The Kabbalah of Marriage. . . (adapted from Rabbi Y. Y. Jacobson)
Three of the greatest men of the Jewish faith encountered their future wives at wells of water. Their names were Isaac, Jacob and Moses. And this week’s Torah relates the story of one of them – Isaac.
We can understand the site of a stream or a river as being conducive for romance. Many a proposal has been made near water. The sight of water evokes charming and enchanting emotions in human hearts and it represents the quality of bonding, since it serves to join distinctly different objects to each other.
But what was it about underground and small wells that were not even exposed (a big rock covered them most of the time) that brought about the union of the progenitors of the Jewish nation?
The following is a short kabalistic explanation: A well, unlike other pools of water, contains opposite components. On one hand, the well is of no value without human effort and toil. Unlike the readily exposed rain or ocean water, man must dig hard, and sometimes deep, to uncover the spring of water hidden below the crust of the earth.
On the other hand, we human beings do not create, generate or even enhance the flow of water of the well; our efforts merely expose that which already exists fully, prior to our labor.
This is the Torah approach to marriage as well. We do not create our personal wellspring of love. Through our efforts we merely expose a relationship that has already been welded by G‑d prior to our birth, in the words of the Holy Zohar (the mystical ‘book of light’), "A wife and her husband are two halves of the same soul."
The connection is there beforehand; the flow of love (symbolized by water) from your soul to your spouse’s soul is already in existence. It may however be completely concealed and the human job is to search, dig and expose that inner connection. And this is why the biblical paradigm for marriage is set at the well.
From Brooklyn, NY I wish you a Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Raleigh Resnick
