Distance as a Vessel for Closeness

On the twenty-fifth of Elul, the Holy One, blessed be He, began the creation of His world. On the first of Tishrei, the sixth day of Creation, He created the male. A few hours later, He cast a deep sleep upon him, took a bone from his flesh, and from it created the female. They then lived together in Gan Eden.

At the beginning of their creation, they lived in wondrous unity. For that reason, they shared one name: Adam. As the verse states: “Male and female He created them, and He blessed them, and He called their name Adam on the day they were created” (Bereishit 5:2).

Only afterward did a degree of separation begin. Each then received a name of their own: the male was called ish, and the female was called ishah, as the verse states, “This one shall be called ishah, for from ish she was taken” (ibid. 2:23). Yet even after they were separated, love and peace still remained between them.

In truth, it was precisely after the separation that their unity became stronger. Distance and separation are what awaken the deep, inner desire to become one.

To quote an excerpt from our unpublished manuscript Hameir LeYisrael — Healthy Marriage According to Halachah:

If the purpose of the two parts — male and female — is to unite and become one again, what was the purpose of the separation in between? Why was there a separation beginning from the soul’s descent, continuing through their separate arrival in this world, until the day of their chuppah, when they are joined together?

In fact, what takes place in bodies also takes place in souls. At its root, the soul is bound and attached to the Holy One, blessed be He. It descends into this world to dwell within a body, as the verse states, “He blew into his nostrils a soul of life” (Bereishit 2:7). Then, at the end of one’s life, after one hundred and twenty years, the soul is destined to return to the place from which it was hewn and cleave once again to its Creator, as it did at first.

Here too, the same question arises. Why is the separation necessary at all? Why does the soul descend below, if its ultimate purpose is to later return above?

The answer is that in His great compassion, the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want the holy soul to enjoy ‘bread of shame,’ undeserved reward.

He therefore sent it into this world so that, through its own avodah, it could acquire mitzvot and good deeds. Through them, the soul would gain the vessels and capacity to enjoy the World to Come as something truly its own.

The same principle applies to the period in which two souls are divided apart.

The Holy One, blessed be He, created a period of separation between husband and wife, from the time they are born until the moment they enter the chuppah, so that each one can develop the proper vessels for marriage — the state in which their true wholeness is realized. Then, when they unite, they possess the inner tools needed to live a shared life filled with unity and love. Only in this way, after the great preparation each one undergoes during the years of separation, can their union become a dwelling place for Hashem in the lower realms.

Thus, even if a person has many friends, students and acquaintances, and even if he imagines that he has reached completion, he must know that without the other half of his soul — his covenantal wife — he remains alone. Even if he stands among thousands and tens of thousands, he is still alone. His body is divided, his nefesh is divided, his ruach is divided, and his neshamah is incomplete.

In this light, we can understand the Torah’s words: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper opposite him” (ibid., v. 18).

Man is not whole when he is alone. That is, as long as he is not married, he has not attained his full wholeness. Wholeness comes only when two parts become joined as one. As the verse says, “Male and female He created them... and He called their name Adam.” He called them Adam only when they were together. As long as the two parts have not joined to become one, both remain incomplete; and in their incompleteness, they are not yet called Adam.7

We must sharpen the message further. A person can be married and still live alone — if he does not relate to his wife with respect and a shared purpose. Such a person is still described as “not good,” for he has not yet brought forth the good hidden within him through true love for his wife.

As long as he has not actualized the powers concealed within him — unconditional love for his wife, acts of kindness without expectation of return, not once but every day — he has not yet revealed the inner good hidden within him. The Divine image within him remains concealed and subdued beneath the animal soul, and he is therefore still defined as “not good.”

My father, Rabbi Yoram, of blessed memory, would often repeat the verse: “A wild donkey is a man born” (Iyov 11:12). A person is born like a wild donkey, and from that wildness he must become an Adam-man.

In other words, a person enters the world with the animal soul fully visible, while the G-dly soul remains hidden within. Our task throughout our lives in this world is to labor for this sacred goal: to reveal the G-dly soul and give it mastery over the animal soul.

At birth, a person is naturally self-centered. He sees himself at the center, and the world around him exists to serve him and satisfy his needs. In such a state, there is no room to speak of the power of giving; there is only taking.

Little by little, he discovers that there are others around him. First he discovers his father and mother. Then he discovers his close family. Gradually, he comes to recognize that there are other people in the world as well, and that they too have needs and desires, and that in order to live with them in harmony, he must develop a relationship of both giving and receiving. This is how he first begins to learn the concept of giving.

Yet even then, the giving is still limited. Even when he gives to another person, it is often only after he has made sure that, in the end, he will gain something from it. If so, even this giving is revealed to be another form of taking.

As a person matures, and as understanding and fear of Heaven grow within him, the G-dly soul hidden inside him becomes more and more revealed. He begins to internalize that the purpose of giving is to give for its own sake — though even then, this may remain difficult to put into practice.

Thus, it is only when a person builds a home and marries that he encounters the concept of giving in its fullest sense.8 And this giving accompanies husband and wife throughout all the days of their lives.

Now, after this explanation, let us return to Adam HaRishon and his wife.

Wellsprings of Wisdom

Through marriage, husband and wife draw down souls that are “a portion of G-d above,” rooted in the treasury of the souls of Israel. The man and woman are in truth one soul, and that soul can never reach its fullness while one half remains without the other half that completes it. This exalted light, which stands at the foundation of faith and of the generations, reaches into the unifications of the higher worlds. Toward this the souls of Israel yearn; from this comes their pain, and from this comes their consolation.

7. Rabbi Yitzchak of Komarna writes in Notzer Chesed (Avot 3:4) that every person must marry in order to strengthen his emunah, and when he merits this, the Shechinah does not depart from him. One who remains without a wife, whoever he may be, lacks the fullness of truth and cannot attain complete avodah. He testifies that his holy teachers — among them the Chozeh of Lublin, Rabbi Naftali of Ropshitz, the Maggid of Kozhnitz, and other tzaddikim — were very particular that their chassidim marry. When the Maggid of Kozhnitz was widowed in his later years, and did not wish to marry again because of his age and weakness, the Chozeh of Lublin sent him a message: during those holy days, and indeed every day, his prayers were not rising properly, and he must marry at once. The Maggid immediately accepted the instruction and remarried.

8. Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh explains in Mavo LeKabbalat HaAri (p. 246) that every person is a unique being, with his own essence, inner language, and way of relating to the world. In the earliest stage of life, this individuality appears in an undeveloped form. A baby is absorbed in himself and experiences only his own existence, not yet aware of others as independent realities. As the child matures, he begins to recognize the people around him. At first, however, he still experiences them as centered around his own world — as people who serve his needs and support the self he sees at the center. Gradually, he discovers that others are real in their own right. They too have inner worlds, no less distinct and meaningful than his own. At first, this encounter with another independent essence can feel foreign, even threatening. The other seems entirely outside of him, speaking a different language and living on a different wavelength. In the Chassidic language, a person who remains at this stage is called a chitzon, an external person. Since he is focused on preserving his own selfhood, he experiences anyone outside himself as foreign to him and tries to keep him at a distance or to assert himself over him. At a more mature stage, a person becomes a pnimi. He begins to understand that the distance between two people can be bridged. Even very different inner worlds contain points of contact, and one person can discover that another is not entirely foreign to him, but can be understood, internalized, and connected to. At this stage, a person learns to make room within himself for another, though this often still involves a degree of compromise. Complete maturity is the level of an atzmi, an essential person. At this level, one discovers that within every person and every reality there is a point that belongs to his own essence. Once that point is found, the bond is no longer based merely on compromise, but on true inner connection. He does not need to erase himself in order to relate to the other; he can remain himself and speak from his own essence, because he has discovered the essential bond between them. This bond is what is called zivug, and its fullest expression is in the covenant of marriage. Husband and wife may appear utterly different from one another, yet through marriage they can say to one another, “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Bereishit 2:23). Marriage does not require them to blur their identities or surrender their personal essence. On the contrary, it strengthens and completes each one’s individuality precisely through their union.