Dr. Twerski’s Discussion About Sholom Bayis With the Rebbe

Welcome to our weekly [unclear] program.

This week is Tu B'Av, and the Gemara says there was never a Yom Tov like the fifteenth day of Av and Yom Kippur — we know Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I'm going to focus on one important one: one of the most important reasons is that this is the day, the time, that shidduchim were made — boys and girls met and eventually got married. Now, marriage is one of the highest mitzvos, a very important mitzvah.

Two people get together and they have to live together for a hundred and twenty years. He comes from one end of the world, she comes from another end of the world, and now they have to work at it to live together. This is a big miracle, this building of a bayis, and it's the greatest zivug when two people come together and build a bayis.

There's a story about a queen — someone who didn't believe in Hashem — who said, "What does Hashem do all day?" She was told, "He makes shidduchim." She said, "I can do the same thing." So she took — she spoke to the girls, she spoke to the boys, and she matched them up, and they got married. She said, "You see, I can do the same thing. So why didn't you believe?" That's what Hashem does.

After a while, they got into problems, the boys and the girls, and they were fighting, and they got divorced, and there was trouble. Then she realized what it means to make a shidduch — it's one of the hardest things to do, but of course it's very important. The Rebbe once said that it's so important, but it's a pity that it was given into the hands of young people. They don't really realize the importance of marriage. But how else can you grow? You can't do it with old people. So you need young people.

Now, talking about marriage and shalom bayis — I wanted to tell you that the Rebbe — we have a lot of letters about shalom bayis from the early years as well. And in English the Rebbe is clearer than in Hebrew — Lashon Kodesh — very clear. A lot of letters.

And I think — why is the Rebbe so much clearer in English? I think, you know, the Rebbe said to Rabbi Mindel before, about printing the Tanya, that Tanya is a closed book. Tanya is written in Hebrew, for Jewish people, but not many people speak Hebrew. Most of the Jews, most people in the world, speak English. So we have to open up to the world — so we need English. This is what he told him then. So it's the same idea here. I want to share with you why the English letters are so clear — because in English it reaches every single person.

So, speaking about marriage, I want to share with you — I mentioned once that Rabbi Twerski, Dr. Twerski, was very close to Rabbi Mindel. These are notes of Rabbi Mindel. He once told Rabbi Mindel that he had — he was talking about marriage. I don't know what his exact position was — I don't know, he was a counselor, I don't know, in a college, I don't know what it was — but he had to deal with shalom bayis, with marriage. So he spoke to the Rebbe about it.

The question was — I don't know whether the Rebbe said it or he said it to the Rebbe, I don't know — but this was discussed in the room. It says that bochurim — but they become baalei teshuva, let's say at eighteen, nineteen, twenty, fifteen years old — and they go to yeshiva. They go to girls' school, they go to yeshiva, or a regular yeshiva, like we have today, yeshivos in town or regular yeshivos, and they get older and they learn and they learn. And these — before, when they were young, they were not religious, and now they get married.

So there are problems. This was the discussion in the Rebbe's room: marriage problems, I guess, because they were not raised in a religious home — they don't know how to be with each other as far as Shabbos is concerned, as far as between husband and wife.

So somebody said — or he said, I don't know — he told Rabbi Mindel that the suggestion was that a boy, and especially a girl, a year before the marriage, should be in a steady home for Shabbosim, and these girls should know: this is their home — not like these are just their adopted parents in a way — this is their home, this is what they look up to. This is their dugma chaya, their living example, of how to make Shabbos, how to make Yom Tov, how to raise children. They can go to other places, but they should always see, "we're going to be like this," and then they'll be shown. This was the advice that was given. I don't know whether it comes from the Rebbe, I don't know if it comes from Dr. Twerski, but this was at least that.

In other words, in order to become a baal habayis, you can learn — you can learn — but if you don't have the living example, it's a problem. The same goes for a kallah: she has to be in a home before marriage, at least a year, to know how to conduct a Jewish home.

This always reminds me of a story, and I learned a lesson from it. When my wife and I got married, a couple of days later I invited a baal teshuva couple to come Friday night to our house. They came to our house Friday night. I was waiting for them and they didn't come yet, so I made kiddush. I made kiddush, then I went to wash, uncovered the challah, and I put away the knife in the kitchen — I don't know how that happened — and they still weren't there. Waiting and waiting and waiting, finally the couple showed up. I said to them, "Sit down, sit down." I said, "You're late." "Late?" — another thing, some people think it's a mitzvah to come late from shul. I don't know where they get this mentality from. Anyway, they used to come late, they used to delay — this is not the case now, and a lot of people, the wives will be happy, but not because of that, because of other things — but anyway, they came late, fine, so they sat down.

He made kiddush, and then he went to wash and she went to wash. He came back, sat down, and opened up the challah cover, and there was no knife — it was in the kitchen. So he said to her — I'm telling you, because they weren't allowed to talk — that means, "Go bring the knife." She said to him, "You bring the knife." He said, "You bring the knife." She said, "You bring the knife." Back and forth. And I saw this, and I thought, I don't know what's going to be with this marriage. Anyway, she — I stood up, and then she right away stood up. He went to the kitchen, and she took the knife, she gave him the knife, he took the knife, he cut the challah, and now he could talk. So he told her, "I learned in yeshiva it says 'ish' — I am the ruler. So if I tell you to bring the knife, you have to bring the knife." This is a young couple just got married. So she said to him, "But I learned that women and men are equal. So why do I have to bring the knife? You bring the knife."

This happened — why? Because they were not raised in a proper home. They don't know the beauty of a husband, of a wife, how they're supposed to act Friday night, how they're supposed to be at the table. It's a way for a woman to give the husband the knife or food. It's different — they just don't know. So, that's the story.

So, going back to the discussion that Dr. Twerski had — that there should be at least one year of being in a steady home before marriage. This is good advice for many people. It says so in the notes that I saw, and I think it's a good idea. I don't know who said it.

Rabbi Twerski also mentioned to Rabbi Mindel that he once asked the Rebbe — speaking about the wedding ring — why does a chosson give the kallah a plain ring and not a diamond ring? So he said: because if a diamond ring falls on the floor and breaks — a ring that costs twenty thousand dollars — you can fix it, but only a professional knows exactly where the spot was that broke; otherwise nobody knows. If a plain ring falls on the floor and breaks, even a professional, if he fixes it, cannot tell that it was ever broken.

That means — sometimes in life, he said, people have problems or issues, and they should always look back to the night of the chuppah. That was the happiest time, when he gave her the ring. She should always look back and remember — and that will make shalom. This was something that I remember that he wrote.

Now I will just share with you, to end off, an answer the Rebbe wrote to somebody — he already had children. He writes like this: "I am in kollel and I am a lamdan. I learn, but I need a bracha for shalom bayis. I have everything — shalom bayis I don't have. And also my wife," he says, "doesn't recognize my learning — doesn't appreciate my learning." So I guess the kavod that she's supposed to give him is not given the way he feels it should be. I guess this is what it is. I think that's what the letter said.

It reminds me — somebody once said, I don't know who, "Everybody steps on me." He used to say, "Everybody steps on me." So the Rebbe told him, "Who told you to spread yourself out so much that they should step on you? Don't spread yourself out, and they won't step on you." He also felt that he deserved more kavod from his wife, I guess — I don't know, that's what happened.

So there was a long answer from the Rebbe, and I'm not going to give you the whole long answer. First of all, the Rebbe answered that there are four types of love: there's an ahava between husband and wife — that's one type of ahava. Then there's a love between a parent and a child. Then there's a love between a Yid and Hashem. And there's a love between two friends — all different types of love.

In the Torah it speaks about the love between a parent and a child. It speaks about the love between husband and wife. But it speaks about the love of Hashem last — that means love of Hashem comes last. If you don't have shalom bayis, then there's a question on the whole thing — the love you say you have. In a way, first you have to have shalom bayis, and if that's good, then you can come to Hashem. But don't come to Hashem if you don't have shalom bayis. Something like that.

Now, one more thing mentioned in the notes about Rabbi Dr. Twerski — he said to the Rebbe that, speaking about marriage, one of the things is that when giving kibbudim, honors, they shouldn't give titles. I don't know exactly why he answered this way — because, yes, if somebody is a grandfather or a father, you can say "the father," "the grandfather," "an uncle" — but giving a kibbud with a title in general — what if a person doesn't have a title? He'll be embarrassed, and you're not allowed to embarrass someone. So he says it's better not to give titles, just to give the honor plainly. That's something he mentioned, so that you wouldn't embarrass anybody. I think that should really be the way — but maybe, in some cases, a person might be embarrassed, or he can't read, so you need someone else to be called up for him. But the main thing is not to embarrass anybody. Is that good? I don't know.

I know that when the Rebbe — there were a few people — he was very careful whom to give the honor to first. Let's say there are a few Kohanim this week, so he would ask, "Who is the Kohen?" And even if they took him, he would ask, "Who gets the first aliyah? Give him the first," and then, "Who is the Levi?" If there's no Kohen — just so as not to embarrass anybody, or to make sure it was proper to give it to him first — he was very careful. This was a very important thing that we always had — not to embarrass anybody.

This is what I wanted to mention today, and that whoever needs a yeshua should have it, and we should be — next week we'll continue our weekly program. Thank you.