What is the foundation of your intimate relationship?
Have you ever watched a movie that has two protagonists: one male and one female? Oh, and they both happen to be attractive. They begin the story as strangers, but over the course of a few days, they experience a number of life-threatening and life-changing adventures. In the final scenes, after the dust has cleared, they realize that they are now madly in love and ride happily together into the sunset.
Just 90% of movies coming out of this place
Our Torah portion similarly begins with the story of a beautiful woman. A man sees her after the heat of battle, desires her, and marries her post-haste.
Did Hollywood take their plot lines from the Torah? I heard there are a lot of Jews there…
But unlike most of these movies, the Torah tells us what happens after the more exciting parts of the story. The Torah goes on to infer that the husband in our story will begin hating his wife. It then further predicts that their son will be rebellious.
The relationship seemed to start on such a positive note! He was a war hero, she was a beauty. He loved her so much. Why is it progressing so poorly?
To understand this better, it might help to juxtapose this with another relationship that appears in the Torah this week. The Torah speaks of a man who, after marrying his wife, puts his first year with her on hold. He doesn’t march off to war to be a hero. He doesn’t obligate himself in any new major civic duties. He frees up his calendar and spends the first year of their relationship focusing on making her happy.
Tellingly, this second story isn’t followed by ominous predictions like the previous story.
So what is the difference? Why does the first story end in tragedy while the second ends happily ever after?
In the first story, the man is focused on what he can get; in the second, he is focused on what he can give. In the first story, he desired her because she was beautiful, but made no effort to make her happy. In the second, the man pauses his own ambitions in the world so that he can have time to focus on giving to his wife.
Relationships built around taking only last as long as the traits that inspired the desire to begin with. And, unfortunately, for those involved, things like beauty and strength fade over time. On the other hand, relationships built around two people giving to each other have the power to last through almost any challenge.
It may be fun to watch the prototypical Hollywood movie, but it’s good to remember that they don’t show you what happens after the infatuation fades…
When my wife was looking for her marriage partner (spoiler alert: it was me), Rabbi Mitch Goldstein advised her that marriage isn’t “happily ever after”; it’s “work ever after”.
If you put in the effort to give to the other person, you will build your relationship every day.
Build your relationships the healthy way. Build them by giving.
