Parshat Hayei Sarah

(November 6, 1999)

"And Isaac took Rebekah home, and he married her, and he loved her, and found comfort after the death of his mother." (Genesis 24:67)

"Love and Marriage, Go Together like a Horse and Carriage." So goes the old song. In reality, it is not necessarily true. Too often a couple will fall in love and marry despite serious disagree ments about such fundamental issues as religion, money, family, gender roles, or even the basic values of their partner. These couples naively believe that "love conquers all." As time passes, the love seems to fade. Rarely can love alone sustain a marriage when other ingredients are missing.

To explore the role of love in marriage, it would be useful to compare two Biblical stories, the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah and the marriage of their son Jacob to Rachel. Isaac and Rebekah had an arranged marriage; they did not even meet until shortly before the wedding. The love came after the marriage.

Jacob and Rachel's marriage was much closer to our contemporary scenario. He loved her, worked seven years for her, was forced to work a second group of seven years, and yet "they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her." (Genesis 29:20) They fell in love and eventually go married.

Which couple had the stronger marriage? There is no way to compare absolutely. Nonetheless, both couples suffered sever infer tility problems. Their very different reactions serve as a clue to the strength of their respective marriages. Isaac and Rebekah waited twenty years to have a child. When they learned that Rebekah was infertile, "Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife." (Genesis 25:21) Rachel also was infertile and she cried out in pain at her inability to conceive. Jacob answered with anger, "Can I take the place of God, who has denied you the fruit of the womb!" (Genesis 30:2).

There seems to be more kindness and understanding in Isaac and Rebekah's arranged marriage than in Jacob and Rachel's marriage built on romantic love. It is noteworthy that Isaac and Rebekah were the only couple who are described as having a playful sexual relation ship. It is also noteworthy that when Jacob died, he asked to be buried not with his true love Rachel but with his first wife Leah.

What is the role of love in creating a successful marriage? The best answer comes out of the Greek view of love. The Greeks had three terms for various aspects of love - eros, philos, and agape. Eros is romantic love, where sexual attraction is combined with a kind of chemistry. Philos is the love that grows out of friendship. It implies an intimacy, a sharing, a total comfort with one another.

Agape is altruistic love. It is the love the Bible refers to when it speaks of one's soul being bound up in another soul. (Gene sis 44:30) It is love as service to the other, being and giving for the welfare of the other. It is love built on empathy. It is the love when a man or a woman makes their spouse the most important commitment in their life.

I am convinced this kind of love does not come immediately, in the rush of romance, to a couple. It comes after they have estab lished intimacy, after they have begun to build a home together. That is why I tell every couple planning a wedding, the true love comes after the marriage.

Parshat Toldot

(November 13, 1999)

"Isaac loved Essau because he brought him game, and Rebekah loved Jacob." (Genesis 25:28)

In this portion we see one of the great mistakes made by too many parents. They fail to love their children unconditionally. Isaac loved Essau only because he was a hunter; if Essau failed as a hunter, would Isaac still love him? Rebekah chose to love Jacob instead of Essau, because obviously he had certain qualities his brother lacked. Neither parent loved both brothers unconditionally.

What does it mean for a parent to love a child? In a key scene in Steven Spielberg's movie Prince of Egypt, Moses' mother Yocheved rushed her baby down to the river hidden in a basket as marauding Egyptian troops searched for baby boys to toss into the Nile. She sang baby Moses a love song and sent him down the river to his fate, knowing that she would probably never see him again. Pharaoh's daughter pulled him out of the river and adopted him.

In the original Biblical story, Pharaoh's daughter actually hired Yocheved as a wet nurse; she fed her own son and then, when he was weaned, forever give him up. Imagine the love, and the despera tion, putting aside her own needs to save her child.

As I read these stories, I think about parents during the holocaust who gave their children away rather than allow them to fall into the hands of the Nazis. What an overwhelming act of love to risk never seeing one's own child so that the child might have a chance to survive. Thousands of such hidden children survived World War II; some raised in non-Jewish families or even monasteries adopted the Christian faith.

I contrast these cases with the reality I often see as a rabbi. I witness many custody battles involving divorcing parents, or occasionally adoptions. Parents will fight for their right to maintain custody of a child, even if it means destroying the child in the process. Often they will rip apart their former spouse in front of their child, ignoring the need of every child to love both mommy and daddy. Their concern is with their own needs, not the needs of their children.

Most parents claim they love their children. Yet too many parents have children to fulfill some kind of inner need they have, to satisfy their own ego, to live out their dreams. This is the meaning behind the old joke about the mother who points to her three year old and her five year old, "This is the doctor and this is the lawyer." This problem of living our lives through our children seems to be a particular weakness of Jewish parents. We even have a phrase for it - naches from the kinder. Too often we receive our own ego satisfaction from the professional success of our children.

We will be most successful in raising our children if we view parenting not as fulfilling our particular needs, but rather fulfill ing the needs of the child. Setting aside our needs for someone else entails sacrifice. As any successful parent will tell you, it is in the sacrifice that we discovery the true joy of parenthood.

Parshat Vayetze

(November 20, 1999)

"Give me children or I will die." (Genesis 30:1)

"Give me children or I will die," cried Rachel to her husband Jacob. Jacob, rather than hugging her and comforting her, answered with anger. "Am I in God's stead to give you children."

To Rachel, infertility was a kind of a death. In fact, the Talmud compares infertility to death. Unfortunately, there are no mourning rituals for this kind of death, no shiva, no kaddish. Infertile couples feel alone, with no tradition for the community to give comfort. Having gone through infertility myself, I can testify that it is a kind of death.

My own rabbinic counseling has taught me that there are many losses that are a kind of a death. I have met with people coping with grievous losses - divorce, illness, bankruptcy, family estrange ment, the loss of dreams. The mourning symptoms for all of these losses can be the same as when a loved one dies. There is shock, anger, guilt, depression, loss of faith, loneliness. Once again, there are no traditional rituals to help people cope with these kind of losses. Often they feel alone. To make matters worse, sometimes long time members of the synagogue will drift away when facing these crises in their lives.

How can we deal with these kind of losses? There is a fascinat ing insight from Jacob's grandfather Abraham. He and his wife Sarah also faced infertility. Abraham prayed for the pagan king Abimelech when the wombs of the women of Abimelech's kingdom closed up. God cured Abimelech, then in the next Biblical scene, God blessed Abraham and Sarah with a baby. Rashi comments that by praying for someone else facing the same crisis, Abraham and Sarah found their own cure.

In this brief passage is a powerful word of wisdom towards those suffering from a loss. When we turn outward and help others, we soon find our own relief. When cancer patients visit other cancer pa tients and give them support and comfort, they soon find their own healing. Their cancer may not be cured, but they find a sense of purpose and meaning. So it is with any loss. When we help others, we soon find that our own spirits are uplifted.

There are support groups for virtually every kind of pain and sadness we humans encounter. There are groups for infertility, for divorce, for a variety of illnesses, for those struggling with difficult children or difficult parents, for those dealing with addictions of all sorts, and certainly, for the bereaved. These groups are led by others who have suffered the same loss, felt the same death. Now, by helping others, they find relief from their own pain.

There is no simple solution to the many deaths life gives us. Time is a healer, as is counseling. Many religious institutions are introducing healing rituals. Perhaps the greatest healer is acts of loving kindness towards others facing the same pain. How true it is that the more gifts we give to others, the more we feel that we ourselves have received those gifts.

Parshat Vayishlach

(November 27, 1999)

"Now Dinah the daughter of Leah who was born to Jacob went out to visit the daughters of the land." (Genesis 34:1)

The woman who called me, although not a member of my synagogue, was extremely upset and seeking my advice. Her almost seventeen year old daughter had run away. She had encountered difficulties in school for a long time and had recently dropped out. Now the girl had left home. The mother discovered that her daughter had moved in with her boy friend and his family. And she was pregnant.

I questioned the woman and found out some more information about her daughter. We discussed various strategies on how to deal with her. Then I asked a question, although I already sensed what the answer would be. "Is the girl's father involved?" The woman an swered, "My husband left us when our daughter was very young. She has been raised without a father."

Certainly not every daughter raised by a single mom drops out of school, runs away, and becomes pregnant. And plenty of young ladies get into trouble who are raised by two active, involved parents. Nonetheless, my experience in the rabbinate has taught me that fathers have a profound influence, particularly on daughters. Too often, without a daddy to love her and guide her, she seeks male affection in the wrong place.

We see this scenario clearly played out in this week's Torah reading. Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob and Leah, went out among the Canaanite daughters of the land. Schem the son of Hamor seduced (or raped) her, and then wanted to marry her. Who is the bad guy in this story? On the surface it appears to be Schem, whose lack of self-control around Dinah led to the slaughter of all the men of his community. A careful look at the Hebrew places responsibility closer to home.

The rabbinic commentators put some blame on Dinah herself. Rashi said that she was a yatzanit a girl who went out in an inappro priate way. Today we would say that she was the kind of girl who stayed out late, hung out in clubs, partied, lived in the fast lane, dressed provocatively, did not behave like a nice Jewish girl. That certainly does not excuse Schem's behavior, but it does imply that Dinah displayed her own lack of self-control that led to these events.

Why was Dinah this kind of girl? The Torah gives a hint. "Now Dinah the daughter of Leah who was born to Jacob went out to visit the daughters of the land." (Genesis 34:1) Note that it says Dinah the daughter of Leah who was born to Jacob, rather than the more customary usage Dinah the daughter of Jacob. Dinah was raised by her mother. Jacob is merely identified as the sperm donor; he was not an ongoing presence in his daughter's life.

The story of Dinah is a story about fathering, particularly the fathering of a daughter. Fatherhood does take on a particular importance when raising daughters. A little girl learns to love a man by first learning to love her daddy. If he has been a constant presence in her life, as an adult she will hopefully transfer that love to a man in a mature relationship. Without a daddy's presence, too many young ladies like Dinah, like the almost seventeen year old girl I spoke of, seek male affection in premature, inappropriate relationships.