On Marriage and Divorce

A few weeks ago, I was asked (via email) why the Torah empowers men to initiate divorce, and does not assign the same power to women.

I replied, in part:

As framed by the Torah, marriage is fundamentally a financial transaction, in which a man accepts responsibility to feed, clothe, shelter and look after the general well-being of his wife. In exchange, she grants him rights to her income, and certain types of assets she owns. The marriage transaction is initiated by the man as he undertakes to fulfill those responsibilities. Because the man is the one to initiate the transaction, he is also the one who is empowered to end it.

This may be compared to an employment agreement (although the transactions have many differences as well, obviously, and I would not want a husband and wife to see themselves in these roles). An employee accepts responsibility to perform specific tasks for his employer. In exchange, the employer pledges to pay a certain sum. The employment agreement is within the employee's control, even though we usually think of the employer as having power; in halachah, the employee is the one empowered to break the contract, and the employer is not. The wife is the 'employer' in our case, and the husband is the 'employee'.

I should note, though, that the wife does have recourse, even though she does not initiate the divorce. In the event that she wants to be divorced, the Rambam notes that she has the ability to refuse to be with him intimately because of her distaste for marriage to him, and then the beit din will compel him to divorce her. She would forfeit her ketubah payment in that case, but this is logical, since the point of the ketubah payment is to keep husbands from divorcing their wives precipitously. [I should note that the Shulchan Aruch Even haEzer 77:2 is less clear on the topic of compelling him to divorce her.]

Tonight I received an email reply, pointing out that presenting marriage as a financial transaction is rather off-putting. I agree, but here is my thought in response:

As I understand it, within Judaism, holiness does not come from ritual, ceremony, and a moment in time. Rather, holiness comes from the way one lives, in an ongoing way. Witness the way the Jews met their Creator at Sinai, and then created a Golden Calf. The relationship with the Divine is a product of a life lived with deep spiritual sensitivity.

The same is true, within my understanding, for human relationships. Despite the "love at first sight" dream, for most people love is a product of shared experiences and growth over time, not a chance encounter or an individual date. Each moment deepens and strengthens the bond.

Combining those two points: The single act of a wedding should not be conflated with the lifetime of marriage. A wedding is, indeed, a transaction, which sets the stage for a shared life by defining the rules by which the couple will function. It is a formal contract, outlining roles and responsibilities. Once that has been laid out, the couple are then in a position to live their lives together, in love and in holiness.

To compare it to a different field: We register in school and we pay tuition in order to make it possible for us to learn. Learning and growth are our goals, but we need to engage in a contract in order to set up the relationships which will make the learning/growth experience possible.

Does this make sense to you? What would you have said, in response to either or both of the emails I received?

Sufi Marriage Counseling

I was privileged to hear an interesting dvar torah over Yom Tov on the meaning of "havdalah [separation]" in biblical Creation, and the application of this "havdalah" to marriage and divorce. One of the speaker's core ideas was that humans who wed become one, and should not, under normal circumstances, be divided.

Then today, in reading a presentation on Public Health planning, I came across the following Sufi saying:

You think that if you understand one, you understand two, because one and one are two. But you must also understand 'and'.

The point regarding Public Health planning related to the way that scale changes our treatment recommendations – we cannot recommend for millions what we would recommend for a single patient in a clinic. One patient plus one patient does not yield multiple patients with a multiple of the same recommendation.

However, I also see applications for marriage counseling. One and One make two, so I might assume that if I know the husband and I know the wife then I know the couple. But we must also understand the "and", the way in which they combine, in order to truly comprehend what this couple becomes when they are together.

Hmm….

Jewish Honeymoons?

[I did the kollel's two-minute parshah video this week; you can find it here.]

I felt like I was back in the rabbinate this morning: Daf shiur at 6 AM, then a bris, then a navi shiur, and then a 10 AM levayah.

And someone I had tried to help was angry at me . Like I said, felt like the rabbinate all over again. (Although, there is something to be said for attending a levayah as someone other than the mesader and the niftar.)

I’ve been thinking about Shanah Rishonah (literally "the first year") lately.

Shanah Rishonah is the practice of having a newly married couple remain at home, or go out together, every night during their first year of marriage. It is built on Devarim 24:5, which states that a newly married man does not go to the army for the first year after marriage; rather, “he shall be clean [of outside obligations] to be home for a year, and he shall gladden the wife he has taken.” In one example of Shanah Rishonah adherence, kollelim often tell their avreichim to stay home from night seder for their first year of marriage.

This practice is important, I think, in order to set a certain foundation and default setting for the marriage even beyond the shared experience that occurs during the first year. It is far more valuable than a honeymoon, to me. If a couple starts out with the assumption that they will spend time together, that the place they belong at night is with each other, then they become more apt to fulfill that going forward.

The Rebbetzin and I never had a “shanah rishonah.” We got married on August 17, signed the contract with our first shul during the week of sheva berachos, and started in that shul on August 31. My rebbetzin spent the next two years commuting to law school, and I was running the shul, teaching in a local high school, translating the Aruch haShulchan and transcribing tapes of Rav Soloveitchik’s Tisha b’Av shiurim. There was no break.

Thank Gd, we made it through and we’re doing fine almost fourteen years later, but we really should have taken some time that year, as a quasi-shanah rishonah. That we didn’t do this was a mistake.

On the other hand – shanah rishonah isn’t really an option for many couples. Jobs and school often require late nights in the workplace, or the library, and that’s just the way it is.

What was your Shanah Rishonah experience? Did you have it? No? Either way, what was the impact?

Torah Tips for a Healthy Marriage?

[This week's Haveil Havalim is here!]

The Torah’s malleability frustrates me at times; the line, “הפך בה והפך בה דכלא בה (Turn it and turn it, for all is in it)” is often invoked as an excuse for abusing original grammar and intent in an attempt to force specific meaning from the ancient sentences.

At the same time, who can deny that this malleability is a rabbi’s homiletic friend? Regardless of the theme I want to address, there’s always something relevant in the Torah, and (often) it can be read my way. Not with the rigidity required for halachic analysis, but certainly on a level sufficient for homiletics.

With that in mind, I pose the following question: What marital advice can you deduce from the Torah?

Example 1:
Advice: Marriage must involve a couple's on-going attempt to know each other, with real time and energy devoted to this purpose.

Source: In Hosheia 2:21-22, HaShem pledges all manner of goodness to the Jewish people, His prospective spouse. He’ll give us righteousness, justice, kindness and mercy. What need we provide? “וידעת את ה' (You shall know Gd).” As the Rambam notes in Sefer haMitzvot, this knowledge leads to true love.

Example 2:
Advice: In a marriage, rights don't make up for wrongs. Giving a gift does not make up for hurting the other.

Source: Hosheia 3:4-5 and 6:6, as well as Yeshayah 1 and numerous other passages in the the prophets, tell us that korbanot cannot be used as a make-up gift for sin, until sin itself is abandoned. Cf Moreh haNevuchim 3:32 - korbanot are intended to help us achieve a union with Gd, but they are not a substitute for that union.

So let's hear it - what marriage tips do you draw from the Torah?

Happy Anniversary, Rebbetzin!

Yes, it’s our 12th anniversary today.

Odd, the way calendars work out; we moved to Allentown on my rebbetzin’s birthday, and now we’re moving to Toronto on our anniversary. (And she says we never do anything for our special occasions…)

I would love to spend this post talking about the Rebbetzin, but one of the bedrock rules of my blog is that the Rebbetzin does not like the spotlight.

So, instead, let’s talk marriage.

Marriage is, to my mind, a most an unnatural institution: Two people of different backgrounds/experiences/worldviews yoke themselves to each other for life. What kind of an idea is that?! But it’s the Torah’s model:

At a wedding we invoke the image of Adam and Chavah in Gan Eden. Even in that original union of the only man and woman on earth, there was such disparity of background. Adam was crafted by Gd from nothing, and knew sole possession of the world around him before Chavah entered the picture; Chavah was originally part of Adam’s body, and never knew a world in which she was not a part of Adam.

Move ahead to Yitzchak and Rivkah. Yitzchak comes from the home of Avraham and Sarah and Canaan; Rivkah is a product of Lavan and Aram.

How about Moshe and Tzipporah? Egypt vs. Midian, Amram/Yocheved vs. Yitro Kohen Midian? A boy raised in the palace of Paroh marries a girl raised as one of seven shepherdesses?

And so on. There’s much more we could say (were I not moving today!), but I think the point is clear: The Torah presents several examples of men and women from diverse backgrounds joining to create a marriage.

Two people agree in principle to work together, to consider each other’s wants and needs as equal (if not superior) to their own, and, Gd-willing, to bring new lives into this world, the most serious of enterprises, in tandem with someone who sees the world through different lenses.

This is not only about marriage; it's a broader theme, partnership with someone of a different nature and a different outlook to achieve a great goal:
It’s aged Yocheved and young Miriam saving Jewish babies in Egypt.
It’s Moshe and Aharon leading the Jews through the desert.
It’s Betzalel of Yehudah and Ahaliav of Dan crafting the mishkan.

This bonding of diverse personalites doesn’t always work out well, of course, but for me it has been earth-shatteringly wonderful, life-changing in so many ways. I think back to the person I was before the Rebbetzin – my life in yeshiva, my approach to relationships, my dating career - and it’s hard for me to believe the difference between me and that somewhat-embarrassing person I once was. I’ve learned a lot about living, relating, and learning from this incredible woman who agreed, for reasons unknown, to marry me.

I thank Gd regularly for matching me with the woman who made me the person I am now. Happy anniversary, Rebbetzin!

Enjoy life with the woman you love (Derashah, Shabbat Chol haMoed Succot 5769)

"I find more bitter than death the woman… One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those I have not found. (Kohelet 7:26-28)"


What is Shlomo haMelech expressing here, in these blatantly misogynistic terms? What is this doing in a book which also contains the happier advice to a man, “ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת Enjoy life with the wife you love?” What is this doing in a book attributed to a man whose mother taught him the Eishet Chayil, a ballad to the mighty Jewish woman? What is this doing in Tanach at all?!


Realize that in an entire Tanach filled with complex and conflicted human beings, Shlomo haMelech may well be the most complex and conflicted.
• Shlomo is the great son and heir of Dovid haMelech and Batsheva, builder of the Beis haMikdash and the wisest of all men.
• But Shlomo also flouts the Torah’s laws governing kings, marries princesses for political purposes and oversleeps the first day of korbanot in that new Beis haMikdash he had built.
According to the gemara, the sages even taught that Shlomo was excluded from Gan Eden in the next world, until a voice from Heaven rebuked them!


There is a pattern to Shlomo haMelech’s troubles, and the gemara lays it out for us:

The Torah mandates that a king may not take too many wives, lest their needs distract him. The gemara says that Shlomo defied this rule, confidently arguing אני ארבה ולא אסור, I will have many wives and I will not be led astray. In the end, Tanach says, נשיו הטו את לבבו, Shlomo was led astray.

The Torah mandates that a king not accumulate horses, lest he go back to Egypt to find more. Again, the gemara says that Shlomo confidently defied this rule, arguing, אני ארבה ולא אשיב, I will have many horses and I will not go back to Egypt. But in the end, as Tanach reports, Shlomo returns to Egypt for horses.

The gemara reports that Shlomo sought to extend his reign to the mystical realms of King Ashmedai, and when Shlomo presumptuously imprisoned King Ashmedai, he ended up losing his throne for a time.


Shlomo haMelech was a victim of his own success - he was the smartest man in the world, he had all the wealth one could ever imagine, he was an incredibly powerful king, and he knew it. Knowing all that about yourself works well as far as boosting your confidence, but it doesn’t help in a marriage.

From the beginning of the Torah, we are taught that marriage is about seeking partnership with another person who will complement your talents, your ideas, your energies.

HaShem says, לא טוב היות האדם לבדו, It is not good for Man to be alone. R’ Ovadia Seforno explains, “Man is inadequate when he is alone.”

So HaShem decides, אעשה לו עזר כנגדו, I will make Adam and Chavah as two parallel people. They will be opposite each other, in the way that the two platforms on a balanced scale are opposite each other - they will complement each other.

But in order for that ideal relationship to work, the husband and wife must accept that they are parallel, equal if not equivalent, that on the other side of the scale is a man or woman who will both support and challenge you, who will call you on your errors as often as he will agree with your assertions.

If you’re already the smartest, already the wealthiest, already the most powerful, it’s hard to accept someone else as your equal and complement.


Batsheva, Shlomo’s mother, knew that this would be her son’s challenge, and so she advised him to seek a woman of strength, a woman who was self-sufficient, a woman who would speak Torah and who would be garbed in strength and dignity. Her advice is recorded in that poem we know as Eishes Chayil, the 31st chapter in Mishlei. But Shlomo never found a woman he saw in that light; he married a thousand women, but he never felt he had found an equal.

In the passage I quoted at the outset, in which Shlomo records the futility of his marriages, Shlomo is critiquing himself, not the women he married. When Shlomo says, “Even one woman in a thousand I did not find,” we hear pain in his voice as he renders this verdict on the lonely life he had lived. Shlomo was never able to follow the advice he gave us, ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת, to enjoy life with a beloved spouse.


Obviously, Shlomo haMelech’s verdict offers a practical lesson for our marriages, but it is also a practical lesson for our relationships in general. If we feel that other people have let us down, or that we haven’t found people who are worthy of our respect, then perhaps it’s time for us to look not at others but at ourselves:
• Are we humbly aware of our own defects, our own flaws, and the ways in which other people could provide that which we lack?
• Or do we feel, consciously or subconsciously, that we’re as close to perfect as we need to be, that we know and understand things pretty much on our own?


Arnold Palmer tells the following story about the 1961 Masters tournament: “I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, ‘Congratulations.’ I took his hand and shook it, but… On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters.”
Palmer added, “You don't forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again.”

The same holds true for relationships - having now eavesdropped on Shlomo haMelech’s self-analysis, having come to understand the importance of humility for a successful relationship, let’s make sure that we make our putt, and so merit to fulfill Shlomo’s happier advice, ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבת, to enjoy life with the people we love.

-
Notes:
1. I feel some discomfort with this derashah; I am uneasy assigning fault to the heroes of Tanach, even those the gemara describes as it does Shlomo, and even the not-really-a-fault confident self-awareness I ascribe to Shlomo here. But, at the same time, I feel this is an important lesson for people, and the biblical and talmudic record of Shlomo's career provides the ideal illustration. I sincerely hope this does not make me a מגלה פנים בתורה שלא כהלכה.

2. The gemara on Shlomo's almost-exclusion from olam haba is Sanhedrin 104b; the gemara on his rejection of the laws of monarchs is Sanhedrin 21b. The run-in with Ashmedai is Gittin 68a-b.

3. Arnold Palmer's story comes from The Nineteenth Hole, by Carol Mann; I found it, and along with it an interesting site for derashah anecdotes, quite by accident at http://www.sermonillustrations.com.