Let Kindness Lead

Most secular notions of relationships generally, and particularly the marriage relationship, revolve around some idea of give and take, or: “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” But Judaism has a different view of things. Judaism tells us that giving is a wonderful thing in itself and is worth much more if we nullify our need for a payback. When we have this Jewish viewpoint firmly entrenched in our heads, then we can start to see how it’s a wonderful thing when our spouse makes demands of us. Who else can they make demands of, like that? They could go out in to the middle of Times Square, and stomp their hands and feet, and shout until they are hoarse, and no-one’s going to pay attention to them – and if they do, it’s only to think that they are crazy!

It’s only when we get into the giving mode that we can create an environment where our spouses can feel truly at home, and act how they are really feeling, without having to put on an act for us. They aren’t scared that we’re going to get angry or retaliate, because they know that we know it’s all being spiritually orchestrated to help us work on our own character deficiencies. We stick with our humble, simple attitude that it’s all coming from G-d, and it’s all good, and by virtue of our emuna, G-d works miracles for us, and we achieve breakthrough after breakthrough, both in ourselves and in our interactions with other people.

This may sound like a tall order to many people, and it’s true that it requires a very big spiritual commitment to really get to know G-d, and to start seeing Him in every area of our lives. But really, what is the alternative? If our kids or spouses are acting up, and giving us a hard time, what other options are on the table?

Recently, I spoke to a wife who was up in arms about her husband, because he’s started to do a few things again that he hasn’t done for many years. Who knows what happened, why he’s slacked off in the areas he has, or why he’s gone back to doing things that aren’t good for him. We are all humans, not angels, and all of us, even the best of us, will sometimes fall down and make some big mistakes. But now, the wife is calling her husband names, and is making all sorts of threats about getting divorced, if he doesn’t quit his bad habits and get back into line.

I know these people very well, and I can tell you that neither of them are going anywhere, regardless of all the threats and noise about getting divorced. So now, they have two choices: either, they can stay together like this, fighting and accusing each other until they are blue in the face, until 120. Or, they can say: “Enough with the judgment and the moralistic outlook! We don’t live in a courtroom… I’m going to do my best to forgive and to work through this with my husband, as a team.”

Spiritually, the world is built on two pillars, called chesed and gevurah. In a very simplistic description chesed means loving-kindness and forgiveness, and gevurah means limitations and strength, and the world needs both of these to survive and function. Each of us is a world in and of ourselves; we also need kindness and strength in our lives and in our relationships – but the kindness has to be predominant. The kindness has to lead, and the severity has to take a back seat, and sometimes, it has to be an extremely far-back seat.