Profile Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Showing posts with label The cost of keeping peaceful in a home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The cost of keeping peaceful in a home. Show all posts

Monday, July 30, 2018

How a Family Can Live in Peace and the Price of Peace


Shalom Bayis Beth Din
By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn
The purpose of Shalom Bayis Beth Din is to promote Shalom Bayis. We have a group of activists working with us and a group of Talmidei Chachomim. Our goal is not to divide the children and the properties between husband and wife in a broken marriage and divorce, but rather to introduce Torah attitudes to improve the marriage and make Shalom.

ושמח את אשתו


 The Torah teaches[1] “When a man marries a new wife, he shall not go out to the army, nor shall obligations to the military for any reason apply to him; for one year he shall be completely involved with his house, and he shall make his wife that he took, rejoice.”
Rashi explains that this means “He shall make his wife rejoice. And one who translates this and ‘he shall rejoice together with his wife’ is in error, because it means he must make his wife rejoice, not himself.” The same idea is in the Zohar in this part of the Torah, that the husband must make his wife happy, not himself.
The Raishis Chochmo, a major commentary, says that this applies to money.[2] “This means that he must honor her constantly with money and clothes more than his means.”
A house where the husband sacrifices his own wants to honor his wife is a house of peace. A house where the husband and wife argue about who gets what with the money or clothing is a house with one foot somewhere else.
And what is the proper way for a woman to behave? The Raishis Chochmo says[3] “Moshe was commanded to teach Torah to the women before the men, because the ladies guide their children to go to learn Torah in school, and watch them carefully that they learn Torah, and they have mercy on them when they come from school, and speak to them nice things, and watch them that they don’t waste time from Torah learning, and they teach the children fear of heaven when they are young. And it is thus that righteous women create Torah and fear of heaven.
“And a woman should be careful that when her husband comes from work and he is tired and drained, that she urge him to spend time learning Torah and to give charity.”
The Raishis Chochmo continues at great length about the proper path of the female. And he has much to say about how men should behave as well. See what he writes about the path of humility for the man, how he must control his anger and flee honor. See there the chapter on humility chapter two and elsewhere.
The point is that all people have problems with anger and other bad traits. The Chofetz Chaim used to closet himself in a shull and cry with great tears to HaShem. Somebody once followed him to see what he was doing in shull on a regular basis. He heard the Chofetz Chaim cry out to HaShem standing before the Oron HaKodesh, “Master of the Universe! I am a Cohen. And a Cohen has a tendency to become angry. Please save me from anger.” So what should we say?
 In a video, I talked about love and fear in the house, and I claimed that in a house, if a father once lets loose with his frustration even a word or two, and a child is pained, nobody knows the cost of that anger. Therefore, fear is crucial to teach a person control in the house, especially in the house with his close family.  Because what we do to insult strangers passes, as they don’t really care. But a family does care and may never forget.
Therefore, let us fear, and let us love, and let us pray that we behave. It is not so simple. If the Chofetz Chaim had to constantly pray in front of the Aron HaKodesh not to have anger, one of the worst traits, what does that mean for us?



[1] Devorim 24,5
[2] Raishis Chochmo chapter on Derech Erets page 266 – Derech Erets the man with his wife
[3] Perek Derech Erets page 255 “The fourth gate is the Derech Erets appropriate for women”