In Parashat Vaet’hanan, Moshe Rabbenu tells Beneh Yisrael that when they enter the Land of Israel, they will find things readymade for them:
ערים גדולות וטובות אשר לא בנית, ובתים מלאים כל טוב אשר לא מלאת, ובורות חצובים אשר לא חצבת, כרמים וזיתים אשר לא נטעת...
Large, good cities which you did not build; homes filled with goods that you did not fill; hewn cisterns which you did not dig; vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant. (6:10-11)
Moshe warns the people that when this happens: השמר לך פן תשכח את ה' – they must be very careful not to forget Hashem.
When we go into situations that were just given to us, without having had to work for them, there is danger. The hard work and challenges involved in building something molds our character and prepares us to use it properly. The building process makes us stronger, makes us smarter, makes us wiser, makes us more patient, and gives us the experience that we need. There is great danger when we are given things on a silver platter, without having worked for them, because we haven’t gone through the process of building ourselves sufficiently to know how to use our blessings.
Many young couples struggle in marriage because they did not adequately prepare for marriage. They did not do the hard work to grow and build themselves before entering this stage. Already in their teens, youths must be taught to push themselves to grow, to work on skills such as patience, communication, empathy, compassion, humility, compromise, listening, and other qualities which are so vital for a successful marriage. In order to get married, a young man or woman needs to make himself or herself into someone who can be a kind, generous, sensitive, responsible spouse. And this cannot happen without hard work. No growth process can transpire without a focused effort to grow.
Several pesukim earlier, we read the famous mitzva of ושננתם לבניך – to teach Torah to our children (6:7). Rashi explains the word ושננתם to mean שיהיו דברי תורה מחודדים בפיך – “that the words of Torah must be ‘sharp’ in your mouths.” We need to familiarize ourselves with Torah, to the extent that we are fluent and well-versed. The commentaries note that the Torah here commands us to teach our children Torah – ושננתם לבניך – and in these same words, we are commanded to make sure that we know Torah. In order to teach properly, we need to first build our own knowledge. We cannot educate our children if we have not educated ourselves.
Before a couple sets out to build a home, they need to build themselves. And even if a couple is already married – if they want to maintain a strong, happy marriage, and to build a happy family, they need to continually work on themselves and grow. The better people we are, the better marriages we will have, and the happier families we be able to build. The most important thing we need to do to build a strong, happy home is to build ourselves, our own characters, so that we will be the best spouses and the best parents that we can be.