The Secret for a perfect marriage - Parashat Hayei Sarah 5785
A few years ago, a well-known Rabbi in Chile started a series of lessons on how to improve marriage. I don’t know what his goal was, but he succeeded in attracting many couples to participate in his classes. He also began posting his tips for a successful marriage on social media. The Rabbi became famous, and he was even invited to TV shows to speak about this issue.
I remember laughing with my wife about this, especially in one of his videos, where he said, "I have the secret for a successful marriage. If you want something for your couple… ask for it.” This can be really simple but also very complex.
When I meet couples, like many of you, who have been married for a long time, I usually ask: “You’ve gotta tell me what’s the secret?”. Some people laugh and say: keep your mouth shut. Or as a good friend of mine says: “You always need to answer, yes honey, no matter what. Even if she is asking about the weather, you’ll answer, yes, honey. Ah! And also, don’t forget to say I’m sorry honey, once a day. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know why; she will find a reason.”
But, jokes aside, I think the best tip and secret to a successful marriage is… that there is no secret. There is no recipe, formula, or tip. We can learn that from Avraham and Sarah, the first “Jewish couple” in history.
Movies, social media, magazines, and books have made us believe we can find our better half and perfect love. Love is a project we build together. It doesn’t always fit perfectly, but they will succeed as long as both sides are committed to doing it.
Today, if you want to be a lovely couple, you must post everything you do, you must always show others what you are doing together, and you need to show your love in public.
According to the Torah, love is a deeper feeling than liking the other or feeling butterflies when we see them. The example given to us in Parashat Hayei Sarah speaks about caregiving, support, and even disagreement. A couple in which both sides like, think, eat the same things and have the same opinion is different from a couple where a combination occurs. They don’t complement each other; they just like themselves.
When I hear someone saying to his partner: “I love you so much, but could you please change this attitude of…” that’s not love. To love is to accept that the other person can or cannot change their behavior, but I’m not allowed to obligate them to do that; if they do it, it is because they are willing to change, not because I asked them to do so.
True love is acceptance, which does not necessarily mean that I agree with everything my partner does.
Now let me give you some examples of how the Torah sees this couple.
If contemporary standards of love or marriage judged Avraham and Sara, it would be a mess. The guy asked her to lie for him, saying that she is his brother, so they don’t kill him, while she is being used! What kind of love is that?
Sarah, knowing that she is infertile, asks Avraham to bring children with her servant, Hagar, and then she wants to fire her and not see her anymore. Avraham was worried about this child, and God had to promise him that God himself would take care of it.
Sarah didn’t like Yishmael and didn’t want him to play with her son, the one she finally had.
On the other side, Avraham took that little boy on a “trip” and was ready to sacrifice him without his wife, the mother of the boy, knowing about it.It doesn’t sound like a perfect couple. I wouldn’t ask Avraham, “Hey man, what’s the secret? Give me your best tip for a successful marriage… but give me one that doesn’t include sacrificing my child, ok?”
And yet, after we read all these examples, we realize how powerful the relationship between Avraham and Sara was. After the death of the first Hebrew mother, Sara, the Midrash seems to forget about the questionable episodes of her life with Abraham. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz said, "although through the reading of the Torah, we learn that things in this particular family weren’t smooth at all, in the collective consciousness things were shaped differently. Because Yeshayahu (Isaiah) the prophet said: “Look back to Abraham your father And to Sarah who brought you forth. (51:2)” In the midrash and in the religious faith and traditional consciousness, Abraham and Sara are seen as an ideal couple of wife and husband, a role model for all the generations, on how a Jewish family should be.” (Seven Years of Discourses on the weekly Torah reading. Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Pp. 91)
The story of this unique couple was seen that way, and became an example for every generation, precisely because they were not a perfect couple, but a normal couple. With problems, troubles, discussions, fights, disagreements and love. Since there is no secret and no formula for a successful marriage, Jewish tradition sees this couple as the model for every other couple. This idea acquired more relevance in the Talmud, where our sages taught that losing your partner is a hit that can make you broken more than anything else. That’s why the rabbis taught:
“A man dies only to his wife, i.e., it is primarily she who suffers the pain and sadness resulting from his death, and a woman dies only to her husband.”
(Sanhedrin 22b)
Of course, when a person dies, a wife or a husband, they also die to their children, but according to the Talmud, it is mainly to his or her partner. The one they actively choose every morning. How do we know this.
Because until this Parashah we have seen Abraham acting in various ways, moving from a place to another, arguing with God, taking care of his children, receiving people at his home… but only when Sara dies, he cries, as is written:
“Sarah died in Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites…”
(Genesis 25:1-2).
Abraham cried, and he proceeded to “mourn for Sarah and to bewail her.” Even more, he had to rise from beside his dead to speak with the Benei Het, the Hittites. He was so devastated that he probably lay on the floor. That’s how much Abraham loved his wife.
Now, the challenge is to find this expression of love and caring not only in the big moments and afterlife. I would love to hear more about these beautiful acts of love during the lives of Abraham and Sarah and not only after she died.
Then, the challenge is brought back to us: Are we expressing enough love and appreciation in this world? What are we waiting for?
This is the last Shabbat before Thanksgiving, I invite you to express your gratitude, love and care to your couples and partners, and to everyone you love. Do it NOW, while we are all able to breathe; don’t wait for the death to make you appreciate life.
Shabbat Shalom.