Behaalosecha - Marriage: The Harmony of Polar Opposites

2:43 The lecha ksuvah, the lo ramah betigre Because when it comes to a wedding There's a prenuptial agreement called the Ksuvah. The Ksuvah says what the responsibilities are of the husband to the wife, and what would happen, how much he would owe her if they got divorced. We know that a Ksuvah at a wedding could cause argumentativeness; it could cause contentiousness, and that's because when Klal Yisrael received the Mitzvah or the Isser of not marrying your krovim. They were upset by it. Since they were upset by it, there's still argumentativeness around the wedding. There are obviously a lot of questions on this Gemara. Let's start. We're going to ask five questions on this Gemara. Question number one. It seems like there's some connection here between Mila The mitzvah of Bris Mila And Arayus and the Isser of marrying one of your krovim, one of your close relatives Because the Gemara puts them together. It's not accidental that the Gemara chose, of all the mitzvos that the Gemara could have chosen, that Klal Yisrael accepted the Simcha. It specifically highlights Mila. And of all the averos that Klal Yisrael specifically argued against, that they were upset by it, it's Arayos. So what do Mila and Arayos have to do with each other? These are obviously not two fundamentally different things. There must be some connection between these two things. That's question number one.

4:14 Question number two: The question that at least everybody here in the beginning area of the Beit Midrash had, as soon as I said it Why was Klal Yisrael upset by the idea that they could not marry their close relatives? I would imagine that was totally unnatural. So what is this? What is the pshat that Klal Yisrael is like? We can't marry our siblings. We can't. Of course not. That seems so foreign to us that Klal Yisrael wouldn't accept. I would imagine that if a Kolish Baruch came along and told Moshe Rabenu, and Moshe Rabenu said, "No marrying your kroven," every one of us would have been like, "of course. We don't even need an iser" Let alone to be upset by it. So that's question number two. What were they so upset by? Question number three. A wedding is a time Beis Hashem. Of tremendous simcha.

5:15 I give everyone here a bracha that when it comes to their chasna There should be only shalom. There should be only shalom bias. Bez Hashem, the engagement should go smooth. Parents should like each other. Everybody, Bez Hashem, should have an easy simcha. And of course, even though this is not part of the sheir, it goes without saying. But those things that go without saying are often the things that need saying. There is nothing kimaat, nothing that happens by a wedding that's worth fighting about. It's a five six hour party. Just let it go. Stay with shalom. None of it matters. Beis Hashem. At the end of the night, you'll be married. So who cares about this or that? Don't worry about anything. Fagin everything. Just make shalom. The wedding is going to be Beis Hashem. It's going to be a time of great simcha. So Why is it that the k'suva?

6:04 Why is it that the k'suva causes such argumentativeness? There are many financial things that happen that people could fight about. It's specifically a k'suva that people fight about at a wedding. That's a very strange concept. Not only that, the fourth question. What is k'suva? The k'suva is the prenuptial agreement. It's what happens if they get divorced. Lots of things could cause fights. Seems like Chazal are saying this thing specifically causes fights. That's question number three. Why specifically this? And question number four, built off of question number three, what in the world does k'suva have to do with arayas? What does prenuptial agreement have to do with the fact that Kol D'Kodesh Baruch Hu said you're not allowed to marry your krovim? Those are four questions. I think those are five questions. I got the four. Wait. So what was the fourth? Then we'll keep it at four.

7:01 What was the fourth one? The fourth one was. What is the prenuptial agreement and the responsibilities that the couple has to each other? What does that have to do with the issar of marrying your relatives? Those seem to be two totally separate things. So just because I Because Kalal Yisrael was upset by the argument and was argumentative with Moshe Rabenu when he said you're not allowed to marry your krovim. So now today Aksuva has fighting over it. What does one thing have to do with the other? Those seem to be two very disparate things. So we have four questions. So I want to start with a Ramban that it's a Ramban in Parsha Achrei Mos, not in this week's Parsha. The Ramban in Parsha Achrei Mos answers the question of why it would be natural In theory, for people to want to marry their closest relatives.

7:50 So the Ramban says in Achrei Mos And you'll see that it's not so strange. Obviously, it goes without saying that illicit relationships. Our usher, and that's not—we're not trying to like find a natural quality to it. We're trying to find like, why would they be upset by this? It's very difficult for people who come from different cultures to marry each other. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. It's not an easy thing. I know of a crazy story about two Swartie brothers. They discovered there was a certain amount of people in their family that kept getting certain illnesses. They had genetic testing. The doctors told them, 'You cannot marry people. You can't marry Sfarati people. You can't marry people from your region. There's a genetic disease that you have. You need to marry Ashkenazim.' These two Sfarati brothers both ended up marrying girls who were Yekkes from Germanic descent from Germany. That is as far as you could go. If you know the culture of Yekis and you know the culture of Sfardim, you're talking about

9:05 And from what I understand, they have beautiful marriages. I'm not sure about any details, but I'm told that it's a fascinating thing when these white boys show up at their in-laws for Seder or for Rosh Hashanah. What's it like for them to go daven with their father-in-law? Culture can make a very big difference when you're marrying. Into two different cultures, or let's take it a step further. It's hard to marry out of your family. It's even hard to marry out of your family. Different families come with different expectations. So let's say, for example, you grew up in a home where your father takes care of the money. And he grew up in a home where his mother took care of the money. So you come from families with two very different expectations and sometimes merging people from two different families becomes very challenging. One imagines that, especially back in the day, by Har Sinai, people came from different shvotim. People came from different tribes. Each tribe had their own unique character. The Ramban says they had a natural desire to keep things very easy.

10:19 To merge two totally disparate things is very, very difficult. To take two things that come from different cultures, from different tribes, from different families, with all the complexities that they grew up with, and now you merge them into a new home is very, very difficult. Why people were upset by Har Sinai that they could no longer marry their krovim is because it made marriage so much more challenging. I'll share with you. I had a talmud who got married, and he's the sweetest guy in the world. This is a guy that you would never expect to have any shalom bayis issues. A real balmidos, a wonderful person. About three months into his marriage I spoke to him on the phone and I said, "How's everything going?" And he said, "Rebbe" Girls notice everything. I said, "Yeah." He's like, "I don't notice anything." I'm like, "Right, because you're a guy." There's a major difference between guys and girls. I don't know if I ever told you this. I showed up to my wife's house when we were engaged. I went to the door. She opens the door. We're sitting there talking. She goes, "Do you notice anything different about me?" I was like No.

11:38 " She's like, "I am wearing a shaytall." I was like Oh. She asked, 'Do you like it?' I said, 'Yeah.' I couldn't even tell the difference. There's a major difference between guys and girls. Girls notice, guys don't notice. I'll give you another example of this. I was dating my wife And after this date It was over. The relationship wasn't going to go anymore. Why? I noticed that my wife—again, she wasn't my wife back then—but I noticed that she was not present on the date. I kept trying to figure out how to you know. Do something more engaging. Try to keep it going. And it was a long date, and I was trying to be really nice. She had to go somewhere. She didn't have a car. I drove her there. I waited. It just wasn't going. I was like, okay, I guess it's over. It turned out that when my wife was getting ready for the date She tried on two different pairs of shoes to see which one matched better.

12:37 She put one shoe on one foot and one shoe on the other, and when she got into the car, she realized she was still wearing two different shoes. So the entire date, she was preoccupied by keeping one shoe behind the other so that I wouldn't notice she was wearing two different shoes. I thought it was the worst date ever. She was trying not to let me know. I explained to her, I never would have noticed, and in a million years, I would never. And by the way, if I did notice, I would be like. Cool, it's a new trend. People wear two different shoes. I, Pasha, wouldn't have thought anything about it. It's very hard to take people who are from different sections of the species. In fact, I'll go even farther. We're two different species completely. Men and women are from Mars, women are from Venus. Two totally different species, two totally different families, two totally different tribes, two totally different cultures. It's almost like this is how you know Hashem has a sense of humor and says, "Let's put them in one house and see what happens." That's not an easy thing to do. So let's remove as much friction as possible. Keep it in the family.

13:40 Keep it in the family. That's what Kal Yisrael wanted. Hashem says, no, you can't marry Krovim. There's an Isser Arias. So now we've answered potentially one question, but we still have many, many more questions left to answer. So let's take another step back. With this in mind, what is the idea behind marriage? Why is it that Hashem demands from us that there should be distance in order to have marriage? Why do we need to be two totally disparate things, separate not only in gender but separate in family, separate in tribe, separate in culture? Why do we need so much distance in order to create oneness? In fact, I'll go one step further. Really, I'm going to give you a little bit of a spoiler alert. I want to ask the same question, but from a different perspective. Based on Hashem, you're going to have shalom bayis. Based on Hashem, everything is going to go well in your marriage.

14:38 However That's not what marriage looks like. Marriage is not a flat, straight line where everything goes well. It's a series of ups and downs. There are times of concealment. There are times of distance. There are times when we feel unattached, and there are times when we feel more attached. What do we do in times when we're experiencing not the oneness of marriage, which is where we experience the beauty of marriage? What do we do when we are really minutak? When we're really disconnected? When we're feeling totally separate and other? When I feel and this can happen to couples over time. They can grow apart from each other. You've heard that phrase before, like we grew apart from each other. What happens then? What happens when things are local? Be good, but what happens in those times where. Even in an extreme way, we feel very distant, and hopefully less than that. Just times of distance. What do we do then?

15:35 So let's say this: When Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world Whom did He desire to have a relationship with? He desired not to have a relationship with the Malachim. He desires to have a relationship with us. Why is that? Why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu say I want you, not the malachim? If anything, you would say it's the opposite. What does our Kadosh Baruch Hu love? He loves a malach. Doesn't a malach listen to Hashem always? A malach can't go against the will of Hashem. Wouldn't that be an awesome relationship with someone who's mamish with you the entire time? And isn't a malach so similar to Hashem? It doesn't have any of the concealment of the physical bodies that we have. So one would naturally think that our Kadosh Baruch Hu creates aylam ha'se elyonim. He creates spiritual worlds full of malachim. And what does our Kadosh Baruch Hu desire? He desires them.

16:26 Or even if you want to say he desires human beings, what type of human beings does he desire? He desires the human beings that are like malachim. So does Hakadosh Baruch Hu love me? He loves the tzaddikim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves all the gedolei Yisrael that all they do is sit and learn Torah and do amazing chesed for Klal Yisrael. That's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves. Does Hakadosh Baruch Hu love the sinner? From our perspective, what would we say? We might chas v'shalom come to think. A kodesh baruch who doesn't love a person who sins. A kodesh baruch who loves the perfect person. I'm not the perfect person. A kodesh baruch who doesn't love me. He loves malachim or people that are like malachim, but he doesn't love me. I'm not always as sneas as I should be. I'm not always as refined as I should be. I don't always have as much dignity as I should have. I don't always do the right thing. In fact, sometimes I do the wrong thing. So kodesh baruch who's not interested in me. A kodesh baruch who's interested in the malach.

17:17 But that's a very strange thing to think. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu is interested, he creates a whole physical world with billions of people. And he's only interested in the top point zero one percent of human beings that are able to reach that level. It's not true. That's not what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants. The Medrash in Parshas Naso says Nesave Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios lo yisbarach dir v'tachteinu. What does Hakadosh Baruch Hu desire? A dwelling place in the world down below. Who does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want? The people that live down below. Who lives down below? Who lives in a low place? That's us. SpongeBob. SpongeBob is an excellent answer. I'm sorry, not everybody got to hear you say it. It was such a perfect answer for that moment. SpongeBob and the people that say SpongeBob, right? I call Baruch who loves those people. And the people that know who SpongeBob is. And all that comes along with knowing who SpongeBob is.

18:13 I call Baruch who loves the greatest sinner. As much as he loves the greatest tzadik There's to Hakadosh Baruch Hu his love is infinite for every single one of us. Why is that? Why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu love that which is the most opposite of him? How do you know that? Because the Medrash in Parshas Naso says, Netzaveh Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios leisbarch dira betachtayim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires a dwelling place in the world down below. Which means, who does he want to live with? He wants to live here in the physical world with physical people. Physical people, what do we do? We're not always perfect. What do physical people do? Physical people do all the things that physical people do. So what's the pshat? So I'll tell you the pshat, or I'll tell you a pshat. I don't know the pshat. I'll tell you a pshat. I think it's a good pshat.

19:02 It's not impressive. If you want to speak about oneness It's not impressive to be one with something that's obviously like you. That's not impressive. A girl comes to seminary, and she has a friend, and the friend is exactly like her. They came from the same place. They both went to NCSY. They both went to this school. They both did. It's not impressive. In fact That girl, in a certain way, here's a key word. She's not stretching herself. You hear the word? She's not stretching herself. What does it mean to stretch yourself? To stretch yourself means I can learn to live with somebody. Who drives me crazy? I can learn to live with somebody who's not like me at all. What we often don't realize when we're growing up—remember when you went to camp

19:56 For the first time you're not living, you're living in your house with your siblings. You can fight. You're used to it, right? Everybody has their own way of dealing with it. Then you went to camp and you're in a bunk and you're like, I don't get to control how this goes and I can't just yell at everyone to have everything done the way I want, and you have to learn to live with people who are not like you. Remember that? Remember when you came to seminary in the beginning of the year and that girl liked the temperature at this temperature in the apartment and that, right? Okay, a little too close to home for some of you. Yeah, temperature is a big fight. Sleeping time is a big fight. She's on her phone after the lights are out. We can't go to sleep. She doesn't have her AirPods in. She's not sensitive. Right? Remember all those fights in the beginning of the year? Yeah, by the way, for all of you who just betrayed yourselves, thank you so much. Yeah.

20:44 It's impressive that at the end of the year, not only have those girls not killed each other It's impressive that they might even become best friends. It's impressive when you have I love that. It's impressive. I'm with you. I'm watching. By the way, I now know who rooms with who. Every one of you, while I was saying it, kept looking at your roommates. It's impressive when you have people that come from a variety of backgrounds and they learn to live with each other and even to love each other. That's impressive. If you want to know how infinite Hashem is You don't see Hashem's infinity. You don't see His sense of oneness with the entire world if you look at a malach. You look at a malach, you're like that's Hashem. It's impressive when Hashem says I can have a relationship with something that appears to me to be diametrically opposed to me.

21:46 Because at the level of the essence, at the level of the soul, we have so much in common. If you strip away all of everything else, all the stuff about someone, what are you left with? We are two souls that are really one. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, when I create the world, it's not interesting to me to have a relationship with malachim. That's like having a relationship with a close relative. It's interesting to me to be able to find somebody who's not like me at all. And to have a relationship with them. That's why they say opposites attract. There's something very profound about somebody who's the exact opposite of you. And yet somehow it works. He's very intellectual, she's very artistic, and yet somehow it works. That is an expression of oneness. That's a true expression of oneness. Because the fact that he's an intellectual and the fact that she's an artist are only things about the other person.

22:45 But they're not the actual other person. You hear the difference? The actual other person and me, we have a lot in common. We have one soul. When we get married What's impressive? Is it not that we married somebody who was like us, who came from the same family, who had the same upbringing? That's not impressive. You know what's impressive? What's impressive is you went out You found somebody from the other species, somebody from another family who grew up with a totally different upbringing, and you said, "I'm going to dedicate my life to finding the oneness that we share." Why is this important? Why is this absolutely mission critical for marriage? What happens in the really bad times? What happens in the times when people are super distant from each other? People change. People change over time. People grow up. They mature. They might even establish different value systems. The person that you married at 21 or 22 might look very different at 30 or 40 or 50. What do you do then?

24:08 So the answer is, and this is the hardest thing in the world to hear, and it may be the hardest thing in the world to do, but this is the most important thing you could do. To understand that the distance between you is the greatest opportunity you have to develop oneness in your marriage. When everything is going well, it's not impressive. If everything is going well, that's great, awesome, good for you. That's an amazing time. Hold on to those moments. Because when everything is not going well And there's nothing about the way the other person is showing up that you feel connected to. That's when you have the opportunity to say the only thing that we have in common is the fact that we're soulmates. Because everything else has fallen away. Maybe we don't share the same value system anymore. But when everything else has fallen away, we're still deeply connected.

25:01 I want to share with you an amazing story. I don't know if I shared it with you before. I forget which stories I tell where. A buddy of mine got engaged. His father-in-law sat him down. And he said to him, "Stop me if I told you this story already." He sat him down and he said, "I want to ask you a favor." I want you to take my daughter out to eat once a week. This is really important. Because if you just say you're gonna go out to eat and then you don't, you're gonna be losing out on valuable time. If you say we don't need to go out to eat every week, we could just take a walk. You won't end up doing it. You need to have a date night every single Thursday night or every single Sunday night, whatever it is. You have to go out to eat with my daughter. He said this is so important that I'll tell you what. It's gonna cost you seventy-five dollars a night.

25:50 I'll sponsor the first year. It's not that expensive. If you think about it, it's three hundred bucks a month. That's thirty-six hundred dollars a year. That's not so expensive, and he said to him, 'Thirty-six hundred dollars a year is a lot cheaper than marriage therapy.' It's a lot cheaper than marriage therapy. Make the investment," he said. "If you promise me you'll do it, I'll give you the first thirty-six hundred dollars. Afterwards, it's on you. He said, "That's a great idea." He took the check, and he did it every year, and they did not miss. They were machbid every single week. Daf got to go out to eat, not to take a walk. This way, they had time. No matter what was going on in the week, this was our sacred time where we don't do anything else. We're just with each other. Years and years went by And my buddy He fell on hard times. I don't know what happened.

26:42 But he was basically a guy who was learning and davening and studying. He was really a growth-oriented person. Again, I don't like to put people in boxes, but he probably identified as a yeshivish guy. He went with the black hat. And one day he was like, "I'm out." I don't want this anymore. He stopped davening, he stopped learning, he took off the hat. He told me he didn't break Shabbos, but he could have, meaning he was totally minutak. It was a very difficult time for his family. You can imagine what that's like. You're married to somebody, and all of a sudden they're not so observant anymore. And. He was going through. He was trying to figure it out. He was, he had started smoking up again. He was going through a lot. He was going through a lot. No judgment. Whatever he was going through a lot.

27:31 At the end of the story Crazy story, he ended up in Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Today, he's Breislov. Fine, let's say that. I don't know why the story always ends that way, but that's the way the story ends. So he managed to become a Breislover. And he says, "Taken kolly," and he started a Braslav shul in the neighborhood. He's a very geshmat guy, and that's what he's doing with his life now. So I schmoozed him. Maybe about a year afterwards. After a year he became braslav I said, "What was it like?" What was it like for your family? What was it like for your wife when you were going through this tefucha? He said, "My kids think I'm crazy." My kids think I'm crazy. Imagine kids are growing up with a father, and then one day he's not so observant, and then the next day he's braslav. Said my kids, they think I'm just fundamentally unstable.

28:19 It didn't impact my shalom bias at all. In fact, if I would have gone totally off the derech My wife and I could have stayed married. I said, really? He said. That's what happens when you make the investment every single week of going out to eat. For I guess it was at that time I think like 18 or 19 years. Every single week we went out to eat, and we developed that kesher so strong with each other that even when all the things about each other became different We were still deeply connected. That is impressive. It's impressive that his relationship was so strong that she said, "I could stay married to him even if he stopped keeping Shabbos. If he stopped keeping Shabbos, we'll have to figure out how to negotiate. How do we tell the kids?" What do we tell the kids? What's it going to look like in our home? But we could stay married even if one of us isn't keeping Shabbos. In fact, there's a woman. She goes around speaking. An Israeli woman.

29:19 It's a crazy story. She became a balashtuva here in Eretz Yisrael. She became a balashtuva, and her husband wasn't from at all. And she went to Rebbez and Kanievsky to ask what to do. The rabbi said, "you'll have two separate dishes, two separate pots and pans." He'll have his pots and pans that aren't kosher. You'll have your pots and pans that are kosher. They would go to their family for Shabbos. They get together for Shabbat. They used to drive. She says, "I'm not, I'm gonna go but I'm gonna walk. If you want to drive, you could drive, but I'm gonna walk." And so she would walk, and he would drive. Eventually, he started driving next to her. She would walk. It would take her an hour or so to walk, and he would just sit there, coasting and doing whatever little neutral thing, and he would escort her wherever they were going for Shabbos.

30:14 The story has a good end, but I don't want you to get lost in the ending of the story. It happens to be that at the end he became from also, but that's not the point. And he's breastless. And he went to Uman. That's not the end of the story. But that's not the point. The point is Loving somebody, being one with somebody, is deeper than sharing a value system. It's deeper than sharing a culture. It's deeper than sharing a way of being. Dr. Palkowitz is a famous psychologist. He quotes his father, who was a very famous rabbi in America. Rabbi Palkowitz was the rabbi of the white shul in Far Rockaway. He was a tremendous person. Rabbi Palkowitz used to say, and Dr. Palkowitz always quotes this. Couples don't need to think alike; they need to think together. There's a big difference between thinking alike and thinking together. If you try to think alike, it's not going to happen. But you could think together. Two people who have opposite ideas could come together to think about things as a couple. That's impressive because you have your way of thinking and I have my way of thinking, and we could collaborate and negotiate and figure out what we want to do together as a family. That's an expression of oneness.

31:29 We have a choice when it comes to conflict. The choice is as follows: we can either cut bait and run and say I want to marry somebody who's similar to me and we grew apart. Or we could say we've grown apart. Now is the perfect opportunity to really discover the shared essence that we have. Let's go back to that Gemara for a second. It's a fascinating thing the Gemara put together. One mitzvah, Klal Yisrael accepted besimcha. The other mitzvah, Klal Yisrael was very upset about. What was the mitzvah they were besimcha about? A mitzvah that involves cutting something off Removing something. It's easy to think about removing something. It's like I'm cutting off that thing I don't want in my life anymore. I'm cutting it off. That's what a lot of us want to do, right? If you have a part of yourself that you don't like, what do people want? I just want to get rid of it. That's what people say all the time. I have anger issues. I want to get rid of my anger issues. I want to cut it off. I'm not interested in doing the hard work to understand this part of me and to understand how it's trying to protect me and to understand its beauty and to acknowledge it and display gratitude and integrate it into my system.

32:38 Which is a much harder and much more sophisticated process. I'd rather just be done with it. And this is why people suppress. I have anger issues. My avoda is now: whenever I get angry, just don't get angry. You ever see people like that? I'm just not going to get angry. And we think that's psychosis. It's not. It's not sitkus. You didn't integrate that anger into yourself. You just cut it off. It's easy to cut things off. And there's times when there's a mitzvah to cut off something. That's a mitzvah called bris mila. There's a mitzvah, but we're besimcha about it because it's easier to say, "I want to get rid of the thing that's blocking me. I want to get rid of it. I want to get rid of it." We're besimcha about such a mitzvah. But when it comes to creating distance, I have to marry somebody who's outside of my family. I can't marry somebody. You want me to integrate something that's far away. You want me to become one with something that appears to have nothing to do with me. How do you want me to do that?

33:32 How do you want me to do that? But that is the nature of marriage. The reason why there's an iser of arayas, as strange as this sounds, is because we would want to marry somebody who's like us. We would want to marry somebody who's perfectly designed to live with us in harmony. And that's why that couple, where the guy calls me up and he goes, Rebbe, girls notice everything exactly. You're going to have to learn to live with these guys, and they're going to have to learn to live with you. And that's crazy hard. Because these guys that you see in the street, they're your future husbands. Those guys are your husbands. It's like really? That guy's barely human. Right? That guy That guy, the guy. Men and women are so different. For a man, laundry is like a vicinity. There's a place in the room where general laundry goes. There might be a basket in that vicinity also, but the laundry does not go in the basket. The laundry goes near the basket, around the basket. Where do socks belong, girls? On the floor. Wherever you take them off. That is the right place for socks. Correct. And your response to that is. Wrong answer. Socks have a destination. That destination is in a receptacle.

34:50 And I'm willing to do the laundry. I just want it to be in the basket. This is a source of contentiousness in a marriage. Why can't you pick up your socks? Why? Men soak dishes. I'm very good at soaking the dishes. Do you know what soak means? Soaking the dishes means I'm preparing them to be washed. Sometimes they actually get washed. In my dira, if my wife would have seen my dira when I was in yeshiva, when I was living in America Dishes were like once a week. It was when mold was growing, it's probably time to wash up. It's probably time to clean. Obviously, for those of you having visceral reactions, shaking? Obviously, that's not the right thing. But that is the way. Men are, boys are very different than girls. So you're telling me we're going to have to put these two kids together and they're going to get married?

35:49 How in the world is that going to work? How's that going to work? And also, we have very different personalities. I'm not talking just men and women. Some people are more, I need things to be in a certain way, and some people are zoreim. Some people are very relaxed. It can be hard sometimes if a wife comes in and she has a very specific way of doing things, and a guy's like, and this is what men do, and it's not their fault. They just go Why being so uptight? And go. Why am I being uptight? Now it's like we're off to the races. You're gonna have to learn to integrate and become one with things that are very different than you. But that is the single most growth-oriented thing you'll ever do. Nothing will change you like getting married. All the classes that you take in seminary will pale in comparison to the radical changes that you will have over five, ten, fifteen, twenty years of being married. It's quite possible that you'll see each other in 20 years and be like, 'I remember her in seminary. She's a completely different person.'

36:48 She's not a completely different person just because she matured and got older and had responsibilities. She's a different person because she had to learn to unite things which are completely the opposite of each other. And I see it all the time. I see these guys that get married at 21, 22 years old. Five years later, it's like you're talking to an adult. What happened? I remembered you at 18. I have a Talmud. I don't want to give any details about where he's holding in his life. He's a wonderful person. He's doing great things in his life. I remember the first night of yeshiva, the first Friday night of yeshiva. My family was in yeshiva. The boys were playing a game. I don't know the name of the game. Maybe you know the name of the game, where you say numbers one to ten. Two people say the numbers at the same exact time. Numbers. It's called numbers. I think so. That'd be a great name for it. And if you say the same number, then there's like a punishment.

37:39 So I remember the first Friday night of yeshiva. We're sitting there, and the boys are playing this game. And this boy got like they both got five at the same time. And the boy went like! And he just took the plate of chumos and boom, smashed his face right into it. And my wife and I are dying of laughter. And now I see him, and Baruch Hashem, it's a long time later, and in my head he's still the guy that smashes his face into a plate of chumos. But out in the world, he's like a respected, mature individual now. Who's like doing important things? Like I don't want to say any more details, but he's doing good things with his life. Yet to me, you're always going to be the doofus. But you know, he grew up, he matured. What changed? I know exactly what he got married. He got married, and fundamentally, all of a sudden, it's like I'm going to have to learn to speak a different language. Remember, men and women speak different languages. We're going to have to learn ways of being that work for us together as a couple. It's really, really hard to do that.

38:34 With this in mind, we can understand why we have a kssuvah at a wedding. Could you imagine at a gayish wedding if they read the prenuptial agreement out loud? Like you imagine, you have the priest there Or whoever is officiating the ceremony And he goes, "We will now read the prenuptial agreement out loud." They call up the most honored guest. That's who reads the kssuvah. Some chashev erav reads the kssuvah under the chuppah. They call up the most honored guest, and he goes If they get divorced, he will pay X amount in alimony and X amount in child support. Could you imagine? It would never happen. And yet, what do we do at a Jewish wedding? It's exactly what we do. We take out the kessua, they read the kessua, and then what happens? The masader kedushim will take the kessua. He'll give it to the chasun. And while two Adam are watching, the Chassan gives it over to the Kallah. It's a part of. It's called Masiras Ksuvah. It's a part of the Chuppah process, and you actually have to receive it. You're receiving the Ksuvah. Why is the Ksuvah so fundamental to the marriage process? In fact, even though Ksuvah is only in the Rabbanon

39:46 The Rambam says in the Koteris of the Yara Chazaka by Ishas over there, he says the mitzvah is Lisa Ishah be Ksuvah ve Kedushin. That you marry a woman with a k'suva, even though the Rambam there is listing the deroraisas, and this ostensibly is the derabanan. Why he did that is a subject of a lot of conversation. The fact is, according to the Rambam, the k'suva is a fundamental part of getting married. Why? It's a prenuptial agreement. Why is it so fundamental? Perhaps one answer is, at least from a hashkafic perspective, if not from a halachic perspective, because nothing represents the concept of two things becoming one. More than recognizing that in theory this could not work. In theory, this thing that we're doing is really hard to do, and there is a parsha of divorce in the Torah. And there are times when it's even appropriate.

40:39 The recognition under the chuppah that this is two totally separate units coming together—that is what's absolutely critical to a marriage. You have to recognize you guys are two. Trying to become one—that's the hardest thing in the world. Klal Yisrael was upset by the notion then, and that's why even today it still causes strife. Even today, it still causes strife. Will they or won't they? How's it going to work? It's full of complexities. The Kesubah. What exactly is going to be? It's full of complexity. Why? Because when we first heard about it, we said, "Integrate. Come on." It's hard enough as it is. Why are you making it harder? What's the answer? Not making it harder. We're making it more profound. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, if you want to be one, don't become one with something that's close. Become one with something that's just the opposite of you. Then you'll know it's truly one.

41:33 I think this is appropriate for last year. When you go to seminary for the year Or for the years, however long you're spending There's a tremendous amount of growth. That occurs in this time a tremendous amount of coming in touch with yourself, like figuring out who you are, like this is my identity. That's a super important time in your life. This time where you were able to be distant from your family, come to Artzino Hakadosh, come to the holiest place in the world. The most organic place for a Jew in the world to discover who you are is absolutely critical. And yet There is. A potential challenge comes along with this. Obviously, you have to discover who you are. Nobody's saying you should ever forget that. But there's a potential danger that we become rigid in who we are. It's like this who I am. I've established this who I am.

42:37 So who do I need to marry? Somebody who's just like me. I need to marry somebody who knows who I am and knows what I'm looking for, and it's got to look just like me. There's nothing wrong with searching for someone who has a similar value system. There's nothing wrong with searching for somebody who has a personality that you really like. In fact, those things are really important: hashkafa. Personality, attraction, timing. These are all the various things that make up a relationship. And of course, it goes without saying if you could find somebody that has a similar value system, that's awesome. Because if you want to send your kids to like the most charedi school in the world, and he wants to send his kids to like be raised to go to, become generals in the army. It's going to create unnecessary strife. Even if you find somebody who you share ideologies with, and even if you find somebody who you love their personality and you get along, and it's like we have no bad conversations, there's no awkward pauses, just know that even though that's the way it is right now.

43:38 That might not be the way it is in five years from now, and it might not be the way it is in ten years from now. In fact, we can almost guarantee that over time there will be friction in a marriage. The nature of a marriage is you marry your Ezer Kinegdo. You marry somebody who's your opposite. And that's the greatest thing in the world. It helps you. You girls have now reached the end of your Shana Alf, which means congratulations. You've reached the end of this level. And I want you to know that the coming levels are unbelievably exciting. They're great. Because you're going to discover things about yourself, things that you realize you didn't know you were capable of doing. You didn't know you were capable of that level of expansiveness. Once you know, this is me. I'm so big now that I could encompass another. That's what a woman does when she's at the chuppah, right? She walks around her husband seven times. She says, "I encompass you."

44:29 I'm big enough. I'm a human being big enough to encompass another person. But that means encompassing all of them. Even the parts you don't necessarily always like, even in the times where you don't always like them Finding out who you are is only the beginning. The next step is finding out how who you are in relation to somebody else. That growth is like on steroids. And I am confident because I know that this is an institution. You know there are different types of there are different types of seminaries, and I know that in Beit Miriam. I know that in Be'er Miriam, it's different than in some places. In some places, they like to teach you the menu. They like to say this is the menu. This is what halacha says. Do X, do Y, do Z. And in Be'er Miriam, I know that it's deeper than that. I know that they don't want to just teach you the menu. They want you to taste the food.

45:25 They want you to ex. They don't want to just teach you the halachas of Shabbos. They want you to teach. They want to teach you the majesty of Shabbos. They want you to experience the beauty of Shabbos. Of course, you have to learn the menu. You have to learn the rules, but nobody gets excited from learning the rules. We get excited because we see a Shabbos. We appreciate a Shabbos. Beautiful thing. I know that in Berah Merim it's a very internal place. I know the growth this year for everyone here. I know the growth was very real, and I know that it was more than just performance. I know that it was something deeply soulful. I hope And I'm confident, but I hope you know. That coming deeply in touch with yourself as you have this year It's about now being a bala chesed and expanding outwards. If you discovered yourself, and that's not in relation to anybody else, if you discovered yourself and you're like, okay, now I'm going to go close myself off from everybody else, that's not what it means to be healthy.

46:21 What it means to discover yourself is now I'm a circle, and I'm going to be Hashem and encompass a husband, and encompass children, and encompass my community. That's what it means to be a growth-oriented person. I know that you began this journey this year. In the coming years, we will see you girls beez Hashem get married, build families of your own, and be the future leaders of your community. Thank you so much for an amazing year.