said that he felt a surge of strength. Those who feel innately weak must make themselves strong by conquering others. The strongest and more vicious the conquest, the stronger the murderer feels.

"And the sons of the powerful ones saw the daughters of the Adam that they were good, and they took for themselves women from all that they chose."

What was so good about women? It does not say that they were lovely or delightful, only "good." Good for what? This is one problem. The biggest problem, however, is to translate the phrase that we render "the sons of the powerful ones." In the Hebrew, the word for powerful (ELOKIM) can be holy or secular. It can refer to G-d, naming Him as Powerful, or it can refer to a judge or any powerful person. Targum Unkelus and Rashi render it in the secular so we translate it "sons of the powerful ones." The Ibn Ezra, however, translates it in the Holy sense, referring to holiness. The "sons of G-dliness" were pious and devoted to holiness. They were able to discern with their wisdom who was the proper mate, and because of this, they produced great offspring. Ibn Ezra adds that they probably took these women by force. This is incredible. He says that they were pious people, and then he says that they took the women by force.

The pious people who are "sons of G-dliness" were able to discern with their wisdom or heavenly calculations what woman was appropriate for them. They knew what women was the highest spiritually, what woman had the highest soul and who the most appropriate match was. They saw the "goodness" in women. The only problem was that they did not court the woman and convince her to marry. They took her by force. They took her because they wanted her good and spiritual powers, and they were not particular if she consented. This violation of a women and their spirituality caused G-d to bring the Flood.

The violation of women thus takes place regardless of our respect for them. The same people whose wisdom allowed them to appreciate women nonetheless did not respect women. Lack of respect led ultimately to utter denigration. We find what this means when we study Greek society. In his work, "The Greek Achievement," historian Charles Freeman writes (page 87): "Wives were never able to dine with their husbands in Greek society; the women portrayed at banquets were always hetairai, courtesans." Not only did the Greeks not dine with their wives, they were not ashamed to be pictured with hetairai. A wife was worse. Family was lower than the drinking halls. On page 286, Freeman quotes the scholar Charles Segal summing up the Greek attitude towards women: "She has her place within the sheltered domain of the house, but also has affinities with the wild savage world of beasts outside of the limits of the city wall." The Greek woman marries and (page 288- Sophocles) "When we reach puberty…we are thrust out and sold away…from our parents. Some to go to strange men's homes, others to foreigners, some to joyless houses, some to hostile. And all this once the first night has hooked us to our husband we are forced to praise and say all is well." Freeman quotes Euripides' play, "Of all things that are living and can form a judgment we women are the most unfortunate creatures." And, "I would much rather stand three times in the front of battle than bear one child." (Emphasis added)

When we realize that Greek ideas influenced Western thought, we realize something of the challenge of being a Western woman. Of course, elsewhere it is even worse. The Chinese regularly drown a baby if it is a girl, even today. The Moslems just stoned a woman because her relative raped her. Judaism is different than the world in many respects, but the attitude towards women is surely one of the great singularities.

"From all that they chose." It means in the first instance the forced marriage of single women, and it leads to "all they chose," the rape and theft of married women. At this point, the sanctity of society and the holiness of the home collapsed.

Male and Female

"And the sons of ELOKIM (G-d) saw the daughters of the Adam." They were the sons of ELOKIM, the holy Female force of spirituality. They thus violated their male kindness essence. Instead of marrying with the Ineffable Name and transcendence, they wanted to look over their bride in a finite manner. They wanted to judge her in purely physical and finite terms. They did not thus manifest or invoke their male potential to unite, through marriage, the Ineffable Name and the Name Elokim, the marriage of Names that sustains the world. Instead, they wrought destruction by bringing together two female forces, which cannot survive. They "saw" the woman, the first step, as we explained, towards their decline. Next, they failed further by relating to women as if they were the "sons of G-dliness" and she was merely the "daughter of man." In reality, it was the reverse. She, not he, was the repository of the Schechinah, or Divine Presence. They, however, took for themselves the spirituality role and denigrated women.

A man who is "kind" sees goodness in others. A man who is "female" "takes" and wants the glory for himself. He must always be superior to others. A man who sees a woman as a servant or something to improve his life takes her and does not give. This is the opposite of Torah marriage.

Samson said of a woman that she was "proper in my eyes." This was a sin, because we do not "see" a woman with our eyes. Eventually, the Philistines gouged out the eyes of Samson. We must relate to a woman as soul to soul, although of course we want to satisfy ourselves in other ways. What goes into your eye is not the whole woman. If that is all she is, you have not a woman, but a thing.

I have married off five daughters. The parents of bride and groom do all of the work. When our exhaustive efforts talking to many people about the boy are finally rewarded, and we are onto something, we then ask for a photograph, and so does the other side. If all is well, a meeting is arranged. I meet the boy and others can listen (in the next room) if they want. If all is well, the boy and girl meet. When the girl first meets the boy, she is sure that there is nothing wrong with him, and that he is compatible in every area. She knows that the parents have worked very hard to check things out. She knows that the parents want this boy for her. The only problem is the chemistry. That sometimes takes a few meetings.

It does not begin with the makeup. Those attracted by makeup first float in and out of pseudo-marriages and relationships, until their eyes are blurred and their hearts are awash in tears. We do not "see" a mate with physical eyes alone, although that is surely crucial. There are, however, other important things, and all must click together.

"That they were good." The sons of Elokim saw that the women were good. That is, they judged them; they visited upon women the exacting of the female force. They looked them over and judged them, and there was no kindness, no vulnerability, and no appreciation of the woman. Yes, she was good; but she was a good thing. Perhaps she was even good spiritually, but she was judged and not offered the higher kindness that she required to thrive.

"And they took for themselves women." "Taking" is feminine. Now the men became "women." They took "for themselves," not for her. The male must be "kindness" and "self-abnegation." The female "takes" these lights, actualizes them "for herself", and actualizes both of them. However, now the evil men of the generation of Noah "took" women "for themselves," the opposite of kindness. Without kindness, the world could not exist. Just as later Sodom was destroyed because it eschewed kindness, so now the Flood would consume the world because of this rejection of benevolence and the enthroning of the "taking" traits in men.

There are two traits indicated in the destruction of the world with the Flood and Sodom. One is lack of kindness. Sodom hated hospitality. The other is homosexuality, as we find in the bible the male populace wanted to rape the guests of Lot. In the Flood, we find the same things. People not only were not kind, they tormented others by stealing from them. They were also homosexuals. Is there a connection between lack of kindness and homosexuality?

Male to female must be kindness to taking. A male who has no kindness cannot “sweeten” the woman’s ferocious justice capacity. He is “female” and thus seeks out a “male,” as in homosexuality.

Marriage is not a picnic, although some people achieve bliss. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurebach of Jerusalem, the leading authority of the generation, came to his elderly wife's funeral, and refused to ask her forgiveness, as is customary. People were shocked. Could the rabbi not beg forgiveness from his wife of perhaps sixty years? He explained: "I will not ask forgiveness. I never did anything to displease her." When told this story, a younger saint, Rabbi Aaron Stern of Kaminets Yeshiva responded. "Of course such is possible. If you live properly, this should be the norm." Everyone understood that in his marriage, too, there was never a bad moment!

I just came from comforting a bereaved family. An elderly father and grandfather passed away. He left an exceptional brood of children. I asked the children how the father succeeded so well in raising children. They explained that the father never allowed in the family any gossip or negative talk about another person, for any reason. Here is kindness even to people who are not around you, people who do not even know if you are talking about them. One who has true kindness respects others and humanity, and never speaks “evil tongue” talk. Thus, loshon hora, evil tongue talk, is a major sin.

The above rabbis who had perfect marriages are the exceptions. Marriage, even for saints, is sometimes awful. A rabbi once came to his father, a renowned seer, and asked who was a good wife. Who was the woman of whom it is said, "He who found a wife, finds good"? The seer replied, "Your mother." The son then asked, "And who is meant by the passage, 'I find the wife worse than death'?" The seer replied, "Your mother." The Talmud quotes this conversation to show that marriages are not perfect. People have their moods. Sometimes there is bliss, and sometimes the opposite. We come to marriage with the idea that our lives cannot be without it. Only in rare circumstances are there problems that require divorce. Some rabbis are of the opinion that almost any marriage with a good sexual rapport will survive. A senior rabbi in Israel was noted for not divorcing people who came to him for a divorce. He would take the husband for a walk, and there was no more talk of divorce.

"From all that they chose." Once men lost kindness and began "taking," it was a small step to take by force. Without kindness, and with total selfishness, no barrier existed to force and rapine.

"And G-d (the Ineffable Name) said, 'My Spirit will not judge inside Adam forever, in as much as he is flesh." The Ineffable Name is not pronounced. It represents Hidden Transcendence. The only way to deal with it is through self-abnegation. One who is abnegated is not bound by finite boundaries. He can approach the Hidden Transcendence. For this reason, Moses reached his level with “modesty,” or self-abnegation. When one practices kindness and negates himself, he approaches the Hidden Transcendence.

Men had now rejected kindness. Instead, they “took,” a level only possible in the female purity of Schechinah and the Revealed Transcendence. Taking is female and justice, the opposite of kindness, and can only be done successfully in the home.

Men had rejected kindness and the Hidden Transcendence. Therefore, G-d responded to this rejection and said, "My spirit will not 'judge' inside Adam forever." Since they do not want "male" forces, and have rejected the Ineffable Name, the divine spirit cannot remain in a world without kindness. G-d said, "My Spirit will not judge…" It will not become a female force of justice. It will remain kindness. It will therefore not stay forever inside of man, who rejects kindness.

"Inasmuch as he is flesh." How can the Divine Ineffable Name and Spirit remain inside of a mortal of flesh? This can only be when the mortal practices kindness. If we practice kindness, G-d practices kindness and remains with us. Otherwise, He leaves. When G-d's Name for Kindness leaves, what remains is the Name of ELOKIM, or "justice." This leads to punishment. There are 120 combinations of the five letters of the divine Name ELOKIM, and they represent the consummation of "justice." Punishment would thus come in 120 years. From this Divine Utterance, 120 years passed before the Flood came and destroyed the world.

6,4: "The fallen ones were in the land in those days and also afterwards when the sons of ELOKIM (G-dliness or powerful people) came to the daughters of the Adam and they gave birth for them. They are the strong ones who from antiquity are men of renown."

There are two people and two times: The fallen ones earlier and the sons of G-dliness later. "Fallen ones," without women, preceded the "sons of G-dliness" who came to women and had children. However, the “fallen ones” were earlier than the “sons of Elokim” were but also appeared after them, perhaps because of them. If so, there were two manifestations of the “fallen ones,” one before and one after the sons of ELOKIM. Perhaps the latter phase tells of the fallen ones who resulted from the deeds of the sons of ELOKIM.

"The fallen ones were in the land in those days." Rashi explains, "In the days of Enosh." Enosh was the third generation; he followed Adam and Seth. Maimonides says Enosh and his generation despaired of G-d's favor and invented intermediaries. They "fell" from the lofty position of praying directly to G-d, and turned instead to angels. They "fell" further and felt that they could not even deal with angels, so they worshipped the stars as intermediaries. They "fell" further and felt that even this was too high, and they kept falling until they baked images in the oven and worshipped them. However, these sins were intellectual failings. At this point, there was no problem with women. Only later, around the time of Noah, did men "take" women and destroy the world.

"The fallen ones" who lost their self-confidence "were in the land." "Land" is a key word. "Land" is a "high" word for earth. The fallen ones of the earlier era of Enosh were "in the land" or a higher world. Later on, as people multiplied and became unimportant in their own eyes, it says, (6,1) it says, "and it was when the Adam began to multiply upon the face of the ground." It does not say "land," it says "ground." We mentioned that "ground" indicated that people were low. They "multiplied" so that a person felt lost in the crowd. Self-confidence disappeared. "Falling" replaced it, and invoked the need to conquer others to feel good.

Sexual sins did not begin in the time of Enosh. However, the "falling" of people began then. It was just a question of time before people would sin sexually and even become violent with women. This happened in the time of Noah. However, the story of Noah is really the story of Enosh. Therefore, Enosh and Noah's generation, a span of seven generations, was really one story. When people think lowly of themselves, it is just a question of time before they turn on others, especially women.

If, indeed, the key to the story of the Flood was the story of Enosh, what could Enosh do? How could he realize, together with his generation, that people are not "fallen"? Remember that the passage about the "fallen ones" says that they were in the "land," a high term for the world. It took many generations for people to decline until they were people of the "ground," rather than "land."

The "land" called out to the generation of Enosh. People err and feel inferior and lowly, so they think they are in the "ground." However, they are not. Even as people fall, they are in the "land," and the "land" calls to them to rise back to their earlier state. It is unnatural to be "fallen," and it is natural to feel the power of spirituality emanating from "the land." Thus, people in those days intellectually despaired of being close to G-d, but the land and nature called out to them to realize their importance.

The bible tells us that this voice from heaven, this call to return to G-d's favor and direct praying to Him, does not cease speaking to people. The "land" called out to people when they first fell intellectually, when they were still pure physically, as they had not raped anyone. It called out to them even afterwards, when they had corrupted their human essence by rapine: "And also afterwards when the sons of the powerful came to the daughters of the Adam and they gave birth for them." Never does this voice go silent. It cries out, "You are worthy of being close to G-d. You must not fall, you must rise."

However, what did people do with this tendency encouraged by the inner voice? "They are the powerful ones who were from antiquity the men of renown." They quieted this voice by becoming conquerors, by more rapine and savagery.

A great rabbi, Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi, once was riding in a wagon. He suddenly called to the driver, "Beryl, do you need a vodka?" Beryl replied, "Rabbi, how did you know that I was just consumed with a thirst?" The rabbi replied, "Every day a heavenly voice goes forth and arouses people, and I just heard the voice. I was inspired to love G-d, and I knew that you would want a vodka."

The voice of "the land" calls out to us. Nature will not tolerate a fallen person. We have, however, the free choice to respond to the call of "the land" by achieving power over others, and becoming important by drinking, taking drugs and "wiping out the competition" in business. The "powerful" people are slaughterers and murderers whose names are familiar to everyone. Do we know the saints of the past or the generals? How many people did Napoleon and Alexander kill? They are the heroes of history.

(6,5) "And G-d saw that the evil of the man was great upon the land, and that all structure of thoughts of his heart was only evil all of the day."

The evil was great "upon the land." Of course, it was upon the land. This is superfluous. However, in the context of our previous discussion, we understand perfectly. As long as man had nothing to remind him of goodness, he was not so wicked and culpable. Only when the "land" cried out to man that he was high and spiritual, worthy of G-d and surely worthy of not being raped, did people hear and become intentional sinners—they thus forfeited their right to mercy.

Life is filled with "land" reminders, impulses within our soul and nature that remind us to love others and ourselves. When we ignore these eternal voices, we are wicked. Our wickedness is "great" because we defy our spiritual nature.

G-d waited to see the result of the battle between the "land" reminders of goodness and the despair of people. Perhaps they would wrestle with their conflicting forces. Perhaps they would spend a few hours a day thinking of rapine and a few hours a day thinking about decency. G-s rejected people who lived without good thoughts but devoted themselves evil.

This is a very important principle in life and especially in marriage. We must not be black and white. We must accept that there are gradations. Even when we decide that somebody must be bad, even when our fury with our spouse or fellow is grounded in solid evidence, we must try to pause and think a good thought. Can we squeeze one in?

There was the rabbi who heard a Jew, in a bad mood, blaspheme. The rabbi said, "You see, when he is in a bad mood he blames it on G-d, and he is angry at G-d. This shows that he really believes in G-d." Another person would say, "Look at that heinous sinner, the blasphemer."

Within our failings are often rays of light. Why do people get angry? They are on occasion upset about something for good reasons. Their response is wrong, but their provocation may have been right. Sometimes we are angry, period, and need to let it out on somebody. We pick our spouse because we trust them not to abuse us in our moment of need, and to accept our anger for our benefit. If the spouse looks at it that way, fine, but if not, there are fights. Ultimately, however, the anger and the abuse were rooted, not in denigration of the other, but in trust. We must separate the two, the anger and its cause, and not throw out the baby with the bath water.

G-d waited to see if at least something good was left. If there was, it could develop. "Even if one of a thousand says something good," we have hope. If not, there is despair.

At one convention for the honor of the Torah, the hall lights were turned out, and one match was lit. Everyone noticed it. "That is what one person against the world can do," said the speaker. “One small deed can shine in a dark world and bring hope."

"And all YETSER thoughts of his heart were only evil all day." What does YETSER mean? Our working translation was "structure." There is, however, another idea in the literal translation.

The word YETSER is related to the word YETSIRO or "formation." We take a clay clump and work it. We "form" it into anything we want. This is "formation." It is taking something and making it into something else. Our lives are processes of "formation." We take one thing or many things together and make a cake from them, a marriage, or whatever. The human being lives to "form." He makes his life out of disparate entities, and forms and unites them to serve his inner directives. We hope that even a wicked person, in between evil acts, thinks about decency. Is there a drop of regret or penitence in the heart? The bible blames the people of the time of Noah not just for evil deeds, and not only for their evil thoughts. The entire slant of their lives was towards evil. The formative process was directed to bad things. The YETSER, the formative force, was evil. For this came the Flood.

The formative force was programmed for evil "all day." Our day has many moods and cycles. Some divide the day into one hour of this kind of mental process, and the following half hour of another. We study math during one section of that time and we think creatively during the other section. Within the range of our "day", we can go from one extreme to the other. Morally, people also have moods. We hope for an evil person to have part of his day devoted to good thoughts. Not so the people at the time of Noah. They were evil "all day." Evil consumed them.

Sexual sins powered this deep decline. Sexual sins have the power to disconnect our soul and plug it into the sewer. There is sometimes nothing left but pedophilia and drugs. Sexuality is perhaps the greatest energy-source. It can raise us to heaven or it can plunge us in the opposite direction. Everything depends on our self-essence, self-esteem and self-acceptance. When we connect with heaven, our intimacy is heavenly. When we fall in our own estimation, we fall away from G-d, and our lives and sexuality turn negative and destructive.

Polarity

Here we discuss the "male" and "female" polarity of sexuality. The challenge of sexuality, according to Mr. Edward Eichal, a noted sexologist, is that people are not comfortable with polarity. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. When the male comes to the female, she is not easily accommodated. Studies show just how high the rates of dissatisfaction with sexuality are, some as high as eighty percent. Therefore, some sexologists despair and tell us to ignore heterosexuality, because opposite genders are incompatible. Homosexuality, on the other hand, produces a culture of unfaithfulness, which is shattering to the faithful. Some therefore refuse sexuality with others, and relieve themselves with "auto-processes."

The issue, however, is not polarity. Opposite genders are compatible, and always have been. The modern secular world refuses the male and female the opportunity to be truly male or female. Especially the female is confused about her role. What is a woman? She has to work, she has to go into the male world, and yet, she is supposed to be a wife and mother. Who is she? Can she be a wife if she is not respected? Can she be a mother when she has no power to control her children? A nurse once told me, with obvious pain, that her marriage would be without children, because today, who knows what they will become, and you cannot control them. Can such a woman be happy with life? Often, people reveal their frustrations during sexuality, because there the inner truths will out, and the fake smile for the office and street will not do.

The solution is to realize the intense damage done when we confuse our gender roles. A man must be a man and a woman a woman, just as they are in Orthodox Judaism. In every community where men and women are confused about their gender role, we have serious problems in marriage, family and sexuality. Those who despair and declare that homosexuality is the answer should remember the sad example of Gloria Steinhem. She, a beauty who lived as a prostitute, finally tired of her shame, and called to women to reject men and to become lesbians. Two generations of secular women heeded her cry, and gave up men. Now, at the age of 67, she has married, and her followers are devastated. We can go here and there, or even take drugs, but until a man is a man, and a woman is a woman and they mate, people are not going to find what they need.

The Flood came about because people violated women and eventually lost interest in them. They turned to homosexuality. The frustration of a failed relationship with women does that, as it did for a long time to Gloria Steinhem. Although by nature a natural man wants a natural woman, this is only when a man feels good and is prepared to honor and respect a woman. A man who feels like "taking" cannot find in a woman what he wants, one, because she is not a woman when he "takes" her, and secondly, because without a man to arouse her, the woman is not going to perform properly. Eventually, frustration and recriminations lead to coldness and failure in sex, and the relationship, indeed, the core of the two individuals, is corrupted and gone.

Homosexuality is such a situation. It is the corruption of proper sexuality, and the confusion of gender ideals. Homosexuality is also a violation of the previously discussed Names of G-d system, whereby proper male and female sexuality unleashes great heavenly Male and Female forces. Therefore, the rabbis taught, in the Talmud and Cabala, that homosexuality is not only a sin; it is a loss of direction, a morass, so that "you are lost in it." The word TOEVO means "abomination." However, there is also an Aggadic "play" on the word, turning it for arcane discussion into two words, "you are lost in it." This means that there are intellectual or even sexual sins whereby we remain within the same framework despite our sin. When we sin, however, with homosexuality, we confuse our entire essence, and in this world and the higher dimensions, the male and female polarity system disintegrates. Dissolution of gender roles produces spiritual dissolution, until we are without a map or compass, floating in the jetsam of a shattered system of supernal lights and humanity.

We now come in the bible to the generation of Noah, the decline of heterosexual sex, rapine, and ultimately, homosexuality and bestiality. There is a great difference between heterosexual and homosexual sex. Heterosexual sex is enjoyed once, twice, five times a week, with a partner or with several partners, but it is rarely "stuffed" as is homosexual sex. A homosexual may have anal intercourse with fifteen people in one night; he often does not know any of them. Whatever a homosexual finds in sex, it has nothing to do with sex. When a person has sex without love, without knowing or caring who the partner is, sexuality becomes a mere chemical reflex, like a bath or massage. People are unimportant. The homosexual drive is often a compulsion similar to drugs, having nothing to do with personalities, only strange processes that bring some pleasure and relief to anxiety.

When a person has heterosexual sex with a loving and permanent partner, a wife, the act satisfies and fulfills. It releases all of the energies and emotional toxins it was supposed to release. If, however, the act makes the person feel lowly, if the act encourages and maximizes negative thoughts and impulses, the sexuality creates more toxins. Just as the alcoholic must drink, but afterwards rues it, so those with compulsive addictions, especially in sex, finish their day raging with loneliness and self-debasement. Each attempt to satisfy simply digs the pit deeper, and it never is filled up.

One who has sex to still anxiety is desperate for something he cannot find. He must sooth his pain with the opiates of sex, drugs or eating. He has sex with a partner and does not end the anxiety, and soothes it only temporarily. In a few minutes he is off and running to find someone else. Fifteen in a night is common. There are bathhouses where people come and have homosexual intercourse with dozens of total strangers. The anxieties that produce such drives are toxic and they maximize venomous forces; they take a fallen soul and push it lower into the gutter. Artificial highs often lead to lows worse than the original anxiety. Perverse sexuality to relieve anxiety produces even worse anxiety, until the person is running around the block, finding everybody in sight, spraying into his infected anus cans and cans of lubricant, but he has none for his heart and soul. Every failure at relief simply fuels the fire of anxiety higher, and drives the person to still lower and lower perversities and denigration, which produces more anxiety, which produces sexuality that is more perverse, etc., in an endless cycle.

Can a human being sleep with a beast? Can a human being stop feeling human? Of course. What can be done about it is another subject and does not belong here. It invokes religion, psychology and biology. We don't say, however, that a human being that becomes fallen is not worthy of redemption, or that we can wag a finger. As one lesbian said, "I hope my children don't become gay." Being gay is a painful life. Those who have it may come out of the closet and demand respect, but they are not filled with joy at being gay. What they do and what we do to help them find a life is another topic. It is too important to be squeezed between two passages of our exegesis and gender discussion. "There will still be a set time for this to be seen."

Let us continue the story of Noah and the Flood. We now come to a twist on the subject of polarity.

Polarity of Good and Evil Forces

The polarity of male and female is simply part of the universal polarity such as positive and negative electrical charges, and quarks and electrons in the atom. We will now study the polarity of good and evil, as it applies to the human mind and spirituality.

(6,6) "And G-d regretted that He made the Adam [humankind] in the land, and He was saddened to His heart." Of course, G-d is not mortal and does not regret what He did. How then can the passage say, "G-d regretted that He made the Adam in the land"? There is much "spilled ink" over this question. Our discussion, however, has already discovered the pattern that will answer this question. How can G-d regret what He made? Note, it does not say that G-d regretted making Adam. It says, "And G-d regretted that He made the Adam [humankind] in the land." Why does it say, "in the land"? Of course, Adam was in the land. Was he in the sky?

We mentioned before that Adam is sometimes described as being "upon the ground," and sometimes as being "in the land." We said that "ground" is a low level, whereas "land" is a high level. We also said that "land" is the spiritual energies in nature; they pulsate and suffuse one's environment so when man falls, something tugs him back up. G-d did not regret making Adam. He regretted making Adam "in the land." His regret was that the land was calling to Adam and arousing him to return from his falling and failing. When Adam refused this call, he became obstinate and increasingly wicked. The "land" placed by G-d as a spiritual help to Adam now turned against Adam and made him evil. G-d regretted allowing the higher forces and energies of "land" to be corrupted and feed the evil force. G-d therefore stopped the vicious decline with the Flood. It is one thing to be evil and use evil forces. Still worse, is to be evil and use good forces. Evil, to triumph, must co-opt good forces. The worst slaughters are for religious and idealistic reasons.

In marriage, this is an important idea. Often, the good force, our idealism, is a threat, not help. There are women who love their husbands so much that they push them to try impossible ambitions, and the husbands fail and are broken. There are husbands who love their children so much that they torture them to improve them. The pain we bring to our spouses and children is far worse than the pain we bring to our worse enemies.

Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, the nineteenth century saint and scholar taught that there are in each of us good and evil forces, and that they are always in balance. There is, says Rabbi Salanter, an internal and external dimension in each of us. One is good and one is bad, but never are both either good or bad. If the internal is good, the external is evil. If the internal is evil, the external is good.

Thus, righteous people, whose external is pure good, have a pure evil internal. When they open the door slightly to evil and thus release the internal, the repressed pure evil rushes out and does incredible wickedness. On the other hand, the wicked have evil externals but good internals. When the evil person opens the door slightly to goodness, and thus releases the internal, the repressed pure good rushes out and does incredible good. There is always a balance. One or the other of the internal and external in us is good, and the other evil.

During the Second World War, rabbis struggling to save people from Hitler often found salvation among the worst people, even while "good" people refused to help. A ferocious Communist, bent on tormenting rabbis, relented and saved them. A gangster with blood on his hands saved a group of Jews and refused payment.

When people lose control and obey their compulsions, they violate their freedom and self-respect, a great evil. This takes place in the external, where the deeds are done. Inside, however, in the internal, there is good. The good balances, in its potential and actual tension, the evil. With each new depraved act, the internal goodness strengthens. This is one of the reasons that the compulsive-addicted person has such a hideous cycle of pain, relief and worse pain. Once he relieves himself with one act of evil, good forces flow into the internal and challenge him to do good. However, the external, where deeds are, is evil. The evil external senses this challenge from the good internal, and a great tension is set up. This produces anxiety, and the person solves it either by seeking solutions to satisfy his good part, or by plunging further into the opiates of pleasure seeking for temporary relief. If he commits evil, good energy flows into his internal, challenges the external, and makes him anxious. He then takes more opiates of pleasure etc., and so goes the cycle. If only the person can somehow attach himself to the steadily increasing good energies in his internal, he may save himself. It is no easy task, and the secular wisdom is that only a powerful spiritual experience can raise the person to utilize it. Spirituality is central to the process of the Twelve Steps program for addictions.

Once the person invokes his spirituality, however, he has a mighty army of internalized goodness awaiting marching orders. He has to break the barrier and let that good force flow in. Many people, alcoholics, homosexuals, drug addicts, etc., have succeeded in changing.

Keep in mind that we are never far from our opposite essence, for good or evil. This makes us cautious, and it gives us hope.

Let us digress a bit to study one aspect of the terror of idealism in the service of evil. Jewish persecution by the nations is mentioned in the bible. It began with Isaac, strengthened with Jacob, and the next generation, Joseph, saw the entire Jewish nation in Egypt. The Egyptians honored the arriving Israelites. However, slowly, the grip of exile tightened, until the Jews were slaves, even thrown into the river to die.

The Jews left Egypt and entered Canaan, and had various wars with surrounding nations. During the entire biblical period, we find only nationalistic wars. We never find that a gentile nation came to convert the Jews, to deny them freedom of religion, or to blaspheme G-d. Only Goliath blasphemed, and he did so only out of military challenge, to provoke some Jew to fight him. The Philistines fought with the Jews and were cruel at times, but they never interfered with Judaism and never forced anyone to convert to their religion. Thus, true anti-Semitism does not exist in the entire biblical period. The bible ends with Babylonia and Persia, two mighty empires who had religions but did not force the Jews to accept them. Babylonia raised up the Jewish rabbis to the highest positions, as did Persia. Persia even paid for part of the rebuilding of the Temple, and the Persian king honored the Jews and their temple. Only occasionally do we find that some king who was good to Jews in general made a nationalistic fervor out of religion, and the Jews suffered. This, however, was only indirectly aimed at Jews, and had nothing to do with anti-Semitism, at least from the king's part, even if jealous or hating courtiers manipulated the king. Even this latter kind of persecution is found only in the very end of the Biblical period, with Babylonia and Persia.

The post-biblical period began with the Greeks. The Greeks were "higher" people than the Babylonians and Persians. The Greeks were aflame with the science of Aristotle and the philosophy of Plato. They began to force Jews away from their religion. Thus, anti-Judaism arrived with the Greeks, not before. We see that the higher nation makes more trouble for the Jews than the primitive un-idealistic ones.

After the Greeks came pagan Romans. Rome was influenced by Greece but not so philosophical and "high." The Romans made trouble for the Jews, but it was mostly about empire, not about religion. Until the time of Constantine and his embrace of Christianity, the Jews had excellent relations with many Roman emperors, and leading rabbis were senior courtiers, close friends of the royal family. The mother of the emperor would personally greet one of the rabbis when he came to Rome, calling to him with the most effusive praise. (The Talmud makes it clear that the Roman destruction of the Temple was not aimed at Judaism, but was a nationalistic and empire problem.)

All of this changed with Roman Christianity. Christianity made it clear from the beginning that it would tolerate no other religion but itself. This was why Rome first persecuted Christians. When Constantine converted, one of the first happenings was an attack on a Roman synagogue. The emperor was upset, but a Bishop told him that it was his Christian duty to persecute the Jews. The Church kidnapped Jewish children, burnt Jews at the stake, forced entire communities to convert, and put Jews into the synagogue and burnt them alive. The church invented calumny upon calumny about Jews, that they drank Christian blood, that they had horns, and since the church had a monopoly on religion and learning, people believed it. The life of a Jew was misery. This was the work of the Church.

We see a pattern. The primitive pagan does not hate Jews per se and does not offend their religion. The Greek despises Judaism and the Christian hates Jews and fights Judaism. The higher person falls lower. The idealist is the worst offender. When the Communists took over Russia, they "purified the revolution" by simply slaughtering many of those who made the revolution in the first place. Need we say that they slaughtered everyone else as well? Stalin starved to death tens of millions of peasants.

When Stalin did this, the intellectuals of the West were silent, or supportive. Some of them were busy stealing atomic secrets for Stalin from America. They hated America and wanted Soviet Russia to control the world. Thus did idealists show their values. The religious people and the idealists make Jews and others suffer more than do pagans and primitive people. The higher they are, the lower they fall.

Thus, G-d regretted making man "in the land." The "land" indicates a higher person. This higher person, the philosophers and spiritual people, those who sought a deity and religion, became the lowest scum, far lower than the gross pagan did. The "land" causes this; therefore, G-d regretted making man "in the land," rather than in a simple and primitive setting. The "land" called out to man, and man responded with utter depravity. Without the call of the "land," man would have been content with minor sin. The "land" caused the true fall.

"And He was saddened to His heart." Does G-d have a heart? G-d has no form. Therefore, Maimonides says that all biblical anthropomorphisms are allegorical. What is the allegory of the heart?

There is a teaching that G-d said, "I did not reveal the Redemption time from My heart to My mouth." The "heart" of G-d is His inner thoughts. The "mouth" is the revealed thoughts. Sometimes, we think one thing to ourselves, and don't want to tell it to others, because it is too private. G-d's heart is the inner will of G-d, one that is so close to His Truth that He does not reveal it to others. What is the idea in our context, that G-d was sad to His heart?

Note it says, "and He was saddened to His heart." It does not say, "He was sad in His heart." "To his heart" means that the pain reached only "to his heart" but not inside of it. It appeared, as far as people are concerned, that G-d regretted, but of course, G-d's Essence does not truly regret. Thus, the regret did not reach "into" the heart, only "to" it, or approaching it.

The idea is we cannot know G-d’s heart, those thoughts relative to G-d and not for our purpose. G-d wants us to know, however, how much pain He has from human sin and destruction. The sadness reaches “to his heart.” It comes to a level approximating the inner Will of G-d people cannot know. However, in the true inner Will are answers to all questions people have, such as, Why did G-d fail with people when they sin? This is something we cannot understand in a world of testing and darkness.

(6,7) "And G-d said, 'I will erase the Adam that I created from the face of the earth [ground], from man to animal unto creeping things and including the fowl of the heaven, because I regret that I made them."

From the face of the "ground" is not the face of the "land." G-d created man from the "face of the ground," without the "land" inspiration as mentioned earlier. That came later as Adam improved when G-d blew a soul into Adam. In this "ground" level, man's body was similar to the beasts and fowl. Once man ignores the soul, man is like an animal and the world has no meaning. Man will plunge to the depths, as he did, and infect the very animals and fowl. Even they, say the rabbis, sinned by mating with other species. Man polluted the world utterly. It had to be destroyed.

The problem with this passage is that it is not true. G-d did not erase man. Noah and his family remained. G-d is saying, in response to the "land" thought we discussed in the previous passage, that He would erase the "ground" people who are like animals, and ignore their soul. He will not erase Noah who is a "land" and inspired spiritual person.

Therefore, the next passage is "And Noah found favor in the eyes of G-d."

Sexual Sins and Robbery

We will skip a few passages in the beginning of the story of Noah, and start at passage 6,11: "And the land became dissolute before G-d, and the land was filled with robbery." Rashi in his commentary tell us that "dissolute" refers to sexual sins. "Robbery" means that.

Why does it say that the land became dissolute "before G-d"? Just say that the land became dissolute. Was the dissolution "before G-d"? It was sexual sins done privately or even publicly but not "before G-d," as if it could be.

Sexual sins don't necessarily affect other people, only one's spirituality and relationship to G-d. Therefore, when talking of sexual sins, it says, "before G-d." Robbery, on the other hand, affects people. One does not rob in public because people will be outraged. In the time of Noah, however, robbery was commonplace, so nobody was embarrassed to steal. "And the land was filled with robbery." It does not mention G-d regarding robbery, because it wants to show that people had no fear of G-d when they sinned sexually, and had no fear of people when they sinned with stealing.

The Medrash says that people robbed in those days with trickery, not knives. For instance, a person would put out a pot of beans to sell. Each person would steal one bean, until the pot was empty. The owner of the pot could not get the courts to arrest a person for stealing one bean, and so, the civic code itself contributed to thievery, even though the individual thief stole only a small amount.

The cunning in usurping the law is a mighty sin of its own. The Medrash says that G-d saw this cleverness and said, "You want to be shrewd and twist the Law. I will twist nature and bring the Flood."

Rabbi Yehuda the Pious, a major medieval authority, says that in family and marriage, there are opportunities to "twist the law," and to hurt someone. There is for this twisting an account in heaven. One man refused to marry off his relative, because he wanted her money. He became sick, and before he died, confessed his sin, and said that he was dying because he let his relative suffer so that he could inherit her money. There are people who technically have grounds to break a marriage and let the spouse and children suffer. For such legal excuses one should tremble.

A businessman who was a scholar manipulated his business so that he could win a court case against his partner. The rabbi admonished him. "You have used the Torah to steal, and the Torah does not like it." The man immediately confessed.

In both phrases, "the land became dissolute before G-d," and "the land was filled with robbery" the Torah mentions "land." Remember that "land" is the higher level of earth. This indicates that from within nature a heavenly voice calls people to self-respect and decency. Now the "land" was corrupt and evil forces captured good energies.

The two phrases differ. Regarding sexual dissolution it says, "the land became dissolute." Regarding stealing it says, "and the land was filled with robbery." There is a difference. Land “becoming dissolute” means the fiber of the land was corrupted. Land “filled with robbery” means that the land itself was not corrupted but was filled with robbery. The land was like a sack that holds things [robbery] inside of it. Inside was robbery but the sack itself was not robbery. What does this mean?

It seems to mean that sexual crimes were far worse than robbery. Sexual crimes ruined the "sack" but robbery did not. Robbery only went "into the sack" without ruining the sack. This, however, is wrong.

In passage 13, Rashi tells us, "The decree against them was only sealed because of robbery." If so, robbery was worse than sexual sins. Indeed, there are those who argue that homosexuality is a biblical "abomination," so we should hate homosexuals. They don't know that the bible considers white-collar crime, violation of trust, not only an abomination, but also many terms of extreme censure [disgusting, pervert, cut off, wicked]. In addition, the homosexual has terrible compulsions from the deepest part of his nature to sin. The thief could work honestly, but deliberately sins. This is far worse.

The land, the goodness in nature, was created to reveal goodness. It was a sack filled with love and happiness, obeying G-d and decency. Now that "the land" was corrupted, it became a sack filled with robbery. When G-d saw what the sack was producing, He realized that the land was utterly ruined. Its ruination was at first apparent only by the rot of the sack. Later, things got worse and its ruining was seen by the contents of the sack. When the sack held robbery, and robbery that filled the world, it showed that goodness had been co-opted by evil, and the "land" now served the vilest of all sins, stealing. The rabbis teach, "If there is a box filled with sins, what pops out first to complain and prosecute? Stealing does." Sexual sins produced a rotten sack, but the true evil of the sack was when it filled itself with further sin, and robbery.

Rabbi Abraham Danzig, a senior disciple of Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, was one of the great scholars of the eighteenth century; he produced many classic books. Rabbi Danzig refused any rabbinical position and supported himself in business. He asked that on his tombstone only one thing should be said about him, that he, to the best of his knowledge, was honest in monetary dealings. The holy works say that the success of a family depends a lot on the honesty of the money in it.

Is there a connection between sexual sins and robbery? The Talmud teaches that there is a concept of "boundaries of the world." Just as we don't go into our neighbor's field or house, we don't violate the boundaries of nature. Sexual sins violate the boundaries of nature. From there, one violates the conventional boundaries of property. Ultimately, a sexual sinner can lose all boundaries. Thus, homosexuality is considered "he is lost there," as the boundaries have disappeared.

There are those who feel that a society can do just fine with people sinning sexually. This, however, is not true. When one sins sexually, their being in the Image of G-d is corrupted and their good lights become dissolute. They then turn from their private affairs to rob and damage society. First, a person begins with pornography, and then comes what comes, and often, it ends in pedophilia. A few years ago, a terrible child-murderer was executed. Before he died, he spoke to a minister. He said that he was a child of a deeply religious family. He found some magazines with pornography and enjoyed them. One thing led to another, until he murdered many children hideously. As his time to die came, a crowd gathered outside the prison, cheering his death. It began as sexual sins and ended in rapine and murder.

There are people who would never take a penny belonging to another. However, they think nothing of "robbing" their family, of not performing their duties as husband or wife. Just as in real robbery, people rationalize that they are not stealing, so in marital stealing people have all types of excuses. "This is not really stealing," and "the other one owes me," or “he/she is bad so why should I be good." The Talmud says that there are understood obligations in marriage. Robbery means more than pulling money from someone else's safe. It means that in marriage and life, there are obligations. If you do not fulfill them, you are a thief.

Another connection between sexuality and honesty is that sexuality can build or destroy us. A positive sexuality makes us into decent people, and then we are honest. A negative sexuality makes us dissolute, and we are inhuman. The world is filled with people who have every type of sexually transmitted disease, including HIV, and they just keep on infecting people. A woman just filed charges against her husband for infecting her with AIDS. He knew he was sick, but married her anyway. His punishment? Five years probation. In America, sexual crimes are not important, nor are women.

6,12) "And G-d saw the land and behold it was dissolute, because all flesh corrupted its way upon the land." Rashi explains, "Even domesticated animals, wild beasts, and fowl mated with foreign species."

It would seem that there were three levels. One, people sinned with illicit sex. This led to a breakdown of the "land" or higher elements of life, and people robbed. "The land was filled with robbery." Once robbery entered the picture, even the animals became corrupt sexually. What is the connection between illicit sex, robbery and animal corruption?

Illicit sex crosses cardinal boundaries of adultery, disease, and perversity. From there, it is a small step to robbery, which violates the delineation of ownership. Life is about boundaries. When sex breaks it down, we cannot understand the sin of stealing. Thus, sexual sin becomes the "sack" for robbery. Illicit sex says that the world exists only for one’s pleasures. If so, rob.

Evil acts corrupt the energies of nature and affect even animals. A California study showed that homosexuality in gulls, a species of birds, increased. This happened as few years ago when human homosexuality increased in California.

(6,13) "And G-d said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before Me, because the land is filled with robbery because of them, and I am going to destroy them with the land.'"

"The end of all flesh" means the extreme of evil that cannot be allowed to continue. It "has come before Me." The deeds of people reach into the heavens. Good deeds delight the heavens, and sins pain the heavens.

"Because the land is filled with robbery." Rashi says that the Flood decree was sealed because of robbery. What is meant by "the land is filled with robbery because of them"? Unkelus renders this, "because of them doing evil." We could add another idea in connection with our discussion. “Because of them” means the sexual sins. "The land is filled with robbery because of them" implies that the sexual sins destroyed the fabric of boundaries in life, and from this came robbery. Thus, the robbery is invoked not only by a desire for someone's money, but by a breakdown in the structure of standards in society. Unkelus translates “because of them doing evil,” which we can explain is an evil that destroys boundaries and creates chaos and robbery.

When the world dissipates into chaos, the individuals who began this process feel free to indulge. G-d says, "the land is filled with robbery because of them." Each person is connected directly to the chaos by the sins they did. Chaos seems overwhelming, and we can't imagine any individual as the perpetrator of such worldwide catastrophe. However, in heaven, the accountings are exact. Everyone has his hand in the chaos, and everyone will have to account for each deed.

Accountability is crucial for individuals and society. Great and elderly rabbis were seen going about in the street in the very early morning fixing things so people would not fall and hurt themselves, or shoveling snow so that people could walk easily. They did these deeds at a time when nobody would see them, but eventually, the truth was known. This is accountability. If everyone says, "for me the world was created," they pull and push as hard as they can to promote a better world. This is certainly true of family. If we feel accountable for the family, we will put our shoulder to the wheel. Sometimes, there is a strong person who works, and another who does not. Recriminations eventually result. Everyone must do their share.

Another explanation for "the land is filled with robbery because of them," is that every deed carries with it the signature and picture of the sinner. This means that a sin is connected to the sinner. Our energies for good or evil rise to heaven and permeate the world. When they do, they represent us, and we are there for better or worse. G-d said, "The deeds are damaging heaven and earth, and the people who perpetrate these deeds are connected to them and are present in the damage."

The idea that people are connected to their sins is an interesting one. Firstly, it means that people are responsible for their deeds. Secondly, it means that a person is responsible for the deeds and the fallout of the deed. For instance, someone steals a loaf of bread from a desperately poor person who has nothing else to eat. The thief only stole a loaf of bread worth a dollar, but his sin is murder, because the person starves to death. Thus, our minor deeds can become major ones. Similarly, when we give a starving person a loaf of bread, we have only donated a dollar, but we have saved a life. Our deeds connect us to their aftermaths.

Another idea is that people are connected with their deeds. For instance, if a person lights a fire in someone's house, and the house burns down, the lighter of the fire is responsible. He cannot say, "I only lit a small spark." He burned down the house, because the fire he lit has the power to consume much more.

The same is true with people who do things and release energies. The energies are connected to the one who lit them. Furthermore, the energies, as they expand, as they grow, as with fire, consume, destroy, and transfer the new energies of consuming and destroying back to the original perpetrator. Every smoking ember in the house he destroyed molds the perpetrator. Each spark of evil returns to its originator and becomes part of his essence. The doer is thus a product of his deeds, and reflects their energy exactly. We are the product of our children, and we are the product of our deeds. They mold us, even as we molded them.

Therefore, the rabbis say, "Do not consider that you build your children. Your children build you."

In marriage, family and human relationships, we release energies and deeds that strongly affect the lives of others, for good and bad. What we do comes back to us, informs, molds, and creates us. The cycle of giving to others and then becoming the product and emergent of that giving is the cycle of life.

"And I will destroy them with the land." The land, recall, means the higher energies of nature. When it becomes corrupted, it becomes a violent evil and must be destroyed. People corrupted the good energies of nature and turned it to evil, and so it, along with the people who destroyed it, must be destroyed.

We have one thing left to discuss in this passage, the "end of all flesh." It is too juicy a phrase to be ignored, and the Cabala deals with it extensively. For our purposes, we will only say that there are good processes and evil ones. A good force grows, sustains and creates life, higher and higher. Evil shrinks our perspectives into selfishness. It seeks to conquer and destroy others so that we control and make others smaller. Thus, ideally, people must grow and become larger and infinite. Infinity has no "end." When people go in the other direction, they become smaller and smaller, until they reach the "end." This negation of the infinite and open-ended process of life means death and destruction. The world that becomes an end must end. Evil thus provides for its end.

The rabbis say there is an evil force so powerful we have no way of opposing it. Such a force was Soviet Communism. In its time, it had almost no opposition among the secular intellectuals, and threatened the globe. The great Rabbi Yisroel Meyer Kagan said that such a force could not be battled to a halt, although he wished that something could be done. However, he said, it will last seventy years and die of its own volition. And so it was. The holy man's prophecy was fulfilled. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the leading expert on the Soviet Union, George Kennan said, "It is a miracle." It is "the end" of an evil force; all evil forces must end. The student of history will note that the end of Hitler was hastened by his own great military mistakes. A person who began with success after success suddenly began making blunder after blunder, such as pouring troops into North Africa in time to be captured and Pauling's surrender in Russia after Hitler refused to allow him to retreat. This is "the end," as the evil force expends its energies and withers. May it wither speedily and in our day!

As we approach the End of Days, the great idealisms that plagued the world will be revealed as evil, and slowly choke. Yet, the End of Days will see a ferocious effort of Evil to remain alive. The candle, before it is extinguished, crackles and makes loud noises. So will evil forces, before they are extinguished, crackle and make great noises, but that is their death process. This is the teaching of Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, the disciple of Rabbi Yisroel Mayer Kagan.

Noah was a righteous man. G-d saved him in the Ark together with his family, animals, fowl and plants. Noah emerged from the Ark and rebuilt the world. However, there was a sad incident, as told in the bible.

(Genesis 9,20) "And Noah, the man of the earth (ground), began, and he planted a vineyard."

When we study the bible, we see that "man was born to toil," and some translate, "born to sin." Sin is so close to us. If we sin, it is not so earth shattering. If, however, a Patriarch and senior prophet of the bible fail, it hurts much more. Noah is one of the great biblical heroes. He stood against the entire world. He built an ark over a period of decades, warning people of their doom, and they didn't appreciate hearing this. Noah was fearless and righteous. The bible even says, "Noah was a righteous man, blemish less was he in his generation. Noah walked with G-d." Noah built the Ark, lived in it during the flood, and suffered. Finally, he emerged to a new world. The old world was gone. "Noah began and he planted a vineyard." Sadly, Noah failed and became drunk.

All of us have, from our parents, teachers and experiences, various ideals and concepts. When we marry, have families and human relationships, we often find that others do not share our visions and goals. Those of us who have visions and goals engraved in marble in our hearts cannot easily let go. We must struggle to find kindness and malleability in order to survive among others. If we invoke "strength" and "taking", we will not be able to sustain relationships.

The rabbis say, "G-d wanted to make a world of rigid justice. He saw that it could not survive, so He joined mercy to justice." G-d, by so doing, showed us how to bend our strong convictions for the sake of peace and family. We must always combine mercy with our strong convictions. Of course, there are times when we cannot cross the line. We must ask advice from holy and wise people when to end a relationship or when to bend in our deepest convictions.

The "female force" of strength and rigid justice is important; without it, we would have no standards. On the other hand, standards can destroy families. Can we bend them? Can we destroy our families? These questions deserve more than a snap decision. We must consult the wise and those who are not personally involved to assist us in making a decision.

A woman once told me that she had it with her husband, because he does such and such. I told her that doing such and such is really a minor sin, if it is one. However, to break up a family with children is surely a terrible sin.

(9,21) "And he (Noah) drank from the wine and he became intoxicated. And he was revealed in the midst of her (literal translation – working translation "his") tent." Noah seems overwhelmed by pain and the destruction of his world. He drinks wine to mellow his travail in the ark. He finds solace in drink and loses his sense of propriety; he goes unclothed in his tent.

"Her tent" was the tent of Noah's wife. She entered the ark and exited with Noah, as is stated in passage 8,16. We mentioned elsewhere that the home is the female dimension, and the Schechina rests in the merit of the woman. A man who comes into this holy abode and becomes drunk and naked profanes the sanctity of the place and brings great evil upon himself.

Sipurno comments that Noah began by planting grapes for wine, which is not admirable, but is also not so terrible. He got drunk and acted foolishly, and ultimately came to great evil. We thus see that a small thing can bring to a major problem. This is important in practical life. People do not start out being adulterers or fornicators. However, if they are exposed to certain environments, they may fail and sin. We hope not just to be in the frying pan and escape, but also never to enter the frying pan. Jewish law makes it clear that we are to be very careful about getting into the frying pan. We stay out. We are not allowed to be alone with women who are not our wives or very close relatives, such as mother or daughter. We are not allowed to read books that arouse us to lust, nor may we watch television and movies that teach us concupiscence. We don't send our children to schools of mixed boys and girls, and we don't allow our children to dance with the other gender. Those who do allow these things are asking of their children to enter the frying pan and emerge unscathed.

Let us discuss "nakedness" in the context of raising children and keeping ourselves from harm. The passage tells us that Noah became "revealed" in his tent. Obviously, later something worse than nakedness happened, but this was the beginning of the destruction. "Nakedness" is something utterly rejected by Judaism. "Nobody is more objectionable than a nudist." In the Garden of Eden, people were unclothed, and they cohabited openly. Outside the Garden, sex and nakedness became private. The spiritual energies of sexuality and nakedness could be fully revealed in the Garden of Eden without damage. However, when outside of the Garden these energies are revealed publicly, they attract evil forces and create evil. Recall that the snake saw Adam and Eve cohabiting publicly and was aroused to entice Eve and destroy the human race. The evil force is fully active, certainly outside of the Garden. We therefore do not tempt it by public sex and nudity.

The snake or Evil Force is an angel of G-d who just does his job, to test people so that they can have reward. The happiest person in town when you defy the evil inclination is the Satan. The angriest one when you listen to him is the Satan. He wants to be rebuffed to please G-d, not to be accepted to anger G-d. However, the parameters of his job are that when sexual energies are revealed he goes into action, and there is trouble.

Whenever you find mixing of the sexes, you find destruction. In the latest Federal Education Bill, there is a grant for single-sex schools. Can boys and girls in their biological prime sit together in class for hours and not be distracted? College students are terribly vulnerable; they no longer have the security of childhood and home, and they have yet to find their place as adults. Can they be tossed into the pressure of sex on a campus? College students have one of the highest rates of suicide.

When the New York City police department first integrated women into patrols, almost every man who had a woman partner divorced his wife and left his children. It was not really his fault, although we can think what we want. You cannot sit with some young lovely for several hours a day, go home to your wife and feel the same.

Modesty in Hebrew is TSENEEYUSE. It means to hide something, to conceal. It means to maintain a low profile. Just as there is a command for one to be modest in the street, so there is a sin to be too modest in the home. One who demands too much modesty in the bedroom has violated a cardinal term of marriage; this is grounds for rabbinical divorce. Modesty does not mean that a woman does not have sex. It does not mean that she does not fulfill herself. It means that she does not do so publicly. What is right for the home is not right for the street.

Today there is no modesty in the street, and there is no successful intimacy in the home. A woman who gives away too much is despised, and doesn't she know it! Her anger surfaces in the bedroom, but she gains nothing but frustration.

Modesty is very nice for a girl like my daughters who leave the driving to me. They know, first, that a boy they want appreciates a modest girl. Therefore, they will try to impress others with their modesty. Secondly, they have no fear that they have to catch the fly on the run. They are not running. They are growing up like a normal adolescent and know that daddy and mommy are tearing their hair out and pumping the phone to get more and more information on this or that boy. Therefore, she has no need to create a high profile.

Secular girl, on the other hand, is in a fast food market. A boy will or will not notice her in a flash of a second. She must be naked enough to be noticed. If she is lucky, if you call it that, the boy will notice. One thing he notices is that she is desperate enough to dress in such a way, so she must be easy picking. She is. He despises her, she despises herself, and they make it and break it. Even if the girl does whatever the boy wants, in the fast food market, he will eventually notice someone else. He will eventually tire of this one. Secular girl is best designed for a one-night stand, for relief, not for long-range rel