והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו
Genesis 4: 1

Harmony between husband and wife is the fundamental basis of a Jewish home. In the Jewish family, men and women have different obligations and fulfill different roles. Because we are conscious that the Creator fashioned us as two different beings. With talents and traits that are necessary to synergize our marriage.

We look alike But we are different. Very different. So different that I’m not sure if you could classify men and women as belonging to the same species. I do not mean only in the physical realm, but more than anything else in the psychological and mental area. Nowadays, thanks to advances in medical and scientific technology, we know much better how the brain and the hormones work. And scientists  have discovered that we are far more different than we supposed when John Gray taught us in 1992 that men came from Mars and women came from Venus. The dissimilarity between men and women is very deep and has a biological origin. This is masterfully explained, among others,  by neurosurgeon Simon Baron-Cohen, a specialist in biological psychology,
in his revolutionary book: “The essential difference”.

Recognizing these differences was never more necessary than in our days.

First, because the level of interaction and communication that is expected between men and women, especially in marriage, is much more intense and active than it was since the beginning of humanity. In the recent past, interaction between spouses was limited and practical. Conversations about the running of the house, material needs and the education of children, etc.  The emotional conversation – the exchange: “how you feel / how I feel”, a dialogue that for the woman is natural and therapeutic – had no place between husband and wife. Women talked about their problems and emotions with other women: mother,  sister and neighbor. Today, however, the expectation of interaction between husband and wife is different. A modern wife intuitively expects her husband to empathize with her emotions, her problems, her frustrations, her doubts and her fears. Most women ignore that for men an emotional dialogue does not come naturally. Men, in general, do not excel in the art of communicating emotions and feelings. For a man, participating in an emotional  conversation requires learning and training. Because when a man faces a problem, he does not feel the need to share or talk about them with other people. Not even with his wife. Man has a different mental mechanism (opposite to that of a woman!) that helps him to process his fears and emotions.
Many men, on the other hand, think that wives talk too much, or that they talk in circles, or that they do not know how to express clearly what they want. They expect their wives to be Alexas or Siris. They do not know that women not only speak to communicate a problem but that they also use communication to vent their problems. Of these fundamental differences between men and women, little is known. Not many people have ever heard that the two brains are “different”.  I know that because I have given several classes on “Female Brain vs. male brain” and I do not usually find many people who know these topics.

Secondly, in our days a large part of modern society does not consider it politically correct to speak of psychological –much less of biological– differences – between men and women. The ultra-feminist view postulates that what distinguishes men from women are strictly social and cultural elements. According to this new liberal ideology “difference” is equal to “inequality”. Therefore, they reason, we should educate the new generation in a neutral way, neither as men nor as women. And then, the differences will disappear.

Ignorance of the innate differences between the genders, the fact that so little is taught about it, and the deliberate denial of these differences, is largely responsible for the present crisis of the institution of marriage.

What to do?

The first time the Tora speaks of love is in reference to Adam and Eve. And in that context, the word the Tora uses to describe love is  “yada'”,  to know”:  “Adam knew Eve, his wife” (Genesis 4: 1). It is very difficult – or impossible – to love another person without knowing her or about her. Without knowing how he or she thinks, how she reasons and especially how he transmits and communicates his emotions. Learning about our spouse and his or her gender, is learning to love our spouse.

As we explained last time, man unlike animals, was initially created alone, without a female mate. When man, Adam, sees the animals he realizes two things: 1. That he does not have a mate, like all animals. 2. And that he is a different being, with intelligence. And therefore, the mate he needs (and according to the Sages: “for which the man prays for”) still does not exist. Then the Creator (according to the Sages: at the request of man) fashions a woman.

לא טוב היות אדם לבדו

“It is not good for man to be alone …” Genesis 2:18

In the second chapter of Bereshit (Genesis) the Tora narrates in more detail the creation of man and woman. The Tora explains that the Creator initially created Adam,  man, alone, without a woman, and only at a later stage He created Eve, the woman.

MAN and WOMAN: WHO IS SUPERIOR?

This order in Creation does not establish or suggest a level of superiority of man. Actually you could argue the opposite. 1. In the Creation account we see a sort of  “evolution” from the least sophisticated to the most sophisticated. First HaShem creates matter: atoms. Then with the atoms He creates the atmosphere and the continents. Only at the end of the Third Day of Creation we see the appearance of the first cells with the creation of plants. On the Fifth DayHaShem brought to existence oviparous animals: insects, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians. On the Sixth Day HaShem creates mammals, creatures that are superior to the oviparous(warm blood, more complex brain, milk production, etc.). At the end of the Sixth Day HaShem creates man, a mammal but with a higher-Divine element: intelligence. The woman appears at the end. The last Divine creation, which suggests a higher lever of design (ויבן את האשה). The Sages explained that the woman was created with bina yetera, a superior intelligence. 2. Man was created from a “lower” source, the dust of the earth, just like mammals. The woman, and only the woman, was created from a living body, a source “superior” to the dust of the earth.

SPECIAL DELIVERY

There is another very important lesson learned from the order in which the first woman was created. In Bereshit 2:18-20, the Creator shows man the animals. Adam, the first man, is invited to name the animals, thus, recognizing them as a different category of being. The famous biblical commentator Radaq explains that this encounter between Adam and the animals served Adam to recognize himself as a being who, unlike all others, has a superior “divine” element: his spirit, his intelligence. And in addition, although the sexual element still does not appear in this context, Adam also recognized “gender”, masculine and feminine, in the animals. Radaq  says that it was only after (or thanks to) this encounter that Adam realized that he was alone. The Tora Alone in two senses. 1. Man did not find among the animals a “company” (עזר), that is, someone else, of a different kind, but “on a similar level” (כנגדו), in other words, someone on the same mental level as him and with the ability to think and choose. The encounter with the animals helped Adam to understand simultaneously his singularity and his solitude. Perhaps this is the reason why HaShem did not create woman at the same time as man. So that man can come to realize for himself, thanks to his Divine intelligence, that he needs a company. And that this company (or companion) does not yet exist.  The woman was not imposed by God on man. It was the man who asked HaShem to create the woman. The Rabbis of the Midrash expressed this deep idea explaining that after meeting the animals Adam prayed (this was the first prayer!) And asked HaShem a companion at his level. HaShem made man realize that it is not good for him to be alone. Thus, even before a woman existed, Adam already desires that special someone, a woman, next to him.