Flying Camels
Imagine that three dusty nomads walk into your living room and tell you that a flying camel with padded seats on its back is waiting for you on your front lawn…
Two Sides, One Coin, Part 2
If you’re perfect and your wife is not, it’s your fault, because it’s your task to illuminate her soul and shine the light of emuna and abundance on her. Talk to her, teach her, listen to her, smile at her – once you illuminate her soul, she’ll be on your same level, sharing your light.”
Do you know what that means on a practical level? If you’re a Baal Teshuva and your wife is not, it’s your problem. If you observe the Sabbath and she doesn’t, it’s your problem. If you wear a kippa and she doesn’t dress modestly, it’s your problem. Whatever she does wrong is your problem, and don’t think that the Heavenly Court will accept any excuses. Don’t say that you have patience, but your wife suffers from anger. If she has a short fuse, it’s your problem. Don’t think that you have attained your spiritual correction, but your wife has not. Anything she hasn’t corrected means that you haven’t corrected the part of your soul that’s called “your wife.” Not only must a husband illuminate his wife’s soul and realize that she is his mirror, but he must pray for her as well.
A husband and wife are one soul, one unit. Therefore, there’s no such thing as the husband attaining a soul correction, while the wife has not. Maybe his half of the soul is corrected, but as long as her half is not, he must illuminate her and help her along until their one unified soul is corrected. Even more so, we can’t even say that her deficiencies are hers, since we’ve learned that she is his mirror. She reflects him.
Husbands, don’t ever forget that you and your wife are one. Therefore, as we said last week, if our matriarch Sarah had a slight blemish of emuna on her lofty spiritual level, then Abraham was intrinsically responsible.
Let’s comes to the defense of matriarch Sarah: what’s really wrong with fact that she laughed when she was informed that she’d have a baby at age 90? She thought that the three “Arabs” from the desert were carrying what we call Ali Baba tales. She didn’t know that they were angels from Heaven.
Imagine that three dusty nomads walk into your dining room in the middle of your dinner with your family and tell you to come outside because a flying camel with padded seats on its back has come to carry you and your family to the Land of Israel, because Moshiach has come and the new Beit Hamikdash has descended in a ball of fire to earth and landed smack in the middle of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. You and your children would no doubt make fun of those Arabs and most probably think that they were spaced out on some substance. Of course you’d laugh and make fun of them! But what would you do if three fiery angels told you the same thing?
Now hear this: even if the three Arabs together with their camels walk into our dining room in the middle of our dinner and tell us to come outside because we’re about to take off from our front lawn to the inauguration of the new Beit Hamikdash with Moshiach and Moses as masters of ceremony – and I emphasize, three Arab nomads and not three angels are telling us this – if we don’t believe them, we are weak in emuna. Sound strange? I’ll explain: if Hashem wants to, we can have Moshiach, the Holy Temple, and the revival of the dead at a snap of the fingers. It’s not that the three Arabs are credible sources of information or not. The point is that with real emuna, we have to believe that Hashem can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. The laws of nature don’t control Hashem; on the contrary, Hashem dictates, creates, controls, and operates the laws of nature. If Hashem wants to, this very minute He can open the Heavens and send our renewed and rebuilt Holy Temple earthward in a ball of fire, landing smack in the middle of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. According to the Gemara in tractate Sanhedrin 90a, a person that doesn’t believe 100% in the revival of the dead or any other of Hashem’s promises is a total heretic. So even if an inebriated hobo tells us that the stars will come out tomorrow at high noon, we shouldn’t laugh at him; do you know why? If Hashem so desires, He can make the stars come out amidst total darkness tomorrow at high noon.
My wife and I once visited a very righteous woman who was stricken with a terminal disease in her late sixties. Only 48 hours before Hashem removed her soul for from this lowly physical world, she whispered in my wife’s ear that if an old Arab from the market place tells her that she will now have another child, and she doesn’t answer “amen”, then she has blemished emuna. Hashem can do whatever He wants whenever He wants.
5/31/2010
so what if wife is in tshuvah and husband is not? how is the husband causing the soul correction here? not that i doubt he is but would appreciate some clarification as i know a few cases and and would like to be more adept on the subject for personal and kiruv purposes.
gratefully
rachel
5/31/2010
how is the husband causing the soul correction here? not that i doubt he is but would appreciate some clarification as i know a few cases and and would like to be more adept on the subject for personal and kiruv purposes.
gratefully
rachel