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Rabbi S. Boteach

 Parshas Ki Tisa: Of Love & Books

by Rabbi Shmuel Boteach

        One of the first items to be discussed in this week's
Parsha is G-d's commandment to Moses to build a brass
basin in the Tabernacle for the Kohanim (Priests) to wash
their hands and feet before undertaking work in the
Sanctuary. Tradition maintains that this basin was made
from the daughters of Israel's brass mirrors which they
would use to beautify themselves for their husbands.
Although Moses found them inappropriate for this
reason, G-d overruled him and instructed him to
specifically make the basin from the mirrors since it was
objects like these which promoted love and intimacy
between husband and wife.       This Sunday, 14 March, the
L'Chaim Society will celebrate its final event of Hilary
Term 1993 in the form of a book launch, coinciding with
National Jewish Book Week, of my publication: 'The Wolf
Shall Lie With the Lamb: The Messiah in Chassidic
Thought.' Of the many emotions felt by an author on the
occasion of the publication of a book, I would like to
convey what I believe to be the most important, and it also
has to do with marriage.        The staggeringly high number of
divorces in today's society seems to indicate that
something is fundamentally wrong, either with the
institution of marriage as it exists in the modern world,
or with our current conception of marriage. A common
notion is that the way in which married people behave
leads to the breakdown of marriages. I would like to
suggest that this is not the real issue: a far more
deep-rooted problem is the motive that prompts us to
marry in the first place: it leads to our inability to deal
with marital difficulties once they arise.      In today's
world, we look upon ourselves as being complete
individuals. Although we readily acknowledge our
deficiencies or character flaws, we never see ourselves
as being incomplete or deficient in any deep-seated way.
We see ourselves basically as good people, perhaps not
perfect, but nonetheless not missing anything vital.
That coziness and sense of completion is further
enhanced by a good education, a well-paid job, and
general financial security. This assumption of
completeness implies that  there can be no fundamental
reason for marrying at all. If we are not missing anything
in life, why search for a life-long partner?    I would
contend that few of us today can fully understand the
reasons why we marry. Most people say that their reason is
love, but surely the need to solidify or eternalise one's
love for another human being in the form of an established
institution like marriage seems to hint at a deficiency
or insecurity in that love. If you truly love each other,
the love which you feel right at this moment should be
sufficient to maintain the two of you together for the
rest of your lives, without the formality of a public
ceremony. If not, it is foolish to think that marriage
will hold you together. Nobody wants to remain in a
loveless marriage.      A variation on this theme is that
because you love each other so much, you naturally want to
build a home together, and live within a framework that
everyone can recognise as uniting the two of you. This can
be done, though, without getting married, by simply
living together. In today's society this is becoming an
increasingly viable and widely-accepted alternative.
When children arrive, many couples then get married
because they prefer not to incur the disapproval of
society by having children out of wedlock. I would hope
that there must be some deeper reason for marrying than
simply because it is the accepted, and respectable thing
to do. If there is no deeper reason, then perhaps this
accounts for the high percentage of marriages that end in
divorce. Having no deep reason for marrying, especially
if we don't know why we marry at all, must vastly increase
the chances of not remaining married.   Only if you feel
that you are a complete human being can you ask why you
should share the rest of your life with, and acknowledge a
dependency on, another human being. This question is
asked because we habitually misunderstand ourselves
when we see each person as a whole being. The Jewish
understanding of the human condition completely
rejects this outlook.   Judaism sees a man or woman as only
one half of a potentially whole being. Each person is
simply incomplete. No job, acquisition of knowledge, or
praise from other human beings can ever change that. It is
an anatomical and spiritual fact. This lack of
completion in rooted in the very constitution of human
kind. Most people interpret the Bible as saying that Adam
was male, and that he searched for a female who was later
given to him when G-d caused him to sleep and removed one of
his ribs from which He built Eve. Such an interpretation
places a wholly negative light on the female qualities by
implying they are not in some way intrinsic to the concept
of a human being, since G-d did not at first create any of
the traits we value in women. Judaism maintains that G-d
created Adam in the Garden of Eden as a hybrid of both male
and female. The original Adam was whole, embracing both
masculine and feminine  traits. G-d then separated Adam
into two distinctive parts.     The traditional Jewish
interpretation of these verses in Genesis suggests that
the word, 'tzela', interpreted usually as rib, here
means a side. When Adam fell asleep, G-d removed an entire
side, the feminine side, from His creature, and the
result was the splitting of the first human into the new
male Adam and the female Eve. The result also was that each
side was no longer complete and now depended on
rejoining, reuniting, with the lost half in order to
achieve wholesomeness.  This is the real reason why we
marry. We do not unite as one to achieve happiness, nor to
substantiate our love within an institution. The reason
we marry is that every single one of us is only a half of what
was once a whole. Via a recognition of that fact we can
begin to appreciate how lucky we are to be married in the
first place, and continue to strive to remain married. We
marry because long ago the Creator of the world separated
the original human into two halves, and instituted that
we should search for our lost half and rejoin through a
holy state of matrimony. It makes sense to assume that He
who created and separated us in the first place is He who is
capable of reuniting us. Therefore, it is insufficient
to live together. While that can serve as a profound
statement of love and commitment, it still falls far
short of the necessary effect. Humans must not only love,
but achieve a literal 'wholesomeness,' which is
achieved through the spiritual unification brought
about by marriage.      It is this understanding which can
radically alter both our view of marriage and our
commitment to making it work. If one's attitude is that 'I
am a whole person, my life is fine, but it would be enhanced
by having someone share it with me,' the spirit is
essentially the same as wishing to have an optional extra
such as a comfortable home or a car. Marriage should not be
seen as something that is merely an addition to one's
existence, but rather as an absolute essential,
intrinsic to a human being. If not, then the first time
something goes wrong, one's attitude will be, 'What do I
need this for?' If I own a car that breaks down every day, I
dispose of the car: similarly, one tries to sell a house
whose taxes that are too high, and so on. Even though
someone with the shallowest views of marriage
acknowledges that a spouse is far more important than a
car or house, nevertheless, the underlying philosophy
of all of the above is the same. They are all seen as things
which are in addition to one's existence, and not
fundamental or intrinsic to it.         The philosophy
outlined above, namely that our married partners are
those who complete us, and thus are an actual and vital
part of ourselves, shows that divorce becomes a helpful
recourse only in the most acute circumstances. To see
one's spouse as a part of oneself, as it were a limb, and
even much more so, reveals the impossibility of
divorcing. Divorce is essentially a separation of
oneself  from oneself. Although I am readily prepared to
dispose of a car which causes more anguish than pleasure,
the same is not true of my arm. One is fully prepared to stay
the course in order to fix problems with a limb, however
serious, since to hate one's arm or leg is to hate oneself.
If husbands and wives develop an appreciation for the
fact that their spouse is a part of themselves, then even
when they contend that their spouse is behaving
unreasonably, or is the possessor of negative quality
traits, they will work to see the situation improved
since they understand that they are fortunate to be
married in the first instance.  As a Rabbi I am often cast
in the difficult role of being an ear to the exasperation
expressed by  a wife for her husband or vice versa. The
first word of advice I always offer is to treat your
spouse, at the very least, the way you treat your own
child. If one discovers a severe character flaw with
one's child, such as a violent temper, one does not
immediately contemplate whether the child is worth
bearing or should be discarded. And the reason: because
it is my child, it is a part of me. I'll work to make him
better. Well, this is your husband, or your wife. Why not
give them the same level of commitment?         And here I return
to the subject of the book launch. Four weeks ago I
returned home for lunch and my wife greeted me with an
immense smile and these words: 'You're not going to
believe how beautiful this is!" and with this she picked
up a handsomely bound red book, entitled, 'The Wolf Shall
Lie With the Lamb.' It was the first copy of my book which
had just been sent from  the United States by the publisher
with a Mazel Tov card. I had waited two years since the
completion of the manuscript to see it in its published
form and I was understandably ecstatic. But I focused
more on the joy of my wife than my own and something puzzled
me: she was just as elated and excited as me, and yet it was I
who had written the book! It was then that the full force of
what I described above finally materialised in my mind.
It was not my book, or a book that my wife could celebrate
because it had been written by her husband. It was our
book. She was just as happy as me because we are married and
my joy was just as equally her joy. Thus, when she showed
people the book it was showing something that was hers.
        And this is an important point to make. Because most
people, embracing the idealogy I cited above that a
husband and wife are not really one, but are engaged in
some kind of intense partnership, only believe that the
things in a marriage in which the husband and wife
participate equally, like children, are shared by both
equally as well. But they reject the notion that in every
other area of marriage, in which one partner is more
involved than the other, is equally shared between them.
        The time has come for us to open ourselves up fully to
those who love us enough to share our lives, both the good
times and the bad times, and accept them for what they
really are: our foremost and greatest blessing.

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