A Look at Love in Marriage and Beyond (Column 492)
I have spoken here more than once about love and emotions (see, for example, my article here, Columns 22 and 467, and the series of columns 311–315, among others). I won’t repeat myself here, since I assume most of you are familiar with my general view of the emotional realm. As a rule, I see no inherent value—positive or negative—in the mere existence of any emotion, nor in acting on any particular emotion. The fact is that different emotions are aroused in us in different situations and toward different things and people, but facts, on the axiological plane, are neutral. Specifically regarding emotion in marriage, I once mentioned a question a student asked me about whether, in choosing a spouse, one should follow the heart or the mind. I answered that in every matter—and certainly in this one—decisions should be made only by reason. However, in this context reason must take into account (though not exclusively) what the heart says, since the emotional bond between spouses is important for a successful marriage. In short: the existence of emotions is a fact (somewhat unfortunate), and indeed it is neither possible nor advisable to ignore it—but only as a datum, not as a decision-maker.
And then, about two months ago, I read an interesting column that addresses the role of love in marriage. At first glance its conclusion seemed to fit the picture I described here, but upon a second look I thought that not only the conclusion but the very argument warrants further scrutiny and discussion. I hope the author will forgive my nitpicking, even though this is an internet column. I very much enjoyed the column and the provocative phrasing of the idea. It seems to me there are some very important foundations in her words that are indeed worth exposing and conceptualizing.
The Basic Claim
This is a column by Chana Dayan, on the “Srugim” website, whose headline screams: “Wake up, love is ruining your married life.” I have already noted more than once that one should beware of headlines. They are usually the editors’ rather than the writer’s, and therefore do not always reflect the content of the article—sometimes due to the editors’ misunderstanding and sometimes out of a desire to attract attention (ratings).
It’s best to present the matter in her own words:
“I think that’s it, it’s simply over. At the beginning we loved each other so much, and as if on a clear day it all ended. We can’t manage to rekindle the love; everything is lost to us. I really feel we need to separate,” Naomi cried.
“Do you feel that you don’t love Yossi?” I asked.
“I feel that he doesn’t love me either,” she continued to cry.
“And that’s a problem?” My question stopped her and sent her into shock.
“What? What else do we have to do together without love? That’s why we got married,” Naomi said.
“Naomi, what ruins most marriages in the Western world is love.”
“What do you mean?” Naomi asked.
“Suppose Yossi were rich and you married him only because of his money—what do you think about that?” I asked her.
“Ugh, that’s disgusting. I’m repulsed by women who do that. How can you live with someone whom you marry only for money?” Naomi asked.
“By contrast, how did everyone react when you told them that you and Yossi love each other and that’s why you got married—that you essentially married Yossi because you found the love of your life?” I asked.
“Everyone melted and cried from excitement,” she answered.
“What’s the difference?” I asked her.
“Are you serious? I married him because I loved him for who he is,” she continued.
“If you had married Yossi for his money and his money ran out, you would presumably separate from him, right? Because only the money mattered to you, and then it becomes irrelevant.”
“Sad, but true. If that’s the only reason, you’re right,” she said.
“It’s the same with love—just replace money with love,” I answered her.
“How can you say it’s the same?” she asked.
“Because it’s basically as if you married the love and the pleasant feeling you get from Yossi. When people are in a relationship because of love, what can happen is that one side will no longer love the other, and then he won’t need the other anymore. Love is essentially an interest in disguise, identical to that monetary interest.”
On first reading, the matter provokes a chuckle. There’s a far-fetched comparison here between money and love, and even if formally it may be similar, essentially it seems completely different. One senses a kind of baseless logical game.
Initial Critique
The structure of her argument is as follows: If one marries for X, then at some point X may come to an end, and then there is no point in continuing the marriage. A marriage that may reach a point where there is no reason to continue it is not good. Conclusion: It is not good to marry for such an X, no matter what we substitute for X.
There are several ways to challenge this argument: some challenge its very formal structure, and others challenge the contents that can be placed in place of X. For example: why does she assume that a marriage that might end is necessarily bad? And even if it is, is it not worthwhile to marry and take the risk—perhaps it will endure? Is the problem with marrying for money really that the money may disappear and end the marriage? If the person invests well, then should one marry him for his wealth?
One cannot deny that people commonly feel that there is something problematic in marrying for money. But it seems she gives that feeling a very particular interpretation (because of the fear it may end), and then expands it to any interest. I think that interpretation is incorrect. As I understand it, people’s intuition that rejects marriage for money actually stems from the difference between money and love. Some will tell you that money is a material interest, whereas love is a spiritual interest. Therefore, marriage for love is appropriate, but marriage for money is not. According to this view, the couple-unit ought to be based on love—even if it too is seen as an interest—but not on a financial interest. On this view it is clear that one cannot compare love to money. In short, her argument contains several problematic assumptions. But even if it is entirely correct, it is not clear that any content can be substituted for X.
Two Types of Claims
I wish to distinguish between two different claims present in her words: (1) Marrying for love is as flawed as marrying for money. (2) Marriage without love is not necessarily problematic. These are two different claims, and it is worth examining each on its own.
The second claim is easier to accept. What is wrong with a marriage that is a cool transaction between the spouses?! They want to establish a shared home and are prepared to care for one another and bear and raise children, and they also wish to avoid the socially unpleasant feeling of being without a partner—and therefore they marry. Is there anything wrong with that? It seems entirely fine to me. And what of those who marry in order to fulfill the halakhic commandment of procreation (without love)? That is the same transaction, except that here the goal is halakhic rather than social-psychological. That too seems to me entirely legitimate. Some would say that these are more purely Platonic marriages than those built on love. True, no romances and serenades will be written about them, and their story will not be told by troubadours around the campfire—but that is a matter of literary and emotional taste. As for the essence, I see nothing wrong in such a transaction. One could perhaps say that such marriages will not succeed or that it is harder to maintain obligations without love. That claim can be debated, but it is certainly not essential. On the assumption that everything can be carried out properly, there seems to be nothing inherently wrong in such marriages. Incidentally, the same applies to marriage for money, so her conclusion may be right but the reasoning she offers for it is problematic.
The first claim seems more problematic, as I noted above. One might have hung this on the differences between marriage out of love and marriage for the sake of money. A first difference is that love is usually two-way, while money flows from one side to the other. But that doesn’t seem essential to me. Each party in a love-based marriage receives something, and therefore from his perspective it’s like receiving money. Why should it matter that in this case the other party also receives the same thing?! If there were a marriage that brings monetary value to both sides, would that solve the problem with marrying for money?! And if the other party receives something else that is not money, it is still a transaction in which each side gains something. There is nothing wrong with that.
The author assumes that marriage for money is marriage that is “conditional on a factor,” and therefore flawed. From this she argues that marriage for love is also marriage conditional on a factor, and therefore likewise flawed. But again I can ask: why is a marriage that is conditional on a factor—be it money or love—flawed? We are back to the second claim. A transaction between two parties is entirely legitimate.
It seems to me that the distinction I am making here brings to the surface a first important point: indeed there is nothing wrong with a mutual, consensual contract between two people—but on the other hand, there is no value in it either. If they want, they will sign; if they don’t, they won’t. If we are looking here for the value present in marriage, we must focus on something that goes beyond the contractual dimension they contain.
“See: Love”
Some will say that the value in marriage is the value of love itself. Marriage is the realization of that value. From this, of course, a difference follows between marriage for (or out of) love and marriage for money. But in light of what I wrote at the beginning, I see no value in love. Love is an emotion like any other, and emotional satisfaction is an interest or benefit—just like money. In this sense, the author is right in my opinion. She now also claims that the dependence of marriage on something can lead to its dissolution: “Any love that depends on something—when the thing ceases, the love ceases.” That too is apparently true. The question that arises here is whether the dependence of marriage on a factor is problematic in itself, or because of the concern that such dependence may lead to the dissolution of the marriage. The sense is that the very dependence of marriage on a factor is problematic, and the fact that this dependence can end and lead to dissolution is only an indication that the marriage is dependent on something. As we shall see below, that is also the author’s intention.
Surprisingly, the author applies this Talmudic rule—about love—to love itself. If marriage depends on love, when love ceases the marriage ceases. Some will say: so what? Indeed, such a marriage ought to be dissolved. She, by contrast, assumes that there is value in maintaining marriage without dependence on love, and therefore the risk of dissolution is a drawback. It is preferable not to build marriage on love so that we will not need to dissolve it.
The conclusion is that the value of marriage is also tied to its stability (again, something beyond a mere contract; in a contract, both parties can dissolve it by agreement and nothing happened). But perhaps stability is only an indication and not the essence itself. A marriage dependent on a factor may undermine stability—which means that something in this marriage is defective. It is not a marriage intended for endurance, because it depends on something. Put differently: such a marriage is not a value but a means to something else; and if we wish to see marriage as a value, it ought to be an end in itself, not a means to another end. As Leibowitz repeatedly wrote, a means is never a value. A value is an end, and the means are meant to achieve it. They have only instrumental value.
“They say there is love in the world… What is love?”
The author herself explains her words later in the column:
“Because of so many romantic films and books, love has become a kind of ‘hidden interest’ like any external factor. If you married Yossi because of love, you are essentially saying: ‘I don’t exactly want to live with you, but to live with the love you give me or that I give you.’”
“People who marry out of love do not create a healthy relationship,” I explained to her, and I saw how hard it was for her to digest this.
“Because the entire motive of the wedding must be the wedding itself. I get married because I want to get married. Marriage is a goal in its own right.”
She identifies love with emotion, and emotional benefit is like any other benefit. The alternative is marriage as a value in itself (and not a means to something else). If so, money and love are disqualified not because their disappearance would dissolve the marriage—that is only an indication of a flaw in such marriage. The flaw is that such marriage is not a value in itself but a means to something outside it. And, as noted, a means cannot be considered a value.
What Is Love?
In several previous columns I discussed the relation between love and lust (see Columns 22, 153, and 384). I cited Don Judah Abravanel and José Ortega y Gasset, who say that one who lusts after a woman places himself at the center and strives to obtain her—i.e., to take possession of her for himself. He pulls her toward himself; this is a centripetal process. By contrast, one who loves a woman places her at the center and pushes himself toward her (acts for her sake, not for his own). One could say this is a centrifugal process. I explained there that lust is driven by interest—a desire to obtain something, to satisfy some need—whereas love is an end in itself: I act for the sake of another.
In my book Man Is Like Grass I expanded on this and explained that there is something very unique about love. We sometimes say that I love in so-and-so the quality X or Y—but that is love dependent on something. When one loves a person, then even if that person’s qualities change drastically, it does not necessarily follow that one will cease to love him. If a spouse is stricken by illness or accident, love can continue between them. This means that love does not depend on any particular qualities of the beloved, even though it is apprehended through his qualities. That is how it begins. Let me clarify a bit more.
Almost all our statements about a given thing relate to its properties and attributes. We say that someone is kind-hearted, tall, original, creative, lives far away, has black hair, and so on. All these are statements about his qualities, not about him. In Aristotelian philosophy these are statements about the accidents of the thing, not about the thing itself (its essence). There are very few statements that relate to the thing as such. For example, the statement that it is one and not two is probably a statement about the thing itself. The statement that it exists is clearly a statement about the thing as such (this is the most fundamental refutation of the ontological proof). In light of what I described above, the statement “I love so-and-so,” at least in some cases, also relates to the person himself and not to his qualities. I may come to love him through his qualities, since my encounter with him always occurs through his qualities. But I use them as a medium through which I shift to relating to the bearer of the qualities—to the person himself. Once there, the love is no longer dependent on qualities, and even if they disappear for some reason, the love can remain.
Love as Construction: A Look at Marriage
A loving relationship gives rise to emotions and also to behaviors. The emotions are that flood a person feels when falling in love. But that, in many cases, fades with time—or at least weakens. The behaviors that characterize love are commitment, care, devotion, giving, soulful connection, shared tasks, and the like. In this sense, love is a kind of glue between people, and it creates a structure composed of both of them. It seems to me that the value in love is that very bond it creates. Therefore infatuation has no value at all, and serenades were sung to it in vain. The mental contract concluded between the spouses—which is not necessarily accompanied by the poets’ intense emotions. It is precisely the daily prose that deserves greater appreciation.
It is no wonder, then, that the stability of the couple-unit is indeed the measure of its value. If one builds marriage on some interest, that makes it valueless (though not flawed)—and not only because of the concern for the stability of the structure. The concern for stability is an indication (a sign, not a cause) of a defect in the structure. A partnership whose point is some interest—money or the feeling of love (the satisfaction of a personal need)—does not create a structure. There is no building here, only a utilitarian contract. When the structure exists, its two parts no longer think in terms of individuals seeking to derive benefit from one another, but in terms of the pair that has been formed from them: “and he shall cling to his wife and they shall become one flesh” (see Column 397 on the melakha of building). If the marriage is the structure, love is the mortar that bonds the stones.
The modern marriage crisis—the situation in which so many couples “split the package”—attests to a deep fracture in the couple-unit in general. The feeling of fracture is often explained by the spouses’ psychological distresses, quarrels, the children’s crises, the difficulty of holding and raising them without a partnership. But all these are external symptoms that point to an incorrect conception of the couple-unit and its meaning. It is an instrumental conception of it, without understanding that it is actually the goal and not a means. The problem with such dissolution is that it shows that people did not truly build something. They stayed together as long as it suited them and part when it suits them less. The shattering experienced by the children and by the spouses (which may reflect the marital break) is only an expression of the fact that nothing stable was built. They did not truly succeed in creating a durable structure. As noted above, the dissolution of the couple-unit (if it was built for some interest) is a sign, not a cause.
Between Love as a State and Love as a Feeling
The feeling usually called love is an expression of this metaphysical state. It is important to distinguish between infatuation—which in some cases is about satisfying my need or desire to obtain someone—and love in its deeper sense, the bond, in which the structure of the pair is the very body for which we have gathered. The value in love is not in the feeling (for, as noted, emotions have no value) but in the state that the feeling (sometimes) expresses. When the feeling itself becomes the interest for which one creates the marriage, then indeed we are talking about a marriage dependent on a factor, like marriage for money. Such a marriage is legitimate (there is nothing prohibited in it), but it is valueless.
This meaning of emotions appears in other contexts as well. For example, I have cited here several times (see Columns 107, 371, and 488) C. S. Lewis’s remarks at the beginning of his book The Abolition of Man, where he speaks about being moved by a landscape or a work of art. Seemingly, this is a subjective feeling; but if that were all, there would be no room to argue or persuade about the value of the work. Each according to the makeup of his soul, each according to his own inner stirrings.
Lewis explains there that the feeling aroused in me by a work of art expresses a relation to the work itself. When I claim that some work arouses in me a feeling of sublimity, I am not thereby saying only something about myself (about the feelings it arouses in me) but also something about the work itself. I intend to say that it ought to arouse in us such feelings because it is a significant work. Therefore, one who claims it is not sublime is, in my view, mistaken—and in any case, there is an argument between us. This is not merely a matter of subjective emotion. This means that although art activates our emotional dimension, the emotion is only an expression of something objective. If it is only about emotion, that is usually kitsch—that is, a work lacking artistic value that elicits subjective excitement. If the emotion expresses an encounter with the work’s own qualities, then there is artistic value. Thus, in the context of art as well, the value is not in the feeling but in the state it expresses.
Back to the Column
Returning to Chana Dayan’s column, at the end she writes:
“Believe it or not, Naomi, when it comes to marriage, the question of your mutual feelings is not that important.”
“How can that be?” Naomi refused to accept what I said.
“Let me tell you. I had an older couple in treatment. When I asked her whether she loves him—do you know what she answered?”
“What?” she asked, curious.
“Thirty years I have lived with him, suffered with him, rejoiced with him, and been moved with him. What does that mean?”
“And what does it indeed mean?” Naomi asked.
“She essentially gave him something far greater than love. Love is only included somewhere within what she gave him. She gave him her entire self. Her whole self—including, of course, love. She belonged to him. There is something more powerful and meaningful than love, and that is belonging.”
“You shouldn’t expect Yossi to love you, but to be yours. He may love you today and tomorrow awaken with a completely different feeling—but if he is yours and you are his, nothing can compete with that feeling.”
“In recent generations there has been a great deal of criticism of the elders of old—that they did not live in happy relationships. They did not love each other, but they wanted to belong to one another. That is a deep need of the soul. The Jewish secret to perfect marriage is sensing that belonging between the spouses—of a love not dependent on anything.”
If so, it seems she does not intend to deny the importance of love in marriage but to redefine it. When she speaks of love, she means the feeling that love arouses in the spouses. The expectation of this, and the dependence on it, may indeed ruin married life. But love is really not those feelings; rather, it is the state those feelings express. That is certainly the significant component of a marriage of value. The marriage is the structure created by love in this sense. This structure remains even when the feeling fades (this is the wording of the blessing: “and He established for him from her an everlasting edifice”), and therefore it does not depend on the feeling. At most, that feeling expresses it—and not always even that.
If I have understood her correctly, I think she is very right. It is neither right nor advisable to expect emotional flooding as the basis for marriage. That is an unrealistic and destructive expectation. But one should expect a sense of connection and a shared edifice. At times it is hard to put one’s finger on whether it is this or that—but “the heart knows its own bitterness.” I think this is a very important observation that touches on the roots of the institution of marriage and the roots of its destabilization in our day.
Discussion
🙂
I’m not sure. Not every emotion is regrettable in itself, but rather the very fact that emotions exist. If so, the loop stops after one step.
With God’s help, 4 Av 5782
First of all, congratulations to R. M. D. A. for joining Chabad and delighting in the reflections of a graduate of the “School of the Soul’s Torah” from the beit midrash of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, may he live long. I have already noted elsewhere the parallel between the Hasidic demand for bittul—the nullification of every personal motive so that everything will be purely “for its own sake”—and Kant’s approach.
In any case, I fear that solving problems in the married lives of ordinary people by trying to turn them into saintly ascetics whose “heart is hollow within them” of any personal motive—is a bit problematic. The average person wants to feel pleasure and satisfaction in life. He will prefer to eat what tastes good to him, to study and work at what interests him, and to derive “nachat” from his family. We are human beings, not angels.
Therefore, although one should do the good because it is good—a mixture of “a bit not for its own sake” sustains and strengthens the motivation to do what is good and right. And so one tries to make food not only nourishing and healthy but also tasty; one tries to make learning interesting and appealing; and in married life too one tries to strengthen and cultivate feelings of love so that the natural pleasant feeling that existed at the beginning of married life will not fade.
There are also ways to arouse and sustain love of God. Rambam speaks of contemplating God’s greatness as bringing about an intensification of the feeling of love (what the author of the Tanya calls “eternal/worldly love” [ahavat olam]). Others speak of investment in Torah study and observance of the commandments as arousing and strengthening the feeling of love of God (this is what the author of the Tanya calls “great love” [ahavah rabbah]).
And so too in married life. When spouses contemplate the virtues of their life-partner and fill themselves with gratitude for all they have received from their spouse—the positive feeling becomes dominant, and then criticism, which may be justified, of this weakness or that one—receives proportion. And then, out of appreciation and affection, one can also gently and patiently ask for improvement and correction.
Likewise, mutual investment in giving and in seeking to bring pleasure to one’s spouse—intensifies and strengthens the feeling of love so that it will not fade. Contemplating the spouse’s virtues and recognizing his or her constant kindnesses—is in the category of ahavat olam. Investing in giving to the other—intensifies and strengthens love in the category of ahavah rabbah.
With blessings, the humble Shemaryahu Oxytocinsky, may his lamp shine
“The Jewish secret to perfect marriage,”
Well, well—when one gets tired of one, you add another one to the covenant.
Found another in her place—the covenant is gone; she burned his dish—the covenant is gone.
Where did I write here anything about a secret? And where is it mentioned here that it is Jewish?
By the way, regarding the story about the elderly couple. It is apparently plagiarized from Tevye the Dairyman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_y9F5St4j0
(Thanks to Rivka)
With God’s help, 4 Av 5782
And of Asher he said—
Indeed, halakhah does not hold marriage together by force. A man who casts his eyes at other women or hates his wife because a dish did not come out well—there is a case to be made that he should release his wife from his yoke and allow her a “second chapter” with some normal person who will know how to appreciate “the woman whom You gave to be with me.” All this, of course, after he pays her suitable “severance compensation,” namely the ketubbah, which the Sages instituted “so that it should not be easy in his eyes to divorce her.”
But the norm to which the Torah aspires is a man who “loves her as himself and honors her more than himself,” cherishes and honors his wife, and knows how to appreciate her devotion to him and to his children, as Rabbi Hiyya said: “It is enough for us that they save us from sin and raise our children to Torah study.” And as in the prophet Malachi’s sharp rebuke to the returning exiles who abandoned their wives whose “faces had darkened” on the journey to the Land. The prophet hurls at them: “Is she not your companion and the wife of your covenant? Yet you have betrayed her.”
On the prophet’s words “For He hates divorce,” the Gemara brings two explanations. One: “For the Lord hates the one who divorces,” and the other: “If he hates [his wife]—divorce [her].” And the Gemara concludes that both explanations are correct. In a first match, the Lord hates the one who sends her away, for it is not fitting for a man to leave the wife of his youth. But in a second match, there may be a state of incompatibility in which separation is unavoidable.
And the allegorical interpreters already said that Rabbeinu Gershom “illumined the exile” with his enactments, for the Congregation of Israel is assured that “the Beloved,” the Holy One blessed be He, will not divorce His wife against her will nor replace her with another nation, in accordance with Rabbenu Gershom’s enactment.
With blessings, see there
The quality of contentment with “what one has,” together with royal honor toward the other, is hinted at, say the allegorical interpreters, in Asher’s blessing. For himself he will make do with simple food, bread dipped in oil, but for the guest “he shall provide royal delicacies.” That is the secret of Jewish marriage, in which each spouse honors the other “more than himself.”
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…But in a second match, there may be…
Fine words in your comments, R. See-There. Let me come to a small point. The verses there in Malachi are like when some religious people publicly promote a total Sabbath shutdown in Israel (unlike many other places in the world) on social grounds, as though unconnected to halakhah, in order to persuade people. When someone uses a certain argument to advance a position he holds even independently of that argument, then of course the argument itself should be examined as usual—but inferring that the person strongly holds specifically by that argument is not always correct.
There the prophet, as the commentators agree, is criticizing taking foreign wives in addition to, or in place of, the Israelite wife. And he criticizes this also on the grounds of the personal covenant between the man and his wife—that it is wrong to betray her like that. But clearly the prophet also opposes an unmarried man taking a first foreign wife, and does not oppose a married man taking a second Israelite wife. One can, admittedly, offer a midrashic interpretation that the prophet’s moral criticism really stems from the covenant according to what people of his time were used to agreeing upon, so that marrying an Israelite in addition to an Israelite is not contrary to the covenant, whereas a foreign wife is (see Radak there). And nowadays taking an additional wife too is contrary to the covenant.
By the way, before the writer comes to discuss the difference between money and love, she should first distinguish and discuss the difference between money and beauty. Seeing money as a significant component in a relationship is considered disgraceful today (gold-digging), whereas seeing beauty as a significant component in a relationship is considered entirely acceptable (and there are groups where it seems quite out in the open). People do not hide their overt desire for a hottie, even though they would hide their desire for a rich person. And that is the secret of the rich-man-and-model couples: he comes with his money and she comes with her beauty, and they do business with the land.
The matter is apparently that the body is perceived as something connected to the person himself and not as ancillary property of his (like the argument in torts that you brought elsewhere), and also that attraction is perceived as intertwined with building the relationship and love (and not merely a side condition—for in truth everyone, heterosexual and homosexual alike, falls in love only with objects of attraction, and this requires thought). The first perception is puzzling, and the second needs to be better understood.
I think the theoretical worlds you build are interesting and internally coherent.
But there are several very major flaws when one compares them to what we already know from various scientific findings.
Even a person with Asperger’s (and I know quite a few such people from academia) is indeed on the spectrum, but not at point zero. In the absence of an emotional system, every person becomes a vegetable (see, for example, what happens in mouse experiments when their dopamine flow is neutralized: they lie down motionless until they die).
This touches on Leibowitz’s psychophysical question; in my understanding, someone who is still stuck in dualism cannot understand what human beings are at the most basic level.
And even if it’s a loop (because it is not the fact of their existence that is regrettable, but a concrete occurrence), it could still be a convergent series.
And further on this: someone who flaunts economic success, such as by driving an extravagantly expensive car and wearing a watch worth tens of thousands, is guilty of showing off (regards to Yossi, whom I do not know but like because of his apt sayings). But someone who tries, by every possible means—exercise, clothes, makeup—to beautify the body receives much less criticism for that. And one should consider the hidden point that flaunting intelligence too is sometimes considered alienating arrogance, unlike flaunting beauty (which is externalized and on display).
You quoted above:
“In recent generations there is a lot of criticism of the older people of the past, that they did not live in happy relationships. They did not love each other, but they wanted to belong to each other. That is a deep spiritual need. The Jewish secret to perfect marriage is feeling that belonging between the spouses, a love that does not depend on anything.”
And this is not plausible to you?
With God’s help, 4 Av 5782
To T.G.—many greetings,
From the covenant in which Laban demands of his son-in-law, “If you afflict my daughters, and if you take wives in addition to my daughters, though no man is with us”—it appears that taking a rival wife in addition to one’s wife was considered an injury to the first wife. Of course one may challenge Laban because of the trick he played on Rachel by forcing Jacob to marry Leah as well, but I can certainly understand Laban’s desire that both his daughters should merit a husband like Jacob. In a postscript I will write about this homiletically.
Even among the patriarchs we see that the ideal was one wife alone; only because Sarah and Rachel were barren did they themselves ask to “bring their rival into their home” in order to be built up through them. Rebecca was spared this fate because of Isaac’s prayer. Leah was given to Jacob because of Laban’s deceit, since it was clear to him that Jacob would never, under any circumstances, agree to bring a “rival” to Rachel.
Polygyny is found in Israel mainly among kings, where marriage was considered a way to create political ties; and perhaps the complications Solomon experienced because of his many wives brought him to the lesson: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth, a lovely hind, a graceful doe; let her breasts satisfy you at all times; with her love be you ravished always. Why should you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman…” (Proverbs 5). And likewise in Song of Songs he says: “My dove, my perfect one, is unique.”
In short: bringing in a “rival wife” was not considered an “ideal.” It was done under compulsion and with the agreement of the first wife. Our Sephardic brethren customarily have the groom swear solemnly that he will not marry another over her, whereas among Ashkenazim the ban of Rabbeinu Gershom prohibiting bigamy became widespread even with consent.
With blessings, see there
Indeed, Jacob, a simple man, wondered about Laban: “What is this? Why have you deceived me?” To this Laban replies: “The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand”—for if I had not inserted Leah for you, where would Moses and Aaron, who redeemed you from Egypt, have come from? 🙂
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Indeed, Jacob, a simple man, wondered about Laban: “What is this? Why have you deceived me”…
To tell the truth, I do not agree. But why is that relevant to the discussion? The question I addressed was whether there is room to see value in an emotional state or not. The question whether the world would be better without emotion should be discussed separately (and it is quite hard to discuss that from within our present state, when emotion is built into us).
Convergence won’t help here. Convergence can help in problems like Achilles and the tortoise, when you sum the steps and ask what total path length has accumulated. But when we are dealing with an infinite number of links in a chain, as here, convergence has no significance. The problem is not the total amount of sorrow, but that the process never ends. Of course one may discuss whether that is problematic in itself, but I answered enough for present purposes.
Which saying did you mean here? I don’t know what this particular showing off is.
And from our matriarch Leah we learn that love, too, can be acquired. Leah came into the relationship with very difficult starting conditions. Jacob’s love was directed from the outset toward Rachel, and regarding Leah there was also the residue of her having been brought in by deception. And yet Leah did not despair. Every son who was born received a name expressing her thirst for Jacob’s love. Reuben: “for the Lord has seen my affliction”; Simeon: “for the Lord has heard that I am hated”; Levi: “now my husband will become attached to me.”
And it seems that her prayer was accepted, and she began to occupy an important place in Jacob’s heart, until Rachel complained: “Is it a small matter that you have taken my husband?” And yet Leah was not satisfied with equal standing with Rachel, but said at the birth of Zebulun: “Now my husband will honor me / dwell with me,” and as Rashi explains: “He will make his dwelling with me.”
In other words: even when the “starting conditions” are difficult—there is room for effort and prayer to intensify love!
With blessings, Yiftach Lahad Argamon-Bakshi
To your point that you recently brought about categorification because of “Mekapetz” and the like. Shopuni (“look at me” in Arabic) came to denote ostentatious appearance and became a concept and characterization.
“Shopuni” means in Arabic “look at me.” This expression is used to denote vanity, ostentatious behavior.
With blessings, Shams Razal al-Fanjar-Najmawi
🙂
And perhaps because they are visible from afar, high places were called shefayim, as in “Go up for me on a bare height,” and “wild donkeys stood on the bare heights.” And perhaps also “and he went shefi” said of Balaam means: “he went up a high mountain in order to see the people היטב.”
With blessings, Sherafan
Nice—very plausible.
[And by way of homiletics one may say accordingly that neshef means evening because the sense of sight departs. And in the dark one’s feet stumble on the mountains of dusk, and therefore “the horned snake shall strike him on the heel” uses a term of striking. Just as kedarut means darkness, and lekader in the mountains and lekader with a cleaver in the Sages means cutting, that is, striking. And likewise chavatah means striking, the opposite of habatah, seeing. Also in the language of “Have I even here seen…” (see the Targum Onkelos there, which seems to interpret it as a term of seeing, apparently because a nearby place is visible to the eyes), and in the term mahalomot, the matters of seeing and striking are linked, these being opposites as above, for in darkness one stumbles. In general, two opposites are closer to one another than just any two words (see Ramban, who was pressed to interpret “it is a kindness” regarding forbidden relations not as a term of disgrace as its simple sense would imply, like chisuda in Aramaic and “lest one who hears it disgrace you,” because how can two opposites be at opposite extremes? Others in Spain explained that kindness and disgrace are one matter, namely deviation from the mean, for good or for bad. So too one may say of the word keles, which means both praise and blame. And I thought perhaps chesed means disgrace in its plain sense, because one who needs the kindness of others is ashamed.)]
And while we’re at it, one may further say that seeing and striking are both a matter of one thing encountering another. So too in Rashi on Genesis 41, “blasted by the east wind” is translated shekifan, battered—a term related to a lintel, which is constantly struck by the door that hits it. If so, in the term hashkafah too the matters of seeing and striking are linked (and perhaps from this comes “every hashkafah is for ill”). And there is an opinion that looking at ownerless property acquires it.
Sorry, but the one who said “Is it a small matter that you have taken my husband?” was Leah to Rachel, not the other way around… There is no evidence whatsoever that Jacob ever loved Leah, but apparently Rabbi Michi does not think this is especially tragic, because what is she complaining about? After all, Jacob continued to provide for her all his life as a result of the contract that was deceitfully arranged regarding her (and even, poor thing, was buried next to her). Just a whiner.
With God’s help, 5 Av 5782
To Chananel—many greetings,
Indeed, I erred, and Leah is the one who complains, “Is it a small matter that you have taken my husband?” But that is evidence strengthening my statement that one should learn from Leah to seek Jacob’s love without ceasing; and apparently Leah disagrees with Mrs. Dayan and Rabbi Dr. Abraham, who maintain that there is no point in seeking love. According to our Hannah, Jacob could have comforted Leah: “Are not six fine sons better to you than I?” 🙂
As for your claim that there is no evidence Jacob loved Leah: Scripture says, “And he loved Rachel also more than Leah”—which clearly implies that he loved Leah too, only that he loved Rachel more than her. But if so, one must understand what is meant by “And the Lord saw that Leah was hated.” Perhaps this refers to Leah’s own feeling; since Leah felt unloved and suffered greatly from that—God had compassion on her and opened her womb.
And as stated, Leah is not satisfied with sons. In the reasons she gives for their names—“The Lord has seen my affliction,” “the Lord has heard that I am hated,” and with the third, “Now my husband will become attached to me”—she expresses her desire for a strong emotional bond with Jacob. And it seems to me that her prayer was accepted and Jacob did indeed become more attached to her, for by her sixth son she asks for even more than that: “Now my husband will dwell with me,” now he will live with me.
What is to be learned from this for married life is that it is not enough for a husband to love his wife in his heart—he must externalize and express his feelings and abound in demonstrations of love; otherwise she may feel unloved.
With blessings, Yela"b
Sorry, but to open such a thin objection (which touches only on the question whether love in fact developed, and not on the main point drawn from Leah—that she thought love could indeed develop later) with the phrase “Sorry” and three dots is a bit ridiculous…
Forgive me for soaring on the wings of imagination. If seeing is subtly close to the matter of connection (that is, striking—shuf, hibbit, and hishkif as in “it shall strike you” and “to beat” and shekifan) and darkness is subtly close to separation (therefore in the language of the Sages lekader is interpreted as cutting and separating), then perhaps lachsokh with sin, meaning to withhold, is close to choshekh with shin, darkness. And perhaps also afelah, darkness, and ophel, a high and inaccessible place.
What is the value in marriage? Is it an intrinsic value (in which case it makes no sense to ask about the source—Isaiah Leibowitz…) or does it express another value?
I tried to explain in the post that the value is the bond that is created.
You mean that one should ask not about the source but about the basis (what it serves).
I didn’t quite understand sufficiently: is the bond that is created a value-principle in itself?
Does the value you see in marriage exist specifically in marriage according to halakhah, or not necessarily? In a couple living together without the commitment of marriage, does this value exist?
With God’s help, 5 Av 5782
To T.G.—many greetings,
It seems that Rashi interpreted mashkof (“lintel”) as meaning “striking,” both because from shuf—“blasted by the east wind” (shekifan kadim)—and because Onkelos translated “bruise” (chaburah) as mashkofi.
However, one may say that mashkofi means “joining,” since in a bruise the blood gathers and coagulates. Likewise, a mashkof may be so called because it joins the two doorposts.
Alternatively, one may say that a bruise is called mashkofi because the skin becomes transparent and the blood is seen through it. And perhaps accordingly hashkafah is looking through a separating screen, such as “And the Lord looked down” and “Look down from Your holy habitation,” where God כביכול breaks through the screen behind which He is hidden and reveals His providence in the world.
Likewise in “blasted by the east wind” one may say that the east wind that dries out the ear of grain brings it to a state in which the shell of the kernel becomes transparent because of its thinness.
Re’iyah (“seeing”) is close to re’ayah (“shepherding/companion”), for the shepherd sees his flock. Habatah (“looking”) is from the root of nevet (“sprout”), just as hetzitz is related to tzitz (“flower/blossom”). Perhaps because the sprout becomes visible as it emerges from the earth, and likewise the blossom peeks out.
With blessings, Bernard Shkopitzky
In another post Mrs. Hannah Dayan writes about the necessity of transparency between spouses, “that they should hide nothing from one another.” In other words: glass is good for couplehood 🙂
No. There is a bond among the descendants of Noah as well (see Rambam at the beginning of the Laws of Marriage).
The bond is the value. That is what I wrote.
Why does it matter what she thought? She probably also thought the world was flat. The tragic story is that no love at all developed despite all her good will, and perhaps somewhat less tragic—the world is not flat (maybe if they had known that, they would not have been afraid of falling off the edge of the plate and would have fled to America instead of to Canaan, and there would have been less overpopulation and maybe even affordable housing in the State of Israel that is in America).
And if that was not clear—my conclusion is that one should not try to be like Leah, but from the outset seek a relationship based on love (and Heaven forbid not settle for “someone willing to sign a marriage contract with me,” because the value is ultimately just in marriage itself. As I noted—I do not think Leah was just a whiner, which is apparently supposed to be Rabbi Michi’s position. Look at that: one can disagree both with Rabbi Michi and with a commenter who disagrees with him!).
There is a side discussion on exactly this in an article by Avi Sagi on the general question of defining ritual.
He presents it as a position of Kant versus a position of Hegel and illustrates it from Tolstoy’s story “The Kreutzer Sonata”:
“The old man’s position is that marriage is an expression of law, and only a human being has a system of law. By contrast, the lady’s position is ‘that marriage without love is not marriage, that only love sanctifies couplehood, and only those marriages sanctified by love are real.’ Tolstoy thus sets Kant’s position, represented by the old man, against Hegel’s position, represented by the lady.” (“Ritual as Ceremony: Toward a Hermeneutic Theory of Ritual,” 2021, p. 53).
And The Kreutzer Sonata was published several years before Tevye the Dairyman. ?
(His article is in the book Between Times: Ritual and Text in a Changing Society. The example is on p. 53)
Of course there is no need to ask what Tolstoy’s own position is.
With God’s help, 5 Av 5782
And the Men of the Great Assembly say: “With an everlasting love You have loved the house of Israel; Torah and commandments, statutes and ordinances, You have taught us. Therefore every day we shall speak of Your laws and rejoice in the words of Your Torah, for they are our life and the length of our days, and in them we shall meditate day and night.” Out of love comes the law, and it preserves, sustains, and strengthens the flame of love so that it will not be extinguished.
And in philosophical language: love is the Hegel that stirs life and brings it to intensity. Law is the Kant, the boundary-line that preserves the intensities of feeling so that they do not fade and do not scatter to unworthy places 🙂
With blessings, the humble Shemaryahu Oxytocinsky, may his lamp shine
In this context see also here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%93%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%95%D7%97%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%97%D7%AA%D7%9F1
Even what she defines as the purpose of marriage, and as something stable—belonging—is also an emotion. A sense of belonging exists only in our heads and can intensify or weaken. So we have not escaped emotional needs after all…
That is your interpretation. In my view, the feeling of stability is an expression of a state (the structure), and the state is the value. This is not about satisfying an emotional need, since such satisfaction cannot be a value.
With God’s help, 6 Av 5782
To R. M. D. A.—many greetings,
Presumably you would not object to the assertion that a person who supplies another’s physical or emotional needs thereby performs a value-laden act, one desirable in the eyes of the good and beneficent Creator of the world.
If so, why is someone who does kindness to himself in accordance with his Creator’s will not considered to be doing a value-laden act? After all, in this too he fulfills his Creator’s will, who desired that His creatures feel good!
With blessings, Chasdai Betzalel Duvdevani Kirshen-Kvas
Rabbi Michi,
According to your view, is it possible to marry just anyone, and only define that we are committed to each other?
What I mean to ask is: if love disappears over the course of life, then what is it that connects us? People always say that I love him as he is regardless of his traits, but if so, how is the spouse different from the billions of other human beings?
This is not a matter of definition but of whether there really is a bond (whether a structure is formed). Love does not disappear; rather, its emotional expressions weaken.
The quoted lady was trying to explain something to that crying woman so she would understand something about herself and her inner emotional world. And here in the forum one produces a logical pilpul in the style of Ketzot HaChoshen. With all due respect, I fear there is a serious emotional disability here. It is like explaining colors to a blind person. Whoever does not understand her immediately through the world of emotion should go to therapy and discover a world whose end is inner tranquility, without the need for pilpul that is not always necessary.
On the eve of the holy Sabbath, “Judge righteously between a man and his brother,” 5782
Hannah Dayan follows Rabbi Dessler in locating the root of marital crises in the fact that each person has high expectations of receiving love and good feelings from married life. And the solution she proposes is a complete upheaval: to believe that one’s whole approach to marriage was fundamentally mistaken and that one must now develop a new approach, to be “a giver and not a taker.”
In my humble opinion, the Torah did not ask that only saintly pious people and exalted moralists should live in good relationships. The natural person aspires to be both a giver and a receiver, and that is perfectly fine. One simply has to identify what gives each person a good feeling, and find a division of time and roles in which both are as satisfied as possible. To set times when the spouses are together and give exclusive attention to each other, and to set times when each devotes himself to work, study, and social and communal activity. And when one establishes spheres for all types of activity—one arrives at balance and harmony.
With blessings, Simcha Fish"l HaLevi Plankton
I did not quite understand how the magic works, such that if a person is exposed only to traits he will love the essence as well, even in a case where the traits disappear or even reverse. Doesn’t that sound strange to you?
To Y.—many greetings,
Love can be preserved and strengthened. Even if one good trait has faded, there are still other good things, along with gratitude for the past and present. Rabbi Nachman already taught us that focusing on the “little good” breathes life into it and brings about its expansion.
With blessings, A. Zamra
Through the traits one encounters the thing in itself, and once the bond is formed it is no longer dependent on the traits. I will say a bit about this in the next post (495).
But that is strange when the traits no longer exist, as in your parable.
That is plausible for one trait that has weakened, but not for everything.
On laws as supports for love, a nice article on Parashat Va’etchanan, in Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s book Life-Changing Ideas: New Readings in the Weekly Torah Portion.
Shavua tov.
And often the good traits are indeed still there, only they go unnoticed because of anger over various behaviors. Very often the mutual anger comes because of an improper division of spheres in life. When one sets appropriate time for being together and appropriate times for work and recreation and the like—one can arrive at an alignment of expectations.
With blessings, Simcha Fish"l HaLevi Plankton
If the existence of emotions is a *regrettable* fact, that looks like a loop with no stopping condition..