Cupid and Other Animals: Why Get Married?[1]
With God's help
In recent years many have begun to wonder why get married at all. Why can't things be left informal? Wouldn't it be better for couples to decide to live together out of love, without halakhic or even legal formalization? The question is sharpened by the sense that formalization involves far-from-simple halakhic restrictions and dependence on a conservative system (the Chief Rabbinate), which means the loss of the couple's freedom to conduct themselves as they wish.
Shared life is supposed to express love and an emotional bond between the couple, and formalization ostensibly interferes with that. In effect, this is an attempt to impose on the couple a bond they do not always want. After all, if they want to live together they will do so even without a formalized contract, and if not – why bind themselves with a contract that will hinder them from realizing their wishes? More generally, formalization intervenes in the process and turns it from something spontaneous and natural into something cold and alienated.
Many draw the obvious conclusion and live together without marriage ceremonies, and certainly without religious ceremonies. Civil law already recognizes such couples and gives them legal and social status as 'common-law spouses' (which of course introduces some legal formalization into the picture, but exempts them from the burdensome and intimidating religious formalization).[2]
It is important to understand that from a Jewish perspective this is not a marginal or incidental question. Formalization is in fact the very essence of marriage. Maimonides, at the beginning of the laws of Marriage, describes the development of the process of forming a relationship before and after the giving of the Torah as follows:
"Before the giving of the Torah, when a man would encounter a woman in the marketplace, if he and she wished to marry, he would bring her into his home and have relations with her privately, and she would thereby become his wife. Once the Torah was given, the people of Israel were commanded that if a man wished to marry a woman, he must first acquire her before witnesses, and only afterward would she become his wife, as it is said: 'When a man takes a woman and comes to her'"[3]. (Before the giving of the Torah, a man and woman could simply begin living together; after the giving of the Torah, marriage requires a prior act of acquisition before witnesses.)
And this acquisition is a positive commandment of the Torah, and a woman is acquired in one of three ways: by money, by document, or by intercourse. By intercourse and by document this is by Torah law, and by money according to the words of the Sages. These acquisitions are what are called kiddushin or erusin everywhere, and a woman acquired by one of these three methods is called mekudeshet or me'oreset"[4]. (This act of acquisition is a positive commandment, effected by money, document, or intercourse, and it is what is called kiddushin or erusin, formal betrothal.)
Before the giving of the Torah, marriage was a natural process in which the couple would decide to live together, and without any ceremonial or other preliminaries they would enter their home and begin their shared life. The Torah introduced the idea that this was not enough, and required the addition of a formal prelude (called kiddushin, or erusin – formal betrothal) whose role is to formalize this process and place it within a halakhic and contractual framework of commitments, involving obligations and rights, prohibitions and commandments, and the like.
It is worth noting that almost all the halakhic obligations of the spouses that arise from the relationship are rooted in the kiddushin, not in the nissuin (the marriage proper). The nissuin are that natural dimension involved in building the marital unit, the dimension that existed even before the giving of the Torah. Hence there are almost no halakhic restrictions and directives regarding the manner of the nissuin, since this is not a ceremony of formal significance. The kiddushin, which were added at the giving of the Torah as a prelude to the nissuin, are what establish the principal legal and halakhic relations between the couple and between them and the world. It is no wonder that almost all Talmudic and halakhic discussion of the mode of execution and the halakhic implications of the relationship revolves around the kiddushin and not the nissuin.
The meaning of this is that, from the standpoint of Jewish law, formalization is not a marginal matter; it is the essential dimension that Jewish law adds beyond the natural process of marriage and the very fact of living together. A sharp expression of this dimension can be seen at the huppah ceremony, where, beyond the atmosphere of the ceremony itself and perhaps also the blessings that may be perceived as part of it, a series of acts with formal halakhic significance is carried out – and these are the essence of the ceremony: giving a ring in the presence of valid witnesses, decidedly unspontaneous recitations of pre-scripted texts, signing and handing over the ketubah (a legal agreement between husband and wife), and perhaps the clearest expression of all is the public reading of the ketubah: the excited audience hears what the husband's obligations to the wife are should conflict and separation arise, how much and exactly what he undertook toward her, how and from where it will be collected from him, and so on. The reading of the ketubah is not intrinsic to the ceremony; it is a later addition whose primary purpose is to separate the kiddushin from the nissuin. But the fact that they chose, of all things, the reading of a text so prosaic and alienated, so far removed from the festive and elevated atmosphere of the event, is telling. It is hard to ignore the fact that there is here a deliberate intention to sharpen the formal significance of the ceremony, and not to let us focus precisely on the emotions and the inner bond between the couple.
All this, of course, only sharpens the question raised above. Why does the Torah see this as such an important and fundamental value? Why is this dimension emphasized so strongly, even in the midst of the ceremony? Why not suffice with a natural process of shared life and a spontaneous celebration beforehand?
Preliminary Note: Legal and Halakhic Formalization
At first glance, the questions about the importance and necessity of formalization should not be directed specifically at Jewish law. As I mentioned above, every legal system in the world formalizes marriage within its own framework. It requires couples to register through some legal process (before a judge or at city hall) in order to be recognized as a couple for any legal purpose. But the similarity between the contexts is superficial, not essential. No legal system sees formalization as something the couple needs in order to improve their relationship. It is a purely legal need, and its purpose is to regulate the couple's status from the standpoint of society. Legal systems do not see it as their business to improve relationships, or even to point to the ideal ways of doing so. In prevailing legal thought, that is a matter entrusted to the citizens themselves. The role of a legal system is regulation and the prevention of social and legal chaos. Jewish law, by contrast, most definitely instructs us how to live and act properly. It is therefore no surprise that when the Torah speaks about formalization, it is perceived as an ideal model of marriage from its perspective. The Torah is not concerned only with registration or with regulating the couple's social status; it defines what it regards as the ultimate form of couplehood. Halakhic formalization is perceived as a necessary stage in building a more proper and more complete marriage, and not merely as a need to regulate matters of personal status legally.
One implication of this difference is that, from the standpoint of legal systems, unformalized couple life is not an offense. At most, the couple will not receive legal recognition for their relationship. Jewish law, by contrast, sees a couple who live together without marriage as offenders, and such a relationship as problematic, and certainly not complete.
Cupid and Other Animals
The ethos of love that underlies a relationship is deeply romantic. It is a central source for ballad writers, for creators of films and plays, for authors of heart-stirring novels, and for other intense experiences that affect our lives. Greek mythology describes this through Cupid's arrow, which pierces the lover's heart and plants within him love for the beloved. This expresses the spontaneous awakening of natural love, and in fact the ethos described above. Love awakens on its own. It is not the product of planning but the result of a chance meeting (or perhaps one prearranged by the gods of love, who play with us like marionettes). Artists idealize this spontaneous emotion and the impulse to follow it.[5]
The halakhic-Torah antithesis seems to contradict this conception head-on. This is certainly true of conservative groups that advocate planned matches (by the parents), with few meetings and certainly no shared life before marriage – in effect, without giving 'Cupid's natural arrow' a chance to awaken love. It looks like a cold and alienated business transaction. But even if we belong to more modern religious groups, religious marriage still contains a central formalized dimension, if only because Jewish law grants no legitimacy to mere natural life as a flexible and simple relationship. These matters involve the implementation of a plan, that is, formalization: thinking about shared goals and managing life, having children (the commandment to be fruitful and multiply) and how to educate them, and so forth. Hardly material for ballads and romances.
The hymns sung in praise of natural love shape our basic conceptions of it, and they are what give rise to the questions described above. But naturalness is not such an exalted ideal. In real life, the spontaneous and natural approach fails again and again. I will argue below that formalization and formalism are the seasoning that completes a natural relationship.
Halakhic Man
In his book, Halakhic Man, Rabbi Soloveitchik describes the difference between the perspective of Halakhic Man and that of an ordinary person. An ordinary observer may marvel at the beauty of a spring in nature or an impressive sunset and sink into aesthetic and experiential admiration of the sublime scene. That very same landscape arouses in Halakhic Man associations of purity and impurity (a person who has immersed but still awaits sunset), immersion in spring water and in flowing water, and the like. Through the physical world that the Holy One, blessed be He, created, and in which we live and act, he discerns a world of 'shadows' – halakhic statuses and legal states, all of them the work of human hands. Halakhic Man holds that the works of flesh and blood are more beautiful than those of the Holy One, blessed be He. He thinks these shadows are in fact the real thing, for they are what govern the physical world. The physical world is, in his eyes, the very shadow and vanity that has no substance, whereas Jewish law and spirit are more real and more stable. Halakhic Man sees the halakhic essences hovering over our physical reality, and his gaze is focused precisely on them.
At the time of the huppah, Halakhic Man does not experience pink-winged angels and Cupids shooting arrows from somewhere on high into the hearts of the guests and the couple, but rather abstract legal statuses, such as the status of a married woman and the status of kiddushin, the validity of documents (the ketubah), and valid testimony establishing the matter. From such a perspective, the marrying couple are nothing more than the occasion for the status of kiddushin to take effect. Indeed, the entire physical world is only the medium through which halakhic-legal ideas appear.[6] When one looks with such a gaze at the scene before us, one sees only legal statuses – not fairies, not angels, and not even human beings.
Every serious Talmudic analyst knows what I am talking about. Those in the know understand that Halakhic Man even becomes excited and undergoes emotional experiences in the course of his interaction with these abstract statuses and essences. He is moved at the huppah like the rest of the audience, but the objects of his emotion are entirely different from theirs. The other side of the coin is one's relation to Jewish law. If the ordinary person studies Jewish law as a collection of norms that are no more than constraints upon our daily lives, Halakhic Man sees in those norms life itself. Natural physical life is, for him, only the substrate and medium within and upon which the halakhic statuses and essences operate.
Many think this is detachment from nature, a shutting oneself up in an alienated intellectual-formal world. It looks like the subjugation of the experiential, emotional, and spontaneous dimension – indeed, the human dimension – to a frozen, formal world. But is it really a detached and alienated perspective? Is the halakhic perspective nothing more than life in a bubble, or does the formal dimension contribute something to natural life, something it lacks without it? Does the Torah, which added the formal dimension to natural couplehood, intend merely to impose obscure constraints upon it, or is there here a different conception of the proper way to conduct a relationship, and perhaps life in general?
I want to argue that both perspectives are partial. Halakhic Man in the description above (which, in my opinion, is very authentic) does indeed take things to a detached and problematic extreme, perhaps even a somewhat childish one, but the romantic antithesis is no less mistaken. Ignoring formalization and formalism is a serious error. Natural life is a very incomplete and non-ideal condition, and not for nothing does the Torah instruct us to precede it with a formal framework and only within that framework to create natural couplehood. That is a fuller and more correct condition.
On Naturalness and Formalization
Indeed, the halakhic-legal-formal framework limits natural life and does not allow us complete freedom. On the other hand, human beings need a framework. A relationship in which every morning one can rise and leave home with no intention of returning is a relationship lived in the shadow of a constant threat. That threat darkens daily life even on days when Cupid is active and emotions are running high. The fear of instability can generate mistrust and make the bond between the couple difficult. Formalization says that our relationship does not depend on a passing mood. A couple who live together naturally and without formalization also experience quite a few difficult moments. Human beings are not exempt from this. Cupid-style romances belong to mythology, not to life. When difficult moments come, a couple will of course try to overcome them and get through them. But in a formalized marriage they will not merely try; they will be obliged to try. Mistrust will not automatically arise even when there is a hard day. Separation is not a daily existential threat.
Despite the aversion that people raised within the spontaneous ethos feel toward this description, the formal framework precisely introduces calm and stability into romantic turbulence. It allows us to build a stable life together, and that is a fuller and more human romance than the romances about which ballads are written. Formalization introduces depth, trust, and stability, even into the emotional and human bond. A couple commit themselves to one another regardless of moods, difficulties, or temporary crises. A bond based on momentary emotional and experiential motivations is a shallow bond. In such a bond we are acted upon, not actors. Cupid drives his arrows into us; we do not build our relationship through constant work born of commitment.
Marriage as Contract
As I described above, at the end of the kiddushin the ketubah is read aloud in a clear voice – a dry and rather technical contract that explains in detail from what assets the debt will be collected from the groom if he does not pay, right down to the cloak on his shoulders, inclusive. This expresses the fact that marriage is first and foremost a contract. A couple who have concluded that they love one another and wish to build a life together enter into a contract that provides a framework for the human and emotional bond between them.
In business life as well, we all know that it is unwise to work together without a contract. Even the best of friends who work together will run into difficulties, and if they do not think about this in advance and determine what each commits to the other, in many cases the enterprise will fail. If by chance it nevertheless succeeds, perhaps someone will write a ballad about them – but it is not wise to be impressed by those ballads. Life is more complicated.
Marriage too is a contract, and it is very important to create this formal dimension and not ignore it. The love between the couple is, first and foremost, what motivates the making of a contract or covenant between them. But it cannot and should not remain in the turbulent natural state in which it was at the beginning of the process. The formal framework describes that covenant, delineates its boundaries, stabilizes it, and gives it depth and continuity.
In today's world, people tend to forget the contractual-legal dimension of marriage. One indication of this is the forgiving attitude toward infidelity between spouses. Many see it as a kind of acceptable lapse that happens to almost everyone, and so it is met with intolerable indulgence. Even on the legal plane, this is a breach of contract, yet for some reason the natural-spontaneous ethos prevents us from seeing it as we see a commercial breach of contract. This is one of the most important and sensitive contracts one can imagine, and our society treats its violation with appalling frivolity. Infidelity is perceived as a religious offense, even though it is a moral offense and of course a legal one as well. It is a breach of contract and a betrayal of trust. The Cupid ethos shapes even our relation to legal formalism and morality.
There is no denying that this is human nature. Infidelity and disloyalty are not a deviation from nature. But precisely from here the importance of formalization emerges. In the name of naturalness and spontaneity, those who advocate life without formal structure condemn themselves to instability and suspicion that, in many cases, threaten the relationship. Like any agreement between two people, and certainly an agreement so foundational, with such deep and intense partnership, marriage too requires formal legal anchoring. As in other areas, anyone who gives up a formal legal anchoring of mutual commitment is displaying childish and irresponsible thinking. Couples must understand and internalize that their bond is not only an expression of spontaneous feeling but also the result of a binding contract with mutual obligations and rights. Without that, even the emotional and human natural dimension may be gravely damaged. A shared life built on feeling and love is wonderful, and that is as it should be. Contrary to what Halakhic Man thinks, law and formalism are not life itself. But without the legal, contractual commitment, seemingly cold though it is, in the background, this delicate and unstable structure comes apart much more easily.
So it is certainly right and important to love one another and to experience life spontaneously. But in the background one must remember that mutual commitment, halakhic and legal, is necessary. Therefore it is very important to formalize the bond and the mutual relationship at the formal-legal level. Despite the slight injury to romance's wings, it seems to me that this is a far healthier and more balanced structure for shared life. Even if, as the poet Ali Mohar said, "what matters most is romance," romance too needs a stable foundation.
And what about the conservative rabbinic establishment, which at times irritates and burdens people, delays so many, and arouses in them a natural and understandable aversion to halakhic formalization? That is indeed a problem that should be solved. But one must understand that giving up formalism and formalization may also damage the natural relationship we want to build and create. That would be a shame.
[1] The article is based on remarks I delivered beneath the huppah of my son Nachman and my daughter-in-law Keren. It is dedicated to them, and also to sweet Sofi (Tzofiyah) and Hadar, who naturally were not present there.
[2] Incidentally, this legal solution is highly problematic, for as many have already noted, it creates de facto legitimacy for bigamy, with all the difficult legal and emotional complications involved.
[3] Deuteronomy 22:13.
[4] Mishneh Torah, Laws of Marriage 1:1-2.
[5] I must say that, personally, I find it hard to understand what value there is in an emotion that arises spontaneously on its own. I respect a person for his decisions and choices, not for events and processes that simply happen to him.
[6] These are, in fact, the legal statuses themselves. See my article: "What Is a 'Legal Status'?", Tzohar 2.
Discussion
Beautiful.
I once read somewhere a quote by a Polish poet:
"A wedding is a magical moment in which the two eternal enemies, love and time, make an alliance with one another."
Not that this changes any of the conclusions you reached, but there is also a way of looking at marriage that is in a certain sense even more romantic.
Of course the romance is felt more strongly in that "magical moment," but even cynics will tell you that faithfulness over time can be far more moving than initial infatuation. It is certainly possible that what brings this about is in fact that same "formal commitment" you mentioned.
Couplehood before the giving of the Torah bore the stamp of naturalness. The covenant between a man and his wife was a covenant of fate. A man and woman who felt that 'two are better than one' entered into a marital bond in order to live together. And since the drive to partnership stemmed from natural feeling – when that natural feeling faded, the path to dissolving the partnership was easy; therefore among the 'children of Noah,' an expression of will by either the man or the woman was enough to 'break up the package.'
By contrast, the marriage covenant of the community that received the Torah is a 'covenant of destiny.' The couple is part of a people that aspires not merely to be 'decent' in a moral sense, but to be 'a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,' to be humanity's vanguard bearing a demanding message to itself: to live a life of faith and to cleave to lofty virtues of being 'modest, compassionate, and doers of kindness.'
The 'community that received the Torah' also seeks to pass on faith, values, and a sense of mission to the next generation, to their sons and daughters and to the generations to come, who will continue after them to keep the way of the Lord. For this, a stable family is needed, in which children will grow up securely and be educated to Torah and good deeds by their father and mother together.
The giving of the Torah creates the need for stable couplehood, and also gives the couple the tools to preserve that stability. When the Ten Commandments and their elaboration into the 613 commandments shape a person's character – he internalizes that he is not an 'all-powerful master of the world' around whom everything revolves and before whom everything must stand at attention to serve him; he learns restraint and concession, not only not to do evil in action but not even to covet in the heart, to recognize the good done for him by one who benefited him, and to keep a compassionate, caring eye open even toward those weaker than himself.
One who thinks at every step how to be 'good toward Heaven and good toward people' will strive always to see the virtue of the other and to do him good to the full extent of his ability. And when both partners turn to one another with a good and beneficent eye and invest in one another – then the feeling of love between them will continue to grow!
With blessings, S. Z. Levinger
"Halakhah definitely guides us in how to live and act properly" – is that only from the standpoint of rectifying the tiferet within yesod, is it not? Are you saying here that the Torah fills the role of a marriage counselor?
Halakhah instructs us to precede marriage with betrothal, and here I definitely find useful guidance. That does not mean that if I did not find the usefulness, it would not be the halakhah, or that there must be such usefulness.
Betrothal does not give formality to the couple's relationship. Marriage does that. According to the Rambam, even among gentiles there needs to be a concept of marriage in order for a woman to be defined as a married woman, and marriage itself also takes effect (?. There is no legal effect in marriage. But there is a defining moment in intercourse with the woman in his home, privately, between him and her. The Rambam simply said that for a Jew, if he wants to marry a woman, he must also betroth her and acquire her (to make her his fiancée. Even erusin is a concept that preceded the giving of the Torah and was practiced among gentiles, though not in a binding way. And the Torah made it binding for Israel).
And from here an answer to the rabbi who said (in some responsum here on the site) that a concubine is forbidden because otherwise the positive commandment of betrothal is nullified. Well, that positive commandment is nullified only if a person marries a woman without betrothing her first (that is according to the wording at the opening of Sefer Nashim in the Rambam and also in the list of commandments at the beginning of the book – "to marry by betrothal" – unlike Sefer HaMitzvot where it is phrased that if one wants to have relations with a woman, he must betroth her first). But if he does not want to marry a woman, then there is no obligation to betroth. There is a very distinct concept in the ancient world between a wife and a concubine, who was probably a kind of wife of lower status whose sons did not inherit the father's estate together with the sons of his wives (Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines). So all that remains is the prohibition of promiscuity. And all this is according to the Rambam's opinion that a concubine is also forbidden משום promiscuity (for an ordinary person; it is not clear why then she is permitted to a king). But according to the Raavad and the Ramban, who do not hold that way, there is in any case no prohibition of concubinage, neither as a negative nor as a positive commandment.
Not that this has any practical significance today, because today that concept does not exist in the Western world, and that reality has disappeared from the world – aside from the opinion of the Yaavetz regarding what is included in the concept of concubine (and there is in fact halakhic logic in his words).
Regarding the halakhic logic in the Yaavetz's words, my brother told me (I don't know whether this was his own idea or not) that apparently in the ancient world people would "take" a concubine when they had not found a woman suitable for them (usually wealthy or prominent men), and so they waited until such a woman would be found for them, but in the meantime, in order not to neglect being fruitful and multiplying, they took a concubine who would bear them sons.
I would be grateful if the rabbi would provide the source for the following assumptions:
1. If the Torah instructed a certain form of marriage, this has some connection to feelings of love of some kind.
2. Institutionalization is not only connected to love, but also beneficial to the relationship (there is a persuasive explanation of that here in the article, but must it necessarily be so? Could it be that there is more benefit to a relationship without institutionalization?)
3. Our form of marriage is unique to the Torah and differs from the forms of marriage accepted in the world before the giving of the Torah or in societies not influenced by it.
Eilon, it seems to me that you're confused. Marriage is not a formal matter. It is simply the beginning of life together. Only betrothal is a formal halakhic act. You can still of course say that a concubine is a life partner for shared life outside the framework of marriage, that is, something temporary and non-institutionalized. On that there is a dispute among the halakhic decisors whether marriage without betrothal is essentially concubinage or not.
1. Who said it does?
2. I didn't understand. Obviously the absence of institutionalization has advantages, and still it seems to me that its disadvantages are usually greater.
3. No. Only in that betrothal was added first.
To my mind, the great advantage of the stability that formalization of the couple's relationship brings is the possibility of raising children without fear (apparently) for the future of the relationship.
And broadly speaking, offspring are the essential reason for this whole business of marriage. That is why infertility is the classic ground for divorce (not nowadays, of course).
A nice theory.
Have you already formulated a research hypothesis, gathered data, run regressions?
The three assumptions seemed to me to be implied by the article.
True, nowhere here does it explicitly say, "if the Torah said to do something, then apparently it assumes that…," but there is indeed an underlying assumption that the marriages the Torah commands are built on the basis of certain emotions (not all that uncommon, but not necessarily something that has value from the Torah's point of view).
Regarding institutionalization, of course that is true; the question is whether it is a goal or an incidental result.
In various societies, did there not precede the institution of marriage some ceremony whose significance was commitment to the state of marriage?
Betrothal is not a commitment to marry. In principle there is no obligation to marry her after betrothal, and certainly not by virtue of the betrothal itself. Betrothal creates a weak or partial marital bond (the formal-halakhic bond, including the prohibition of adultery), and marriage completes it (the beginning of life together).
The Rambam's description at the beginning of Hilkhot Ishut is that this is the Torah's innovation. I have not conducted a study of the ancient world to verify it, and it also doesn't matter. This is how halakhah conceives the Torah's innovation, and that is what is relevant.
I'm not confused. We needn't get into the definition of formality, but what is marriage if not what the rabbi called "institutionalizing the couple's relationship"? Institutionalization is something formal: a legal contract, or a covenant accompanied by an oath in the name of the nation's god – you name it. Giving form to content. After all, that is exactly the question in the title: if they are already living together, why is it needed? Common-law spouses (what the rabbi calls the beginning of life together) are not considered married according to halakhah, and I think not according to the law either. Marriage is a covenant that they do not leave one another and that the woman is attached to this specific man (sorry for the somewhat coarse wording). It is not the beginning of life together; it is more than that. Betrothal is formality on top of formality.
I am not entering the disputes among the halakhic decisors, but rather trying to stay closer to the language of the Bible and, following it, the Gemara and the Rambam. As the rabbi likes to put it, in the straightforward peshat of the Bible all the commandments are purposeful. And it seems (though not necessarily) from the section about the anointed priest for war that being engaged to a woman usually preceded taking her in marriage even before the giving of the Torah altogether (and according to the Rambam, the Torah made this custom obligatory, just as the prohibitions on eating creeping things or having relations with a menstruant were also practiced among other peoples before the giving of the Torah and after it). So there is no point discussing what marriage without betrothal is. It is indeed marriage (and according to the Bach's understanding of the Rambam, even if a Jew marries a gentile woman she is considered his wife – a married woman – even though betrothal does not take effect with her. This is of course an example of the fact that marriage is a reality and not a legal effect. But there still needs to be something that defines this reality, and that is indeed a formal matter). A concubine is something else, and that's it.
With God's help, 2 Sivan 5778
It מסתבר that the Rambam also did not examine the marital laws of the nations of the world. The innovation at the giving of the Torah of which the Rambam speaks is with respect to the marital laws included in the seven Noahide commandments, under which marriage is created by living together and dissolved by a unilateral decision of either the man or the woman (as explained in the laws of Noahides in Hilkhot Melakhim).
With blessings, S. Z. Levinger
The question is what the purpose of this instruction is. After all, you too agree that the halakhic prohibition against murder has a certain social benefit, and yet you make a point of emphasizing that this is not its purpose. Here you seem to depart from your principled approach, which you repeat everywhere, and infer something from halakhah about the desirable social arrangements. When someone infers from the prohibition of male same-sex intercourse something about the family ideal desired by the Torah, you attack him; so what is different here?
First, I don't attack; I argue that one need not infer that. To say that the Torah proves that male same-sex intercourse is immoral is not absurd, only not necessary.
Second, I do not think one cannot infer reasons from the Torah's words. I never said that everything is simply a scriptural decree; rather, I argued that the goals of halakhah are not moral values (or at least not only morality). On the contrary, I have written several times that wherever one can understand and explain the laws of the Torah, it is certainly fitting to try to do so. The question of ta'ama de-kra does not mean that one may not explain the reasons for the Torah; it means that one may not expound them and derive halakhot from them (and even that is not always so, and this is not the place to elaborate).
Here I am proposing an explanation for the law of betrothal that the Torah innovates before marriage. I suggested that the Torah wants to base the couple's relationship on formal commitment and not only on emotion and a decision to live together. This is not even an application of ta'ama de-kra or a proposed explanation for a commandment, but simply a description of a halakhic fact. After that I proposed an explanation for the value in this, namely that it stabilizes the couple's relationship. By the way, this itself is not necessarily a moral value but a Torah value. And even if it is a moral value, the Torah still adds a religious value to it (as with the prohibitions of murder and the like). And the fact is that the Rambam describes that the other nations did not do this, meaning that from their point of view it did not seem necessary or worthwhile (or perhaps they simply did not think of it?).
I'm pretty sure you've written several times that one cannot give a commandment a moral rationale, because then it would be superfluous, and the Holy One, blessed be He, would not have needed to trouble Himself to command it, just as He does not teach us mathematics.
(You can of course retract that, but somehow it doesn't sound to me like that's what happened.)
If marriage is not a legal effect but a reality, how does mi'un uproot it?
And I'm pretty sure I didn't.
I didn't understand the question. A minor girl whose brothers and mother married her off is married rabbinically, and this includes both betrothal and marriage rabbinically. Mi'un serves as a substitute for a get and nullifies the betrothal and the marriage exactly as a get does for Torah-level betrothal and marriage.
In paragraph 6, line 1:
… the man trusts his wife…
And a comment: on trust that creates
—————————
The creative power of trust is perhaps hinted at in the chapter 'A Woman of Valor' (Proverbs 31), which seemingly opens with the despairing statement, 'A woman of valor, who can find?' from which it would apparently follow that this is an 'impossible mission'?
But the solution arrives 'in the very next breath': 'The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he shall lack no gain.' One does not search far and wide for a 'woman of valor.' The potential exists in every woman, and when 'the heart of her husband trusts in her' and conveys trust to her – the latent powers come forth into actuality, and 'he shall lack no gain.'
With blessings, S. Z. Levinger
Eilon claimed that marriage is a reality. If so, separation should have canceled it. Since that is not the case, it is clear that they are legal effects.
I understand. And to that I replied that there is also betrothal in the background there (rabbinically), and therefore something beyond separation is required.
Rabbi, but why get married at all? Does the rabbi see some value in it, or is it just pure psychology?
I definitely see value in it, even if not moral value. A proper society is built of families, and a proper family is a family created through huppah and betrothal. This is a human value and certainly a Torah value.
Okay, but I'm not talking about the value of institutionalization, of huppah and betrothal – I understood that. I'm asking about an earlier stage: if a person has no interest in a romantic relationship at all, is happy being alone, and enjoys it that way – is he thereby missing some value?
There is value in populating the world through procreation. As for couplehood itself – it is a good thing, but I do not know whether it is a value.
With God's help, 1 Sivan 5778
Chapter 1 of Genesis tells the story of natural grassland and forest, whereas Chapter 2 tells the story of the cultivated garden and field.
In Chapter 1, the plants grow and multiply without any need for human intervention. The role of man and his mate is to lead the animal world, but the grassland and natural forest 'manage' without them.
By contrast, in Chapter 2 man receives the vocation to work the soil and preserve it. He is placed in a garden that he must cultivate so that it will become a 'Garden of Eden.' Therefore the man is created first, for the main burden of working the land, which requires great physical strength, falls upon him. But as he engages in this task, man discovers that he needs a wife to complete him, one who will tend the home while he is 'occupied in the work of the field.'
But in the course of Chapter 2, the man and his wife discover that an even heavier task of cultivation has been placed upon them. Not only the garden needs cultivation – the human soul needs cultivation as well.
The natural loving feeling that man had – that 'it is not good for the man to be alone,' and now there has arrived 'bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' to be a helpmate for him – suffered a severe blow. Man feels that דווקא the woman who was meant to help him failed and caused him to fail. So is everything over?
No! The man and his wife receive an endless array of new difficulties. He: 'By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread,' and she: 'I will greatly multiply your pain and your conception; in pain you shall bear children.' And at every step the serpent lies in wait. From here on, the woman will be dependent and in need of her husband's encouragement and guidance, while he, despite all his troubles and toils, is supposed to be an emotional anchor for his wife.
And the man and his wife rose to the challenge. They got up from the crisis. The man trusted his wife that she could bring forth a new generation and be the 'mother of all living.' Chapter 3 will describe that even after they merited 'I have acquired a man with the Lord,' they underwent a terrible crisis, and from that too they recovered by bringing a third child, from whom the world was founded.
Life begins with a powerful natural emotion, which even if, God forbid, it should fade over time – its pleasant memory will still breathe hope for renewed growth, with renewed strength, out of every difficulty. Natural emotion brings the initial enthusiasm with which one begins. Cultivated emotion, upon which one labors throughout life – grows stronger, more mature and more grounded, refined through tests and trials and able to withstand them!
And perhaps for that reason two blessings are devoted to love in the marriage blessings.
In the first, we begin with natural love. The two are already 'loving companions,' and we pray that God gladden them just as He gladdened man with his wife in the Garden of Eden, when the two discovered one another alone, before the serpents and the falls came.
But in the second blessing, love begins as a divine ideal of 'love and brotherhood, peace and companionship,' an ideal that the two aspire to realize together, and in preserving and cultivating it they invest themselves.
This invested love, which begins in the private home – radiates outward to the surroundings, and later to the nation and to the whole world: to rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem, to cause a horn of salvation to sprout for Israel, and to comfort the entire world from its sufferings and its sorrow!
With the blessing of 'a good new month,' of continual good renewal, S. Z. Levinger