Almost two years ago, I remarried. Lori and I made it official. She told me that she was not going to continue making the trip from Cincinnati to Lexington if I did not agree to marry her. I was kind of hoping that if I married her, she would stop making the trip ? and just settle here. Well, as luck would have it, we did ? she did, and it all worked out nicely ? or at least that piece of the story.
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As blessed as I am to have Lori in my life, merging two 50 plus year old lives is challenging. We have both lived full lives along sometimes very different paths. Ultimately, it is all small stuff, and as the adage goes, ?Don?t sweat the small stuff.? There are times that we find ourselves on opposite sides of an argument, though, and I have to hold on to a lesson from this week?s Torah portion to return my perspective.
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Adam was wandering the face of the earth by himself. He rejected all of the animals as potential mates (YEAH!). God said, ?It is not good that man should be alone.? One night, as man was about to go to bed, God said, ?When you wake, I will have a surprise for you.? Adam woke from a deep sleep and found a ?wonderful? surprise; his side really hurt and he looked down and found the flesh around his rib cage sutured shut. Oh yeah, he also found the beautiful Eve next to him.
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Of course, not having yet eaten from the ?Tree of Knowledge,? he did not know she was beautiful ? and may not have had the capacity to know that she was the cause of the debilitating pain throbbing in his side, or the prophetic moment that escapes him. This is where, because I am not tired of loving Lori, I bite my tongue (in a tongue and cheek sort of way) and let the reader take this thought and extrapolate from it what they want (or what their spouse allows them to see).
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Seriously, the story whereby humanity finds its way into life on earth provides the fodder for countless comedic careers. This story has been the source of vast volumes of satire and comedy, and yet, at the same time, the story provides us with some of the foundational ground rules of a healthy marriage. ?Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.? Truly, a couple who commits themselves to each other becomes one; one soul; one heart; one legal entity (where state law does not discriminate). There is no greater intimacy than to look into the eyes of one you love and see your souls intertwined one with the other.
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There is no greater magic one can experience than to know, with every fiber of being, that his/her very existence so deeply and mutually depends on loving another, that they must commit to spending the rest of their days together. And then, no sooner do we look at this deep celebration of love, than do we realize that the divorce rate is higher than at any time in history. Marriage, the most intimate of commitments has become, for many, nothing more than a signed mutual lease agreement; a short term hold on each other?s space. People recite the words of this Genesis text, and then somehow forgot that they uttered them in the midst of their mutual frustrations.
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Now, my first marriage did not end in divorce, I was widowed, but now, as I settle in to this marriage, I really have to struggle with the phenomenon that makes people make the commitment, and then allows them to walk away from it. I cannot imagine walking away from Lori, but I have to believe that any couple that stands at the altar together feels the same way. What makes mine different? Here is where I have to rely on faith. Faith is not a part time thing. Religious traditions speak to some people some time, but if you breathe, you are faithful ? if nothing else, you have faith that the next breath is worth taking. Faith is full time, and so are marriages.
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If I really commit myself, than I have to commit all of me. Marriage is never 50-50. If one wants to commit to make it 50-50, then I have to believe that the relationship is destined for trouble. If we each commit ourselves 100 percent to each other, then the days when skin sags, when disagreements happen, when feelings are hurt, and the chores are not mutually shared will not matter.
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In truth, this is what must be at stake in all relationships ? not just marriage. It is just that marriage provides us with a most poignant paradigm to make the point that relationships can be fragile, if we fail to wholly invest ourselves in each other. Certainly with a spouse, but also with any business or filial partnership, and any engagement with another, when we bring only parts of ourselves to the conversation, we demean each other, and doom the engagement. The sages teach us that the world cannot heal until we engage our neighbors with the same love that we would want for ourselves.
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This is the ?Golden Rule,? but this is also a necessary extension of this week?s admonition, ?Bone of my bone?? There is no marriage ceremony; there is only one human who physically and spiritually gives life to another. Perhaps marriages fail at a record pace, because all relationships are failing at record paces. When we take our neighbor?s dignity more seriously, we allow ourselves the opportunities to take intimacy more seriously, as well.
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Perhaps we are really asking the wrong question during this election period. The question faithful people must ask is not ?Am I better off now than I was four years ago?? Rather, each of us needs to ask, ?Is my neighbor better off now, than he/she was four years ago?? If I am committed to healing the world, and I take the ?Golden Rule? seriously, then I cannot judge the success or failure of the world by what is best for me, unless I equally judge it by what has been good for those around me, the rich, the poor, the welcomed and unwelcomed amongst us.
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I cannot truly love my wife in a vacuum. I have to be able to love another as dearly as I do myself, before I can single out one amongst them to whom I want to commit. I hope when I said ?I do,? that I really did.
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Shabbat Shalom.
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Rabbi Marc Aaron Kline serves the Temple Adath Israel. Ordained in 1995 from Hebrew Union College ? Jewish Institute of Religion, he earned a bachelor?s from Tulane University, a J.D. from the University of Arkansas, and a master?s from Hebrew Union College. He has taught ethics, philosophy, religion and government in high schools, college and graduate schools and regularly runs a diverse adult education program. He has served as chair of the LFCUG Human Rights Commission and is active in the greater community. ?
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