Life can be painfully lonely. Even with the best of health, with adequate incomes, friends, and a fulfilling career, it is still possible to succumb to a sense of the futility and the isolation of life.
It isn't difficult to imagine why loneliness is so pervasive: As we proceed through our own life journeys, we experience the gradual relinquishment of our own strength, vigor, and abilities. As we proceed in our careers, we enjoy our attainments but note the increasing gap between our accomplishments and the excitement and drive of our younger colleagues. Friends drop out of touch; older relatives move away or die. Given our constant effort to hold our lives and ourselves together, coupled with the ever-present necessity to give up relationships, abilities, and dreams, it is no surprise that so many people go through life feeling alone.
It is also no surprise, therefore, that the Torah places such a premium on a good marriage. It is the way of the world for parents to precede us in death and for children to move off to live their own lives. But a spouse can be a partner and friend for every phase of our time on earth.
Imagine what a miracle it is that two people can come together in love. I sometimes feel amazed that I can live with myself all the time. That my wife chooses to do so is altogether remarkable.
Yet that same miracle is replicated in household after household, as countless couples offer solace, comfort, care, and guidance through the rigors and the disappointments that society and nature dish out.
Our Torah portion speaks about the miracle of marriage. The reading this week begins by noting that "Jacob left Beer-Sheba and set out for Haran." Why was he going to Haran? According to last week's portion, his parents sent him there to "take a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother." Jacob went from his home to seek the comfort of love and marriage.
What is remarkable about that marital voyage is that his father did the opposite, a fact which did not escape the attention of the rabbis of Midrash Bereshit Rabbah: "Sometimes a man goes to his spouse, and sometimes it is the reverse. In the case of Isaac, his spouse came to him.... Jacob, however, went out to his spouse."
Even more remarkable that the issue of who went to whom, is the mere fact that relationships happen at all. That two people--two entire universes of ideas, experiences, preferences, and quirks--can share their lives as one is astounding. In fact, the rabbis considered the existence of good marriages to be one of the most astounding of God's miracles on our behalf.
They tell the story of a wealthy Roman matron who asked Rabbi Yose what, exactly, God has been doing ever since the completion of creation? Rabbi Yose answered her that since the creation of the world, God "sits and makes matches, assigning this person to that one, and that one to this."
The matron scoffs, thinking that this is merely a case of matching one from column A and one from column B. So, to demonstrate her parity with God, she matched all her slaves, one to another. After a few days, her household was pure pandemonium, as fights were constantly erupting among ill-matched couples. She then returned to Rabbi Yose and conceded that "there is no god like your God; it is true, your Torah is indeed beautiful and praiseworthy." Rabbi Yose's response is that creating loving couples is "as difficult before the Holy Blessed One as was splitting the Red Sea."
Creating a loving, nurturing relationship of love is how God has spent the intervening time since the Creation of the world. And the existence of loving couples is a miracle no less taxing or stupendous than any reported in the Torah. We look in the wrong places for miracles. Rather than waiting for special effects from the sky, the strongest evidence of God's love for each one of us is sitting in the chair next to us, or in the next room. In the love of another human being, we can come to know the love of God.
Shabbat shalom