Weekly Devar Torah from Rabbi Nourollah

חיי שרה — Frustrated Marriage

There is a halacha in our parasha that should surprise us.

How does a Jewish marriage begin? The chassan gives the kallah something of value, a ring or a coin, and with that kesef the kiddushin takes effect.

Where do we learn this?

Most people would guess the second half of the parasha. Eliezer travels to Aram Naharayim, meets Rivka at the well, and gives her gifts. A shidduch, gifts, a wedding. That must be the source.

But it isn’t. Those were gifts, not kiddushin.

The source is the first half of the parasha: the burial of Sarah Imeinu.

About marriage the Torah says:

״כִּי־יִקַּח אִישׁ אִשָּׁה״

“When a man takes a wife.”

And when Avraham buys Me’aras HaMachpelah from Efron to bury Sarah, he says:

״נָתַתִּי כֶּסֶף הַשָּׂדֶה קַח מִמֶּנִּי״

“I have given the money for the field; take it from me.”

קִיחָה here, קִיחָה there. Just as קַח in Efron’s field means money, so the קִיחָה of marriage is with money.

But think about it.

Why would we learn how to marry from a cemetery purchase?

Why learn the beginning of a home from the end of a life?

The answer to that question is, I believe, the secret of a happy marriage.

The Thing That Won’t Change

Almost every marriage gets there.

You date. You get engaged. You are sure you have everything in common.

And then, a few weeks or a few years in, you discover something.

He is always late.

She is not as organized as you are.

He doesn’t put his plate in the sink.

She is shy where you are outgoing, or talkative where you are quiet.

The parnassah is not what you hoped.

And slowly you realize: this is not going away. This is how he is. This is how she is.

So what now?

You can spend thirty years giving the same speech. It has not worked yet, and it probably won’t.

Or you can look at the marriage differently.

From Hashem, Visibly

Look at the first marriage the Torah describes in detail.

Adam and Chava were simply created for each other. Avraham and Sarah appear already married. But Yitzchak and Rivka, the first wedding the Torah narrates, happen in a strange way.

Eliezer makes up a sign on his own: the girl who offers water to me and to my camels is the one. Before he has finished speaking, Rivka comes out. She does exactly that. And she turns out to be from Avraham’s own family.

Why so dramatic? Why not an ordinary inquiry about a fine girl with good middos?

Because Hashem wanted the first marriage in the Torah to send a message to every marriage after it. Even Lavan and Besuel had to admit:

״מֵה׳ יָצָא הַדָּבָר״

“The matter has come from Hashem.”

Of course everything is from Hashem: the red light, the fender bender, the person you happen to meet. But in a shidduch, Hashem’s hand is almost something you can touch. Ask any couple how they met and you will hear a story that makes no sense without Him: the wrong name, the canceled plan, the suggestion meant for someone else.

Why does Hashem make it so obvious?

Because years later, when you are looking at that frustrating trait, you need to remember where this marriage came from.

Chazal point out that אִישׁ and אִשָּׁה each hold one letter of Hashem’s Name, the י in אִישׁ and the ה in אִשָּׁה. Hashem is inside this union. And that includes your spouse’s strengths and weaknesses alike.

Matza or Motzei?

The Gemara says that in Eretz Yisrael, when a man married, people would ask him:

“מָצָא or מוֹצֵא?”

מָצָא, as in ״מָצָא אִשָּׁה מָצָא טוֹב״, “He who has found a wife has found good.”

Or מוֹצֵא, as in ״וּמוֹצֶא אֲנִי מַר מִמָּוֶת אֶת־הָאִשָּׁה״, “And I find the woman more bitter than death.”

What a question to ask a new chassan! Of course he thinks she is wonderful. Ask him in two years.

But perhaps the question is not how he feels about her. It is how she was found.

Chazal teach that forty days before a child is formed, a Heavenly voice announces who will marry whom. Before graduation, before personality, before anything physical, Hashem pairs one neshamah with another.

מָצָא is past tense: she was already found. Hashem found this neshamah for yours before either of you was born.

מוֹצֵא is the present tense of “I am finding”: my search, my taste, my preferences, my skill.

A marriage built on “I found what I like” will be shaken by every frustration. When reality doesn’t match my preferences, it can feel more bitter than death.

A marriage built on “Hashem found this soul for my soul” can carry anything.

Two Questions

So when the frustrating moment comes, a Jew has two questions.

The first one is for the moment:

How does Hashem want me to respond?

Not: what am I in the mood to say?

Not: how annoyed am I?

Not: who is right?

You are ten minutes from home and realize your spouse left something important behind, again. The speech is ready on your lips. Stop. How does Hashem want me to respond? Usually the answer is very simple: “No problem, let’s go back and get it.” And a beautiful evening stays beautiful.

The second question is deeper, and harder. It is for the trait that is never going away:

Who does Hashem want me to become?

“But my spouse is the one who should change!”

Maybe. But Hashem put you with this spouse. That means this trait is not an accident in your life. It is a mission for your neshamah. Maybe Hashem wants you more patient, more flexible, less rigid, softer. Maybe the very thing that frustrates you is the tool Hashem chose to build you.

Under the chuppah we bless the couple as רֵעִים הָאֲהוּבִים. Not רֵעִים אוֹהֲבִים, “friends who love each other,” but הָאֲהוּבִים, “beloved” friends. Beloved by whom? By Hashem. The person standing next to you is a neshamah Hashem loves, and He chose that neshamah for you.

There are, sadly, marriages where the situation is truly unbearable. That calls for a different set of questions, and for guidance from a rav and from the right professionals. But for the ordinary frustrations most of us face, these two questions change everything.

Something Round

Now we can return to our question.

Why does the chassan give something round, a ring or a coin? He could marry her with a cup or a book or anything of value.

Chazal tell us that on the day Avraham Avinu passed away, Yaakov cooked lentils for the mourners. Why lentils? Because they are round. Life goes around. It is bigger than this moment of loss.

At the wedding the chassan places something round in the kallah’s hand with the same message: our life together is bigger than this moment. Bigger than the excitement of tonight, and bigger than the frustrations that will come later.

And that is why kiddushin is learned from Me’aras HaMachpelah.

Not because marriage is sad, but because the end of a life gives perspective on the whole of it. Standing at a grave, no one asks whether the dishes were left in the sink. They ask what that life accomplished, and who the person became.

The neshamos were matched forty days before birth, and they remain matched even after burial. A marriage is not about what I enjoy today. It is about what my neshamah was put in this world to become.

Even Avraham’s tears show this:

״וַיָּבֹא אַבְרָהָם לִסְפֹּד לְשָׂרָה וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ״

“Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to weep for her.”

In the Sefer Torah, the כ of וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ is written small. Avraham wept, but with a limit. Why? This was perhaps the greatest marriage in history. Sarah was taken suddenly.

Because Avraham knew that together they had accomplished what Hashem wanted from their neshamos. There is a deep consolation in knowing that the mission was fulfilled.

The Mission

So the next time something frustrates you about the person Hashem gave you, the late arrival, the lost keys, the habit that will never change, remember where we learned how to get married.

Not at the well.

At the cemetery.

Look at the moment from the end, and ask the two questions:

How does Hashem want me to respond?

Who does Hashem want me to become?

Then the frustration is no longer “Why did this happen to me?”

It becomes “Hashem, You have a mission for me. I’m ready.”

Living with Hashem in a marriage doesn’t only make it more spiritual.

It makes it happier.

Because this is not the marriage I found.

It is the marriage Hashem found for me.

← Previous: Vayeira  ·  All Parshas