The Trial at Sea - and of Matrimony

Seeing the Egyptian army quickly gaining on them, the Jews, who hastily made their famous exodus from slavery 7 days earlier, were frightened. They faced the sea and felt trapped as the Egyptian chariots were closing fast. In those apprehensive moments, Torah tells us the Jews divided into 4 opinions as how to react. One group wanted to fight; The other to pray; Another to surrender; and the other, to commit suicide.

You'd think one of them would get it right, but not one did. Said Hashem to Moshe, "Tell them to go forward!" Which is exactly what Moshe did; He said, "Keep going!" (Ex.14:15)

By the way, here you have a clear indication the Moses of every generation knows that which Jews, otherwise, would never know were it not for their leader with whom God communicates.

The Jews were afraid; People started saying, "Oh no, I'm not going first." Just then, the leader of the tribe of Yehuda took the initiative and said, "I'll go first!". Only after the waters reached his nostrils did God split the sea and provide the Jews with a dry path to advance into. (Mechilta Beshalach 5; Sotah 27a)

You can imagine the tribulation Jews suffered with a mighty army closing in behind them and a dreadful sea they were ordered to enter in front of them.

To what do our sages compare these moments of tribulation?

- To finding a marriage mate!

Finding the right person requires much of what the leader of the tribe of Yehuda, Nachshon ben Aminadav, had and did. You have to be committed to following Hashem's directives, to the extent that not everything needs to be discovered from the start. Things will work out for the best if the attitude to obey God's command to marry (for it is indeed a mitzvah) is paramount. If you would just take the plunge - without too many calculations, you'd discover that that which appears as an awesome sea before you, will split, and a smooth road will lay ahead. Do your part, and trust in God, and God then chimes in to help you on the road you want to follow.

Of God's Betrothal to the Jewish People

Picture provided by Alon Anava

My notes from a lecture by Rabbi Yitschak Ginsburg:

Three times in the whole Torah we are warned not to mix meat with milk, eg, "...Do not cook the calf in the milk of its mother." (Ex.23:19).

Each action alone is permissible (eating meat or drinking milk), yet together they become stringently proscribed.

How do two pluses, taken together, become a big minus?

You can mix two things that resemble each other. Only dissimilar objects taken together are forbidden.

In the heavenly arena, God can make peace between two opposites, Gavriel, the Angel of Fire, with Michoel, the Angel of Water. But down here in our realm, opposites taken together can only do damage, spiritually and physically.

There are 4 ways to look at this.

One way is to have two permissible things you want, and of these, you must make a choice.

The other way is to have two things to choose from that you want to reject, and must choose the lesser of the two "evils".

Another way is to have two objects, each with what attracts and with what repels at the same time. And of these two objects that contain a plus and a minus, you must choose.

A 4th way is to have objects contain more than one thing you like and more than one thing you dislike, and of these collectives you must make a choice.

The latter condition resembles that which exists in finding a mate. Each individual you have interest in has plusses and minusses, and, in narrowing the field down to one, its up to the person to decide which set to make the final commitment with.

Whomever the choice, making that choice is akin to cutting a covenant with that person, just as cutting the male child during circumcision "cuts" a permanent covenant with God. That choice implies the covenant remains faithfully with that mate, with that one person alone. In that commitment, one "circumcises" oneself by choosing the one to always be with.

When God (the "groom") married the Jewish people ("the bride"), we read, in last week's portion, "And you will be to Me special from all the nations, because to Me belongs the whole world." (Ex.19:5). But why do we need the extra phrase, "because to Me belongs the whole world"? Is not enough said by, "And you will be to Me special from all the nations"?

Because God is saying to the Jewish people, "Don't think only you were available for me as a bride to marry. No. Because 'to Me belongs the whole world', so I could have picked another nation instead."

Had the Jews been a perfect people with no faults among them, there would have been no significance to the choice God made, just as it is insignificant were one to choose a perfect groom or perfect bride.

But God "cut a covenant" with the Jewish people. This committed act based on free choice therefore takes on heavy significance. The Jewish people had plusses and minusses and, of all the nations that similarly had them, God picked the Jews.

Gender Gap for Bridging

Some gender differences, most of which we discover after marriage, usually hit us by surprise:

1) If a woman finds herself in company of others, say at a wedding, and sees another woman wearing the same dress as she has on, she becomes distressed! Even some anger can well up from her stress. She wants badly to project uniqueness, and that other lady's outfit renders her's a forgery!

Just the opposite for men! If a man finds himself standing out in the crowd, say because he's wearing a yellow suit, when other men are wearing dark suits, he'd be mighty embarrassed. He'd much rather meld in than stand out.

2) The amount of clothes to have - as a bare necessity, varies with gender. A man needs two or three pairs of shoes, a few shirts, a few of this and a few of that, and that's it.

A woman, on the other hand, if she doesn't have a pair of shoes of some particular color, or a blouse of some style, may well feel herself justified when she proclaims, "I have nothing to wear". At this pont, her man may well not understand and point out she has a closet overstuffed with clothes, but he does not understand that, all those clothes notwithstanding, she simply has nothing to wear if she's missing that one item of some particular feature. She actually "needs" it! This need will always remain a mystery to the man.

These "needs" begins quite early in a woman's life. From about 12 years old!

3) A woman feels that every aspect of her home is her responsibility. Every room has to look just right, according to her taste. Now if she wants to take a break, she has to leave the house to feel relaxed, to get away from it all. She cannot just retire to a given room and there feel relaxation because every room reminds her of work, every room registers with her as a burden to care for. When she needs a break, she must remove herself from every place for which she bears responsibility. Only by leaving the whole house behind can she relax.

A man, on the other hand, can easily relax at home. He simply goes to some room or desk and there relaxes. For him, leaving the work premises and coming home offers him his leisure. The "entire" house does not weigh him down psychologically, as it does his wife.

4) To listen to a woman, a man must know he's not "listening" as long as he does not look her in the eye. Were he to say, "I'm listening", and in fact he is, but as long as he does not look at her, she feels she's talking to a wall, and could become depressed by this.

A man, on the other hand, can separate his ears for listening, irrespective of where his eyes are focused.

- But of course, these vast differences notwithstanding, the gender gap can be bridged to make for a more solid relationship. To practice medicine, accounting or plumbing, we need either a degree or apprenticeship; To be a mate, we're thrown into the test without any of these. A positive attitude, however, takes us over the humps.