Reentering Paradise
Bereishit, 5773
Shmuel Herzfeld
On occasion there may be tension between in-laws. People may sometimes be torn between loving their spouse and honoring their parents.
There is definitely a requirement to honor one’s parents, and of course, all things being equal, one should honor them in an infinitely great manner. However, in a difficult situation we should remember that thefifth commandment is a discrete commandment that has limits. At the same time, there is no obligation to love a parent. Of course one needs to be respectful and honor a parent, but one is never obligated to love a parent. We simply must honor them. In extenuating circumstances this can mean limiting our requirements to making sure that they have food, clothing, and lodging, but we are not obligated to live with them and spend time with them to the detriment of our own marriages.
In contrast the love we are required to express for a spouse is in many ways unlimited and unending. The love for a spouse should trump even a parental relationship.
This idea is almost explicitly stated in this week’s Torah portion. The Torah states, “Al keyn yaazov ish et aviv ve-et immo vedavak beishto vehayu levasar echad, thus a man should abandon his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be like one flesh (Bereishit, 2:25).
This is anindirect refutation of the fifth commandment. The fifth commandment commands us to honor our father and mother, but this narrative tells us to leave our father and mother and transfer our primary loyalty to our spouse.
There is an even sharper hint in the text that this is the inference that we are supposed to draw. We recall that the fifth commandment is preceded by the fourth commandment, which is to keep the Shabbat; it is followed by the sixth commandment,which is that we shall not murder. Similarly the verse that tells us to leave our parents and cleave to our spouse is preceded by the narrative that tells us to keep the Shabbat and is immediately followed by a murder, the story of Cain and Abel. By setting up this structure, which parallels the Ten Commandments, the text is therefore hinting to us that we should draw the inference that our loyalty to our spouse overrides our loyalty to our parents.
There is a well-known story about Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (known as the Rav) that he once wrote a letter to his father, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik and told him that he planned on marrying his future wife, Dr. Tonya Levitt. Rav Moshe said that his son was not allowed to do this as he had not yet met Tonya and therefore did not approve. So the Rav responded that Jewish law did not require him to listen to his father in the situation of who he is choosing as his spouse. Rav Moshe got the letter and he was so happy with his son’s response that he read the letter to his entire Talmud class and said, “My son is right, my son is right.”
The reason why spousal loyalty supersedes even the fifth commandment is because spousal loyalty is basically about spousal harmony and spousal harmony is one of the goals of creation.
Even though chapter two of Genesis (verse 18) states that Hashem saw that it wasn’t good for man to be alone in the world, many commentators (like Hezkuni, Ramban, and Abrabanel) understand that this was not a new insight but was actually God’s original plan all along. God created Adam without Eve at first so that Adam could feel a sense of something missing in his life and understand that he needed Eve in order to be complete.
The 15th century Spanish commentator, Abrabanel, asks why Eve was specifically created from the side of Adam and not from his head or foot. He explains (Commentary to Bereishit, 21) that “she was not created from the foot so that she would not appear in his eyes like his maid and she was not created from his head so that she would not think she was his supervisor, rather she was created from his side so she could live in the house in partnership with him.”
If we look closely at the opening narratives of the Torah we will realize that one of the goals of creation is for Adam and Eve to unite in harmony and that their disharmony leads to the destruction of the world.
What was the sin of Adam that caused him to be banished from the Garden of Eden. It wasn’t only that he ate from the tree of knowledge but it was that he immediately blamed his wife for his actions, “Haishah asher nattatah li, hi natnah li leechol, the woman who You gave me, she gave me to eat.” Further, the rabbis understand that the snake incited Adam and Eve to sin so that Adam would die and the snake could live in harmony with Eve. (See Rashi, 3:1.)
In the rabbinic understanding of the narrative, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden didn’t just cause Adam and Eve to leave the physical space of Eden, but rather it caused them to separate from their marriage.
How long did they separate for? According to Rashi they were separated for 130 years (4:25) until they reunited for the birth of Shet.
According to Rashi the reason why they reunited was because Adam was shamed into reuniting by the wives of Lemech. Lemech’s wives had left him after they saw him kill Cain and Tuval-Cain. They said, “We don’t want to be with this many anymore.” (See Rashi 4:23.) When Adam approached them about reuniting with their husband, they turned on him and told him to look in the mirror and reunite with Eve.
Furthermore, it is significant that Lemech is the first person in history to take two wives, Adah and Tzilah. This was a deviation from the ideal of an Adam and Eve living together in peace and harmony. The opening chapters talk about Adam and Eve. They don’t mention, Adam, Eve, and another woman.
Rashi notes that this union of Lemech with two women was so corrupt and perverse it led to the destruction of the world. Rashi writes that Lemech took two women because, kach hayah darkah she dor hamabul, this was the practice of the generation of the flood” (Rashi 4:20). They took two women: one was for beauty and they gave her bitter herbs so that she would not become pregnant and the other was for child bearing. This cheapening of spousal love is a direct deviation from the ideal of Eden.
The narrative of parashat Bereishit ends with another deviation from the ideal of Adam and Eve. We are told that,“the sons of the nobles (benei ha-elohim) saw the daughters of man (benot haadam) when they were beautifying themselves, and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose” (6:2).
Rashi again explains what this means. “When they would beautify her, adorned to enter the nuptial canopy, a noble would enter and have relations with her first.”
All this was too much for God to bear. God saw the separation of Adam and Eve; He saw the cheapening of the spousal love of the generation of the flood; He saw the violence enacted upon the beautiful women, and the text tells that He immediately decided to destroy the world: Vayomer Hashem emcheh et haadam asher barati, and God said I will wipe out the man that I created” (6:7).
In short, God destroys the world because He witnessed the destruction of the beautiful loving relationship that He had expected when He created Eve for Adam. The love of Adam and Eve was supposed to equal the harmony of the Garden of Eden. But they destroyed that love.
Whenever spousal love is beautiful it has the potential to recreate the beautiful moments of Eden. This is one of the theories of a chuppah. Some say that a chuppah under a wedding is like the Garden of Eden and that when a husband and wife are uniting in harmony they are fixing the mistakes of Adam and Eve.
This is also why it is so important for me to talk about issues like Agunot. Some people say to me, “You are talking about it too much.” Others express concern that I am “taking the woman’s side.” (Whatever that means!)
But the issue of an Agunah is really a fundamental issue that is core to our community and deserves to be spoken about very often and given enormous centrality. An Agunah—or a woman who is chained to a dead marriage, like Tamar Epstein to Aharon Friedman—is being denied the right to move on with her life and achieve a loving relationship. No one should be denied that right. We were created with that right in mind. The whole world was created with that right. By keeping a woman an Agunah, Aharon Friedman and the like are denying the Creator one of His goals in creating the world: that is to allow two people to achieve a beautiful relationship so that they can love and appreciate God even more. Aharaon Friedman is blocking the path to the Garden of Eden.
Keeping a woman (or in some cases a man) chained to a dead marriage is not only a violation of the essence of the Torah and of Jewish law it is also a violation of domestic abuse. October has been designated as Domestic Abuse month and I think that we should respond to this designation by emphasizing the connection to keeping someone as an Agunah and domestic abuse. Agunah is a form of abuse since it allows the spouse to have enormous power and emotional control over the lives of people who want to terminate the relationship. It is shocking and appalling to me that there are still prominent rabbis in our own general community who justify and tolerate the creation of Agunot in our society.
Fundamentally, by keeping someone as an Agunah they are being denied the right to remarry and they are also being denied a right to enter into the paradise of marriage that God created in the Garden of Eden. This paradise is beautiful and it should be available to everyone.
It says in Isaiah, “lo tohu vera-ah leshevet yetzarah, the world was created in order to be settled” (Isaiah 45:18). The rabbis in Gittin (41b) understand this to mean that it is a requirement to get married. The world was created in order to be settled, i.e. in order to be furthered through the creation of unions and harmonious relationships like marriage. By keeping someone an Agunah one is rejecting God’s purpose in creating the world and spitting in the face of God.
This is why it is such a great mitzvah to help people who are looking for a spouse. If someone is able to help someone get married that is a wonderful act of kindness, for one of the purposes of God creating the world is to allow humans to come closer together. Making shidduchim happens to be something I am really bad at, but I promise you that it is not for lack of effort.
Adam and Eve were expelled but when we create our own harmonious relationships then we are recreating the Garden of Eden in our own home.
Whenever I officiate at a wedding I always tell the couple the following words which are so simple but so important:
“Whenever people fight there are two sides. But when one person hits, then that person is totally wrong. Treat your husband like a king and your wife like a queen. Treat each other like you were created from a side of each other’s body. Your two bodies are actually one—with a common goal of recreating the beauty of Adam and Eve.”
1