Sheva Brachot (Part 6)
A husband and wife are one soul, separated only through their descent to this world. When they are married, they are reunited again.
Zohar HaKadosh
The fourth of the Sheva Brachot is: Blessed are You, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who fashioned the man in His image, in the image of his form, and prepared for him, from himself, a building for eternity. Blessed are You, Lord, Who fashioned the Man.
What does “his form” mean in the text of our blessing? Avudraham explains that it refers not to Hashem’s form -“H is form”- but to the human body. We thank Hashem in this blessing for giving us a physical body as a home for our soul which - being entirely spiritual - could not exist in this physical world without its physical shell.
There is something extremely poignant and moving about our blessing. The idea of a couple building a home together for the rest of their lives is not necessarily a natural one. In the animal world, we see no real concept of ‘marital’ fidelity. And, yet, the aspiration of each Chattan and Kallah is that they will live in harmony together throughout their time here in this physical world.
Why are human beings different from the animals? The Torah (Bereshit 2:18-25) describes how Adam, on seeing that all the animals had been created in pairs, felt a tremendous sense of loneliness. So much so that Hashem created Chavah to be his pair. Our Sages teach (Ketubot 8a) that before Chavah became an independent being, Adam and Chavah were actually one entity. In order for them to build their lives together, Hashem physically separated them. And the same is true with each couple that marry and establish a Jewish home.
The above explains why both our blessing and the preceding one end with the same words: “Yotzer
Ha’Adam – Who fashioned the man.” The Rabbis explain that there were two moments in the creation of mankind: The previous blessing refers to the creation of Adam, while our blessing refers to the creation of Chavah; and the phrase “a building for eternity” refers to Adam and Chavah bringing human life into the world (Rashi, ibid.).
As the Zohar HaKadosh so beautifully teaches: a husband and wife are one soul, separated through their descent to this world, reunited through marriage. What an astonishing concept! The Zohar HaKadosh teaches us that when a couple marry they are not creating something new; rather, they are returning to their spiritual essence, because - before they were brought down into the physical realms - they were one.
How else could two such disparate beings unite together and live in harmony as husband and wife? It is because they are returning to their original state. The moment a couple marries is the moment the two souls return to their true spiritual essence and become one.
The fusing of two souls in this world is no simple thing! It requires Chattan and Kallah both to recognize that they belong to each other; and then they need to work continuously at reconstituting their original “oneness”.
But how can a brand new couple, at the very beginning of their journey, be sure that they are truly destined for one another?
The Ba’alei HaMussar teach that for some couples the rejoining of their souls might be an almost innate occurrence, whereas for others it might require intensive work. But, regardless of the level of difficulty, the moment the groom places the wedding ring on the finger of his bride, they are declaring to all that she is his soulmate, and he hers.
I once read an indispensable insight into married life: Just as it is essential to find the “right one”, so it is essential to be the “right one”!
How does one become the “right one”? Rabbi Ben Tzion Abba Shaul (1924-1998), Rosh Yeshivah of the renowned Porat Yosef and one of the most influential spiritual leaders of his generation, would often offer a piece of advice to his married talmidim when they came to him to discuss marital issues. He would tell them: “Stop focusing on what is not good in your marriage and start focusing on what is good. And then you will see how good married life really is!”
To be continued…
