What two? Welcome back, everyone, to the A Torah Marriage Series with Rabbi Ali Cohen. I’m a marriage counselor. If you’d like to call me and discuss any marriage-related topics or this one, or set up a meeting, 917-837-0102. Some people like an email. It’s much easier for some people. A-L-C-O-H-E-N-L-E-V-T-O-R-E-H.org.
Let’s get into today’s topic, which is criticism. Criticism is never okay. That’s it. It’s really simple, but we’re going to have to elaborate to make a class out of it. Criticism is not a good option. It’s not an option. Many people will fall back on this default mode because they have no other... Well, there are multiple reasons, but sometimes they have no other option. “I tried letting my spouse know what’s bothering me. I tried letting them know certain things that are on my mind. They don’t listen, so I have to criticize them. And then I get frustrated, so I criticize them.” So it’s either you feel like it’s an option. Some people do mention this to me: “Yeah, it’s my only option. It’s the only way to listen.” Or they just get frustrated: “I couldn’t take it anymore, and it’s obviously their spouse’s fault for triggering them.” So either way, “I had to do this criticism.”
So no, as people of the Torah, it’s not correct. Criticizing, being negative to your spouse, saying hurtful words, and putting them down are never okay. It’s not correct. It’s wrong. It’s a lav (negative commandment) in the Torah. That’s number one. Number two is that it doesn’t work. It’s not going to work. You’re not going to get what you’re trying to accomplish, which means you’re trying to get your spouse. It’s the only way they listen. It’s not true. They might listen out of fear. They might say, “Oh, uh-oh, he or she is very frustrated. I’m going to listen now.” That’s being fearful. That’s not them listening. It’s a very important point I’m mentioning. When someone is scared out of their wits and they do something because they’re scared, they’re not listening. They’re scared.
So what’s going to happen is your spouse is going to build resentment and frustration. If you want their behavior—whatever that behavior is—to stop, or for them to do certain behaviors, they’re either not going to do it, or they’ll do it begrudgingly, building this frustration. The goal here is to build a loving, caring relationship. That’s not happening. So it’s not a good option, besides the fact that it’s wrong from the Torah. It’s not going to work. As you have seen yourself, anybody who’s listening to this knows that criticizing their spouse doesn’t work. Putting them down doesn’t work. So there are two parts: it’s wrong, and it doesn’t work.
You could go back to the class on communication, which discusses how the proper Torah way a Ben Torah (Torah scholar) speaks to anyone, especially your spouse, whom you love the most, is gently and calmly. “It would mean so much if you would do X, Y, and Z. If you would stop doing X, Y, and Z, it would mean so much to me. I know it’s hard for you.” That stuff works. Gentle, talking gently. Words—this is brought down in Chazal (the Sages). The words that are spoken softly are received well. That’s brought down. And that’s true. We all see it. So let’s follow what the Torah says and speak gently and softly.
Now, people will tell me, “I can’t; I’m so frustrated.” That’s your problem. You have to understand that’s your problem, not your spouse’s. It’s not your spouse’s problem when something about them is bothering you and you can’t get the message across in a nice way. They might not know what’s bothering you. It might be hard for them to change certain things, but it’s on you to—I don’t say “fix”—but it’s on you to speak nicely when something about them bothers you. Of course, that doesn’t absolve them from whatever it is. There are so many examples. I don’t like to give examples because there are so many. It doesn’t absolve them or anything like that.
But if somebody is telling me, “Yeah, I would speak nicely, and it would work, and it’s correct. And I know that’s the way to get my spouse. So listen, however, I can’t do that. It’s, it’s—I lose myself.” That’s your problem. You have to fix that and look to fix that. Don’t pin it on them and say they have to listen no matter what. And they have to—it’s there. No, no. The Torah gives directives and commandments where you have to speak nicely and you cannot criticize. So if that’s out as an option, then that’s out as an option, and you have to figure out other ways. Go to therapy. Learn Mussar (ethical teachings), learn more Gemara. Get some type of techniques for how to calm yourself down. Maybe get medicated. I don’t know. I’m just throwing it out there. Hope no one gets offended. But there are other options for you to get this accomplished.
So I hope it wasn’t too strong, but I think it was. But anyway, the next point is that there are certain ideas I want to make sure people don’t get sucked into—wrong ideas, not Torah ideas. And this is really where we get messed up. Once we find something out there and it’s promoted and it’s not our way, then we buy into it and it becomes okay by us. Not like that. It becomes like the way to be.
Many people push this concept, which was created by a conservative Jew: every criticism, every word of criticism, has to be preceded by five compliments. If you’ve never heard it, good. Shut the audio right now. If you’ve heard of it, it’s wrong. It’s wrong. I have multiple reasons why it’s wrong. I speak about this in my podcast, Selling Relationships and Fixing Jewish Marriage. But for the reason I just mentioned now, it’s wrong. The ends don’t justify the means. There’s no justifying something wrong with, “Oh, but I did this to fix it. Oh, but I gave so many compliments. Ah, I have a right to tell my husband or wife that they’re failing at life and they’re a low life because I was so nice last week.” I mean, it’s not a Torah concept. I’m sorry.
So when we hear marriage advice, we have to make sure, number one, it’s from somebody who has Torah sources. Number two, there are many people giving advice who have non-Jewish ideas. We have to make sure the ideas we’re hearing make sense and they’re Jewish ideas. We also have to make sure they work, try it, and go back and say, “Hey, this didn’t work. What is happening?”—and not just blindly say, “We heard something. That’s it. This is how we do things.”
There’s another point, which I don’t want to go off on a tangent about: people will hear marital advice and put it on their spouse. I should really talk about this in its own class. The marriage advice that you’re hearing, especially when it comes to marriage, is for you. It’s for you and you only. It’s not for you to say, “Ah, I knew all along my spouse was failing. Ah, let me get them to listen to this.” I mean, if you have a good relationship, a communicative, and they’re going to listen and say, “Oh, thank you so much,” that’s great. But if they’re going to feel frustrated and threatened or something like that, then it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good idea. I don’t promote that. I strongly advise against that.
If this topic talks to you to change, then that’s great. If it’s getting you to nod your head and say, “My spouse is crazy,” and it just reinforces that, that’s not a class. A class is change. And any class, for that matter, is for the purpose of change. It’s not for the purpose of reinforcing ideas that you already know: “Ah, I knew I was always right.” Or reinforcing what you knew about your spouse: “Ah, I knew he or she was failing.” It doesn’t do anything. It feels good sometimes to feel valid in a generation where it’s not about validating me. It’s about feeling valid. No one feels valid in their own right. We’ll talk about that another time. Be patient. Be wise. Pray to Hashem. Be sure to have a wonderful relationship.