Read Some of the Book

the torah way of life

נֵר לְרַגְלִי דְבָרֶךָ וְאוֹר לִנְתִיבָתִי

(תהילים קיט:קה)

נתיבות חיים

The Torah Way of Life

THE TORAH HOME

A GUIDE TO

THE ELEMENTS, ATTITUDES AND GOALS NECESSARY FOR A SUCCESSFUL

JEWISH MARRIAGE

Moreinu v’Rabbeinu HaGaon HaRav

Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg

shlita

COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY

Rabbi Shlomo Furst

PREFACE

Moreinu v’Rabbeinu HaGaon HaRav

Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg

shlita

When we think about getting married, we need to look ahead. Companionship is the obvious, natural motivation for marriage. However, if we view marriage as an eternal bond between husband and wife our attitude will be very different than if we view marriage as a temporary relationship. A brick house requires completely different design, construction and maintenance than a tent. If we are wise, we will consider the past, the future and the present so that our marriages will be lasting and successful. The immediate benefits of companionship are not the only factors that we need to consider.

Today, getting married is not so difficult. Staying married is the great achievement. Marriage requires a strong, stable and deep foundation to withstand the many challenges that come with it. Many thousands of Torah homes and families have benefited from the advice and ideas that are presented in this sefer....

Section I

שלוה בארמנותיך

Tranquility within Your Palaces

Moreinu v’Rabbeinu HaGaon HaRav

Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, shlita

Understanding Marriage

Very frequently, I am asked to help deal with problems of shalom bayis. In today’s homes, tensions are very common between husbands and wives. Unfortunately, this situation is widespread throughout modern society and affects even our religious families. If unchecked, a sequence of events begins that can unfortunately result in divorce.

I am not always able to know or determine the true initial cause. However, when I question the couple, usually, the mutual answer that they give is incompatibility and lack of communication. I ask them what happened to break up their relationship. The couple’s relationship was not always this way. At the beginning, they were compatible and had plenty to talk about.

All the many hours that they spent dating must have been filled with conversation. During the course of their courtship, they must have compared their views about life and their expectations about marriage. There must have been broad agreement about a variety of important life issues for them to both agree to marry each other. Without doubt, the couple felt that they were compatible and there was communication between them....

Section II

The Foundations of the

Torah Home

Based on the lectures of

Moreinu v’Rabbeinu HaGaon HaRav

Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, shlita

Part One

Reality

Marriage is a process, not an event. People who are caring, giving and understanding will live, grow and build together. Spouses who work together to build a Torah home will enable the tzelem Elokim within them to flourish. Simcha and shalom will fill their lives.

The achievement of such grand and lofty goals as these takes time and effort. It is a mistake to believe it all happens right after the wedding. Shalom bayis requires patience, determination and training. Therefore, it is important to enter marriage with an honest determination to seek ways of achieving and maintaining shalom bayis.

Preparation must take place long before marriage. Patient understanding of the spouse is essential for every Torah home. Marriage requires that we care for our spouses even more than we care for ourselves. Shalom bayis requires us to abandon our selfish attitudes and concerns.

Shalom is a vague term. We generally think of peace as being the lack of conflict among people. Shalom bayis is obviously much more than the lack of conflict between husband and wife.

If we realize this and prepare for it, we will accept the fact that the true joy we will have in our marriages depends on our patient understanding of our spouses. This takes time and effort. Therefore, when we get married we should realize that the wedding day is not the ultimate joy of marriage....

Part Two

Menuchas Hanefesh

We all desire and value shalom. Nevertheless, shalom is an elusive reality. We generally think of peace as being the lack of conflict among people. This definition, however, does not indicate the need for menuchas hanefesh.

Shalom is the result of personal, inner peace. We must achieve peace between our own inner drives and motivations before shalom can be expected to flourish among people. We must be happy with ourselves before we can be happy with other people.

We are responsible for shalom. Shalom begins with us. The success of our marriages depends on us. The more menuchas hanefesh we have, the more we will be able to be calm in our homes and supportive to our families. If we have menuchas hanefesh, then even in the face of daily challenges and ordeals, the quality of our home lives will be peaceful.

If we achieve menuchas hanefesh, we enable others — especially our spouses and children — to achieve menuchas hanefesh. Therefore, the Torah home, above all, must foster menuchas hanefesh, a harmonic balance between our physical needs and our spiritual aspirations....

Part Three

Bitachon

If we examine our way of life, we see that although luxuries abound, menuchas hanefesh is in short supply. If we do not have shalom, all the luxuries in the world mean nothing. If we allow envy, lust and glory to control our thoughts, our relationships and our lives, then the sechel has a very slight chance of governing our emotions.

Our lives are very hectic even though we have many luxuries. We are therefore much more susceptible to losing our self-control and becoming angry. Even though the earlier generations had much less gashmius than we do, they understood the purpose of life. They knew the purpose of marriage. They knew the terrible power of anger. They knew the wonderful power of shalom.... The sefer Chovos HaLevavos, in the introduction to Shaar Bitachon, writes that people will reap many benefits if they honestly and fully try to place their trust in Hashem. They will have peace of mind and feel calm.

Consequently, they will be healthier. They will worry less and have fewer upsets. They will devote less time to business and worldly concerns. This will give them more time to serve Hashem. Their thoughts will be free for Torah study. They will be happy and content in all situations, for they realize that everything they have comes from Hashem, in Whom they have placed their trust. They know that whatever Hashem bestows upon them is absolutely and ultimately good for them.

We all want the many benefits of bitachon: to be healthy, happy and content. However, it is a mistake to believe that these are independent goals of the highest priority. The many benefits of bitachon, as wonderful and important as they may be, are merely by-products of bitachon. They are not goals in and of themselves....

Part Four

A Good Heart

In the second perek of Avos we learn about how Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai asked his talmidim to go out and find the best, most direct path that a person should adopt in life. His five talmidim gave five different answers: a good eye, a good friend, a good neighbor, foresight over the consequences of one’s actions and a good heart.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai accepted this last answer, the opinion of Rabbi Elazar ben Arach, who answered that a lev tov, a good heart, is the best way in life for us to choose. A lev tov, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai explained, is the most preferred path because it encompasses all the other answers....The heart, besides being the source of our emotions, is also the source of our attitudes and opinions. Our motivations stem from the heart; therefore, our attitude towards the world depends upon our heart’s desire.

What we will seek in life, how we select and pursue our goals in life — and how we achieve them — depends on our hearts.

Our hearts can be for ourselves or they can be for others. We can be for ourselves or we can be for Hashem. A good heart brings the Shechina into our homes. With a lev tov we can do, easily and gladly, all the very many different acts of kindness that a home requires. A lev tov governs our potential to do chesed.

With a lev tov, we can eagerly seek out every opportunity to do chesed with our spouses and children. This will bring kedusha to our homes and simcha to our lives. According to the extent that we correct and refine our middos, so will we succeed in bringing menuchas hanefesh into our homes....

Part Five

Creation at Work

Among the many berachos that Chazal included in the marriage ceremony is the beracha of yotzer ha’adam. This beracha refers to Hashem’s original formation of man. It is very significant that Chazal chose to call attention to our Divine creation when we marry instead of when we are born.

Marriage takes place many years — decades — after birth. Why do we delay our recognition and appreciation of Hashem’s chesed for such a long time? Obviously, since Chazal deemed wedlock to be the most appropriate time to express our gratitude to Hashem Yisborach for His creation of humans, Divine creation must be relevant to the marriage of a man and a woman — so much so, that during the course of the seven berachos the beracha of yotzer ha’adam is repeated twice!

Furthermore, according to some commentaries, the reason we say the beracha of yotzer ha’adam twice under the chuppa is in order to recall the formation of Chava. The first beracha corresponds to the formation of Adam and the second beracha corresponds to the formation of Chava. It is highly significant that we make specific reference to each act of creation by saying two separate berachos....