"Shalom Bayis (Peaceful Marriage)"
Magazine - Archives

HOMEPAGE
ABOUT RABBI FORSYTHE
COPYRIGHT AND COPY PERMISSION LIMITATION
ASK RABBI FORSYTHE YOUR QUESTION
SHALOM BAYIS
"SHALOM BAYIS" MAGAZINE
FINDING YOUR ZIVUG
"FINDING YOUR ZIVUG" MAGAZINE
FAMILY, PARENT
& CHILD
PERSONAL GROWTH & SELF-PERFECTION
DANGERS OF LOUD AMPLIFICA-
TION AT SIMCHAS
INTERPERSONAL RELATING & MITZVOS
"IMPROVE YOUR LIFE" MAGAZINE
TORAH & PSYCHOLOGY
HASHKOFA:
VIEWS & VALUES
A TORAH INSIGHT INTO THE HOLOCAUST
HANDLING ANGER AND QUARRELS
RABBI FORSYTHE'S TAPE CATALOG
CONTACT RABBI FORSYTHE

 

 

 

A HUSBAND AND WIFE ARE AS ONE PERSON, PART THREE
- Thursday, December 21, '00 - Parshas Vayeishev 5761

Among the biggest causes of divorce and marital strife are selfishness, blindness to the impact of behavior on one's spouse, demanding (even one's "rights") and taking. A husband and wife are as one person. The same way that you can't stick a knife into your right side without impacting your left side, you can't do something that impacts yourself - with ripple impact on your spouse - and claim the right to independent choice. The same way your hemorrhaging right side is in the emergency room, your left side is. When A's marriage is hemorrhaging, so is B's. A husband and wife are as one person.

Man and woman natures are incomprehensible to one another. Your failure to comprehend DOES NOT MAKE THE REALITY OF THE OTHER GO AWAY. The other will not think, feel and act like you do. Each is tied to the other. You share one soul. You each are an organ. You are, together, a full human being. Building closeness and familiarity is holiness. The differences should CAUSE union, NEVER DAMAGE union. G-d designed the nature of man and woman for their bond. They complete each other and G-d matches a destined couple since their conception to be a totality in life together. Each must know the other's inner personality, aspirations, happiness, worries, emotions, what happens to and what effects the other, the other's secrets (except those for which there is no gain to know such as a crime or sin that one did as a youth, and which was righted while still a youth) when it achieves a constructive purpose, such as union and bondedness.

If one disparages gender-based differences or characteristics, it cheapens the other and wounds feelings. These wounds can be stabbing and enduring, especially in a woman. It is important to be supportive, pay attention to each other, give consideration and encouragement, and to be consistent and constructive at all times. This builds shlaimus (completeness as a human being, which if you'll recall from Chapter one, is related to shalom, the central theme in marriage: peace). A complete human being is a married couple consisting of a complete man-portion and a complete woman-portion.

Although some people who know nothing of the subject sometimes say so, there is no disparagement of the Jewish women anywhere in Judaism. In my lectures, I emphasize over and over how often and uniformly Jewish law talks about love, honor and appreciation by a Jewish husband for a Jewish wife. The Torah writes (Genesis 2:24) that a man leaves his mother and father to attach to his wife to be one flesh.

Rabbi Aryeh Levine, who lived in Israel at the time of new statehood, was known to be a tzadik. One time his wife had a painful foot malady that would need surgery. When they went to the doctor and the doctor asked what was wrong, Rabbi Levine innocently answered, "My wife's foot hurts us." He truly understood what it means for a couple to be one body.