Our Family, Our Strength:
Creating a Jewish Home
By Rabbi Yirmiyohu and Tehilla Abramov

Chapter 2

What is the mysterious secret ingredient required to turn two spouses-with all the personal differences between them - into a single unit? What is the magic by which the two can become happy and fulfilled?

“When G-d is pleased with a man’s ways, even his enemies will make peace with him.”

Who is this enemy that will make peace with him? Our Sages say that it is no other than-his wife! We may ask: Is a person’s wife his enemy? The answer is as follows: Husband and wife differ from one another in their very essence. Their natures are different, and so are their reactions. Therefore, without special Heavenly help, they face off as virtual enemies.

The Steipler, of blessed memory, once had a talk with a young yeshivah man in which he explained, very vividly, the transition from one’s youthful years as a yeshivah student to those that come after marriage.

“As a yeshivah student, learning only Torah with desire and enthusiasm, everyone is on your side: the table at which you learn listens to you, the Gemara smiles at you and opens your mind to wisdom, everyone admires you and wants to help. But now that you’ve married a woman, it will often happen that you’ll say one thing and she’ll say the opposite. You want to spend Shabbos at your parents’ house and she wants to go to her own parents; you want to heat the room and she says she can’t live in such a stuffy place - and so on, problems without number.

“Therefore, know this, my son,” the Steipler said. “When G-d is pleased with a man’s ways - even his wife (who in a certain sense is like an ‘enemy’) will make peace with him.” What then, are the behaviors which the couple must adopt in order to find favor in G-d’s eyes - and in order to make peace with the “enemy”? One answer can be found in the following story:

There was once a man from Volozhin who came to Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv), rosh yeshivah of Volozhin, and poured out his heart.
“Rebbe, everything seems to be going my way. I’ve been successful in my business affairs, and I’m on excellent terms with my customers and my suppliers. My family and I are healthy, thank G-d. But - I am not happy at home.

"My wife scorns and belittles me, insults me and lords over me, taking advantage of my compliant nature. I can hardly make a single decision of my own. Things have reached such a state that even the members of my household and my employees at work do not listen to me, but go to my wife for her orders instead. This naturally causes me tremendous distress and robs me of all pleasure in life.

Please, Rebbe, advise me! What must I do to make my wife appreciate me as she should, so that we may have a harmonious relationship?”

The Netziv asked, “Do you set aside regular times for Torah study?”

“Rebbe,” the man replied, “I am occupied with business all day long and have no time to learn Torah. I hardly have the time to eat a decent meal! I do everything in a rush, for my time is not my own. In fact, I, myself, am hardly my own master.”

“In that case,” said the Netziv, “if you confess this yourself, saying that your time is not in your hands and you are not your own master, that your world is made up of nothing but business and trade - how can you expect your wife to admire you or treat you with respect? My advice to you, therefore, is this: set aside time for Torah study every day, as our Sages have instructed. You must set aside at least one hour of each day solely for learning Torah, and do not trespass on that hour even for the most lucrative business proposal.”

“Rebbe!” the man said in astonishment. “What does Torah study have to do with the disrespect with which my wife and family treat me?”

The Netziv went on to explain:

“When you set aside time for Torah study, you step away from the dalet amos, the four cubits, of business into the dalet amos of Torah - a domain that is your very own. A person who learns Torah is pleasing to G-d, and therefore also pleasing to the people around him. Even his enemies will make peace with him, as the Sages say on the verse in Mishlei, “A man’s enemies are his household.” The Torah, as is known, is a cure for all the world’s troubles and woes - including a difficult wife. If you do G-d’s will, you will merit that your wife will be a good woman who will do her husband’s bidding.”

(As told by Rav A. Sofer in his book Beis Yisrael)

In this same vein, HaEmek Davar (Bereishis 2:24) says the following:

“He who merits receives his wife’s totally selfless love, the way Chava was before the sin, as it says, ‘I was created to serve my Master, and they [all of Creation] were created to serve me. And to the extent that man serves G-d, so will she [the wife] serve her husband.’ ”

The Netziv’s advice echoes what he himself taught in his commentary on the Torah.

A respected young yeshivah man became depressed after his marriage, and HaGaon Rav D. Auerbach tried to speak with him. After a while, he managed to persuade the young man to tell him what was troubling him. The newly married man burst into tears and said, “My entire goal in marrying was to continue growing in Torah. And now, every day I have some new problem from my wife, and I can’t concentrate on my learning.”

The Rav told him, “Let us go and see the Chazon Ish.” They went, and the young man described his situation amid pain and tears. The Chazon Ish sat quietly all the while, chin resting on his hand, and smiling.

When the young man finished what he had to say, the Chazon Ish told him, “Know this. There are two who know whether or not your intentions are genuine: the Creator of the world and your wife. If she knows that you truly wish to learn without disturbance - she will be the first to help you and will efface herself for your sake. But she is certainly seeing that your intentions are not pure. You apparently wander about idly and aimlessly at times, so she makes a private calculation: ‘If he’s wasting time, why shouldn’t he help me?’

“If you make up your mind,” the Chazon Ish concluded, “to undertake this in earnest, then you’ll see how she will be the first to help you!”

And that was the way it happened. The young man undertook to be diligent in his learning, and seeing his behavior, his wife not only did not disturb him, but made sure to keep all other disturbances away from him.

A Wise Woman Who Changed Her Husband’s Character

There was once a man who felt affronted and grew angry at any slight. If the gabbai, the assistant in shul, his colleagues at work, his children, wife, or relatives hurt his feelings, he would explode like a volcano. He also became angry with his wife if she did not join in his fury against those who had insulted him.

The woman suffered his anger in silence. Then she had an idea: she would try to persuade her husband to join a day of learning, fully devoted to Torah study. The man agreed to go, whereupon the woman called up the person organizing the program and asked if the rabbis, in their talks, could speak out against the trait of anger, which afflicts many families and causes people to become distanced from one another. The organizer agreed, and arranged with his speakers that each, when delivering his class that day, would mention teachings of our Sages that denounce the trait of anger. They would also add stories about tzaddikim who managed to sanctify Heaven’s name by conquering this evil inclination.

The rabbis did so, each presenting the evils of anger. The husband viewed this as a sign from Heaven that G-d wanted him to correct this trait in himself. One story made an especially strong impact on him. It was the story of a famous rebbe who asked his student to buy him a tallis katan, a small prayer shawl, in Eretz Yisrael. After great effort and much trouble, the student managed to bring his rebbe some woolen cloth for a tallis katan. The rebbe gave the cloth to his assistant, with instructions to make a hole for his neck to go through. The assistant in his excitement, cut the hole while the cloth was folded, so that two holes were created instead of one.

The students were afraid to bring their rebbe the tallis with two holes. Finally, with many excuses and apologies, the garment was presented to the rebbe. They expected it to be met with anger and pain, but the tzaddik said, “Two holes are certainly necessary. One hole for the neck, so that the head can pass through. And the second hole, to test me if I’ll lose my temper...”

The husband returned home at the end of the day and told his wife that he’d decided to change his ways and become a patient man. That day of learning provided a “red light” for his anger. This woman fulfilled the Netziv’s teaching to the fullest. Through the Torah her husband learned that day, he merited shalom bayis - a peaceful home.

The Netziv also said - on the verse, “And G-d said: It is not good that man be alone, I will make him an eizer kenegdo, a helper opposing him...” (Bereishis 2:18)-that the intention is for one’s “opposite” to be one’s help.

When a man is bad-tempered, if his wife encourages his anger, acting as an ezer, helpmate, even though this pleases him at the time of his anger, after his anger leaves he derives great pain from the fact that his wife heaped oil on the flames. She is, therefore, in reality, kenegdo, against him.

On the other hand, if she approaches him with an opposing position at the start—acting kenegdo, against him-and in her wisdom helps him set aside his anger (calming him by speaking well of the person who angered him, or telling him that it was from Heaven, or saying that if we contain our anger our sins will be atoned for and that this kind of suffering is better than illness [Tomer Devorah]), then, while he may view her as being against him at the time, she is actually a genuine ezer of the highest caliber.

If he merits it, she will remain an ezer in opposing him and helping him forget his anger. And if he does not merit it and she “helps” him be angry and furious, there is no kenegdo greater than this. (See HaEmek Davar, end of verse 20.)

Therefore, the secret ingredient for our family is the siyata diShmaya - Heavenly assistance - that is showered on the couple that establishes its home on a foundation of Torah and structures its life around mitzvah observance. This includes, of course, observing the laws of family purity joyously and fully, and investing tremendous effort in the perfection of character traits.

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