A Husband and Wife United Are a Complete Adam

In this context we bring an excerpt from our unpublished manuscript Hameir LeYisrael — Healthy Marriage According to Halachah (Gate 1, chapter 2):

Man and woman are two distinct worlds, entirely different from one another. Precisely for that reason, when they are joined together, they complete one whole reality.

Each one alone, without connection to the other part, lacks completion. Only when joined with the other does each become part of a complete whole.

Therefore, only when husband and wife live in unity do they merit the title Adam, as the verse states: “Male and female He created them, and He blessed them, and He called their name Adam” (Bereishit 5:2). Their name together is Adam. Only then are they worthy of blessing and of the Shechinah resting between them. It follows that when they are not together, they are not called Adam, and they are not worthy of blessing or of the Shechinah resting between them.

To quote the words of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the holy Zohar (Bereishit 55b):

Come and see: In any place where male and female are not found together as one, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not establish His dwelling in that place. Blessings are found only in a place where male and female are present together, as it is written, “He blessed them and called their name Adam on the day they were created.” It does not say, “He blessed him and called his name Adam,” for one is not even called Adam except when male and female are together as one.

We learn from the words of the holy Zohar that Hashem does not rest His Shechinah and blessing upon the man alone or upon the woman alone, but only upon the complete Adam — that is, upon a husband and wife united as one.