Abraham's Recipe for Marital Bliss - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

So great to see everybody. Okay, so guys, we are in the heart of these Aram stories. As Jeremy said, these stories that are so amazing and I love them so much. Uh we just finished and we're moving into Viraa. So we're like right in the stories of Abraham. And there's so many aspects to look at when we look at Abraham. He's a religious revolutionary. He is the father of Isaac and Ishmael, but really the father of all of monotheism. He passes all of these tests. But something I think might be overlooked sometimes and was really distilled for me this year is how much we can learn from Abraham as a husband. Jeremy, all of your nice words were in perfect timing because I wanted to talk about relationships. Abraham and Sarah were of course the original power couple uh with amazing connection. And it's so clear from even the little bits and pieces of these stories that we have in them, you could just feel their love and their connection and they're on this journey together to bring the light of Hashem to the world. I became kind of extra receptive to their message in the context of marriage and relationship because tonight in Women of Valor, we're going to be studying Mikall, the daughter of King Saul, the wife of King David, who for better or worse is often remembered for her big fight with David. That was like the last dramatic scene we know about in her life was this big fight with David ultimately leading seemingly to her not having children, not having a continuation for there not being this joining of the house of Saul and the house of David. So today in the women's group, we're going to dive really deep into communication, marital communication, what we can learn from Mikall and David, where they went wrong, so we can learn what to do right, where not to fall in our own lives. Um, but in the study of that, there's something that I realized that's more general, which is that when we're studying the Bible, there are so many couples in the Bible. And we all know that being married is not always smooth sailing, but we don't hear a lot of stories of marital conflicts in the Bible, except for just a few times. When I say conflict, I mean like an actual back and forth, not just somebody saying something that might annoy the other. Like I'm sure that when Eve heard Adam blaming her for giving him the fruit, she was probably like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe he's blaming me for that." But we don't actually hear an argument. I'm talking about an actual upsetness with like not nice words being said to each other. Um, so at least me and I'm sure you guys might be able to think of other things that I missed, but I can only identify like three real stories of marital conflict in the Bible. You guys thinking about them? Try to like review like try to like pick them up in your mind. We have Mikall and David famously. She tells him, "Ooh, the king out there dancing with everybody so respectable because he's dancing with all the, you know, the simple people." And then how does he respond? Well, he immediately pulls out, you know, the dead father card and says, "Well, Hashem took the kingdom from your father and I'm going to oh, you don't like when I humble myself, so you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do it even more." So, you know, there's also So, that's one conflict that's pretty rough. And then going backwards, let's say chronologically, we have the conflict between Jacob and Rachel when she says, "Bring me children or I'm just going to die." And then, you know, what does he say? He says, "Well, I mean, am I God that prevented you from having children? It's not like I don't have children. God prevented you from having children." And then we have the conflict between Sarah, the conflicts between Sarah and Abraham on the status of Hagar and Ishmael in last week's para and this coming week's para. So there might be more, but that's where I'm holding. These are what the ones that I was able to think of. So now I'm going to say a word to the gentlemen. The gentlemen in the group are going to like this. But the first thing you and I I don't love to admit it, but the first thing you might notice is that all of the arguments that we have in the Bible between husbands and wives seem to be started by and I'm not happy to admit this, but always started by the wives. Feel like all the husbands are just nodding like, "Yeah, of course I know what that's about." [laughter] Um, what else do we notice in those three stories? Again, I'm not happy to admit this, but each time it seems that the claim of the wife against the husband is kind of unjustified in like the actual words that are being said each time they seem to be blaming the husband for something he didn't actually do wrong. When Mikall confronts David, I mean, us as the readers, we know that it's beautiful that he's dancing before the Lord. That's wonderful. She's clearly like wrong to criticize that, right? And when Rachel says to Jacob, "Bring me children." I mean, we as the readers know that he can't just magically abracadabra give her children. Clearly, it's not his fault. And when Sarah says to Abraham, "I gave you my maidervant and now she's being so disrespectful to me." She says in Hebrew, like, "My kamas is on you. I'm so angry at you that I'm calling you kamas." Like, it doesn't actually get worse than that. I'm I'm joking. But meaning she's she's saying like, "I'm so upset with you. this is your fault. But us as the readers, we know how is this his fault? He didn't ask for Hagar. In each case, seemingly the husband would have all the justification in the world to just lash back. But if you take a moment and look deeper, us as the readers who are not emotionally involved in what's happening can see that there's like a little bit more going on here. Like if we look at Mikall, we see this poor woman has been dragged around, used as a political pawn from here to there, waiting so much just for love and for someone to notice her. And then she sees David with so much love for Hashem, so much love for all of the people and none left for her. She's so lonely. Her whole family is dead. She's an orphan. You can feel her pain. And that's like she's not justified in the words, but you can feel the emotion behind the words. Rachel, she knows that Jacob cannot give her children, but she's so sad from being barren and seeing her sister have so many children. She's screaming, "Help me." We the reader know that she knows that she doesn't think he's going to magically give her children. But we the reader know what she wants. She wants support. She wants prayers. She wants him to see her pain. So on the face of it, the husbands have every right to get mad for being blamed unfairly, right? Like it makes sense. But we as the observers see this pain behind the wives. And if the husbands would address the pain, it would save them so much heartache. Both David and Jacob strike back right at the sensitive point of their wife. David reminding Mikall of her family's downfall. Jacob reminding Rachel that Hashem didn't give children to you cuz you know I'm I have children. And that just exacerbates the underlying pain and this but we can understand them because it's so hard to have somebody blame you for something that's not your fault. And this is where Araham just turns out to be a giant. Sarah is blaming him for something that doesn't seem to be his fault. What does he do? Does he lash back? Does he say my fault? How is this my fault? He could say something mean. He could say something hurtful like, "Well, you should have thought of that before you told me to take Hagar, and you know, your personality is not so great either. I'm not really a big fan of your parents." He hears her and he says to himself, "Okay, I could be defensive, but what does Sarah really need right now? What is she really saying when she's saying that it's my fault? Is there some way that indirectly I have some kind of responsibility that I could take in this? We as the readers, we know exactly what Sarah means. She doesn't mean Abraham did something. She just is feeling so humiliated. No children, her maidervant is treating her with all this sass. She doesn't feel like Aram is helping her, like he's on her side. She doesn't know. Maybe he's kind of seeing Hagar as like the new lady of the home. She doesn't know whose team is he on. Abraham says himself, she doesn't know if I'm fundamentally backing her and loyal to her. So what does he say? He sees not the words, but the underlying emotion in her pain. What does she need? She needs my support and my backing. She doesn't need my insults when she's already down. So what does he say? Okay. He says, "Nothing harsh." He says, "Okay, she's your maidervant. You have my my full support and backing to discipline her as you see fit. I trust your judgment. You have my support. And you know, if you think it's just a one-time thing that Aram is like a hero in this department, I think we could look at this week's calming portion and see again when Sarah confronts him saying she doesn't want to be around with Isaac, he doesn't lash back at her. He doesn't love it. He could say to her, "Oh, you're just jealous that I have two sons." He could say a million things. He pauses. He prays. He asks Hashem for guidance and then responds. Like it seems so simple, but as we can see from other biblical giants and heroes and I imagine from our own lives as well, it's really hard. It's hard to take that pause when somebody says something hurtful to us, especially if it's untrue or unjustified. But Aram is giving these two keys to us for communication in marriage and I don't think only in marriage. communication in every relationship that are really the whole story. If we could internalize Abraham's lessons, I think it would reduce 90% of conflicts in our homes, in our extended families, in our communities. What does he do? He pauses. First thing is that he pauses, tries to hear what is really being said, not the accusations, but what is the pain and to address the pain, not the accusation. And the key number two that he gives us, he doesn't just pause when he doesn't know how to answer. He prays. He turns his heart to Hashem and he says, "This is not necessarily something I see eye to eye on with my partner." But the main thing is not getting my will done. The main thing is getting Hashem's will done. So he orients himself to really hear the other person and orients his life and his decisions to be in Hashem's will and not his own will. And it's like in this combination, these two insights that he's giving us, even though they're seemingly like very simple, I think they're just amazing reminders of these incredibly powerful keys for just maintaining true peace and love and understanding in our relationships. So we bless us that we may all have peace in our homes and in all of our family relationships and with all of our other meaningful relationships in our lives in the light of our father Abraham. Bye everybody. Great to see you all. [music]