They didn't give us a piece from the parasha because, technically, according to their schedule, they're done. They're already moving on after Passover, to the next semester. So just last night, I thought I'd prepare something from a Sefer. I took out this Sefer, Beit Yehudi. I want to thank Saul; he brought it back from Israel. I asked him for the set a couple of months ago when he was there. He's an expert on Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) and things of this nature. So last night I told the Rebbetzin (rabbi's wife)—I usually prepare the class with the Rebbetzin—I said, “Okay, let's use this sefer over here.” We brought it out and started learning some ideas from it. After we finished, I left it on the kitchen table so I could bring it to shul (synagogue) the next morning, and I went upstairs to retire for the night. The Rebbetzin stayed up later than usual, doing some work.
We had some rabbis staying in the house. When they walked in, they said, “Oh, you're learning the book, Le'ilui nishmato (for the elevation of his soul)?” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Yeah, the rabbi just passed away Thursday.” I said, “I don't believe it. What are the odds? We took out this book over here and learned it, and we just found out he passed away.” So we learned again. Rabbi Shalom, Rabbi Simcha Cohen. He comes highly accredited. This is a very, very, very famous rabbi on the inyanim (topics) of Shalom Bayit and human nature. The book is accredited by Rabbi Wolbe in the beginning.
Anyway, he's talking about one sensitive part of marriage: after one spouse offends the other, in whatever capacity, the ability to apologize, to say, “I'm sorry,” and then to go forward. He says that in Judaism, we look at mistakes as a great opportunity. The Gemara says in Gittin that a person doesn't really get the halakha (Jewish law) right until he makes a mistake in it. Once he makes a mistake, it arouses him and gives him an awakening that makes sure he doesn't do that again.
They once asked a bunch of people to write down, or express in a survey, which teacher had the most impact on them from when they were young until their old age. Everybody said, “My third-grade teacher.” One guy said, “The seventh-grade teacher.” One guy said, you know, so on and so forth. Then one guy wrote that the teacher who had been with him from when he was young until now, and had taught him the most, was his mistake. That's the best teacher: the mistake you make. The mistake will always arouse and awaken you to correct it. He said, “Nobody has made me a better person than the mistakes I've made.” So the Gemara always looks at mistakes as an opportunity to improve. It's almost as if Borei Olam gives you a gift if He wants you to become an expert on something: you mess up first, and by messing up, you say, “I'll never do that again. I learned my lesson.”
So in marriage, his point is that it should be the same attitude. If, Chas Veshalom (God forbid), there was a fight or a certain disruption or disagreement that caused one of the spouses to become offended, then a mistake took place. Assuming people aren't malicious and aren't trying to hurt each other, if we have the right attitude, we can turn this into an opportunity to make the marriage better: we won't do this again; we'll learn from what happened. It can become an opportunity for growth.
But the problem is that people don't like to admit that they did something wrong. Human nature is that people want to be good people, and they want to do justice. There's a natural tendency to do the right thing and be fair, honest, and straight. Whenever a person can't live up to the standards he knows to be true, it creates a conflict in his mind. He knows what's right, and he knows he's not living according to those standards. So there are two ways to react when a person is conflicted.
But I always said, when people come along and say, “These Jews, these religious Jews—look at the way they act,” I would make a distinction. The Torah is perfect. Jews are not. You cannot bring proof of Judaism from Jews. Sometimes they're the worst example of what Judaism is supposed to be like. You're supposed to bring proof of what Judaism is from the Torah itself. Look at the Torah, at what the Torah wants of a person. That's perfect. If everybody lived according to Torah standards, you'd be very happy. The problem is that the Jew who's supposed to be living by those standards doesn't. That causes a conflict for people looking on from the outside. But it also causes the same conflict for the person himself, who knows the truth.
Even if a person doesn't know all the Torah, people have a basic knowledge of right and wrong. Natural law. People know that. You don't have to convince people why murder is forbidden. Even if a guy never learned the Ten Commandments, he probably understands that murder is something you shouldn't do. Or stealing somebody's property: even if he never read the Ten Commandments, there are certain natural things a person recognizes, even without the Torah. All the more so if he has a Torah education; he knows we have certain standards. When he can't live according to those standards, it creates a tremendous conflict in him.
So there are two ways of doing it. A person can say, “Chatati, I did wrong,” which is probably the greatest moment, because he's admitting a mistake. Teshuvah (repentance) already begins the process of never making that mistake again. Since I made that mistake, I learned from it, so I'm aware of it. Therefore, I'll be careful next time, so it doesn't happen again.
It's like a person driving through a certain intersection that's a little dangerous, and he's not careful. Boom, they side-swipe him. He says, “Oh, I've got to be very careful. Either I'll never drive down that block again, or when I get to this intersection, I'll be very, very careful, much more than ever, and it will never happen again.” It took an accident to arouse the person to be careful. So that was the luckiest day of his life. That day, he learned a lesson: that one mistake will save him from a thousand mistakes in the future, or a thousand errors in the future.
So one way Rav says to respond is to admit the mistake. But human beings have a hard time admitting they're wrong, because admitting they're wrong means admitting that they're imperfect and not living according to the standards they know. That's very painful. The other thing is to justify: to give reasons and rationalize why exactly what we did doesn't contradict the values we hold dear, because it's an exception, because those values don't apply to that, or because the situation calls for an exception.
Human beings have an uncanny ability to justify anything. Even the thief who steals merchandise from the warehouse, puts it in his bag, and takes it home can say, “I'm underpaid. Listen, my boss doesn't want to give me a raise. I'm here from 6 o'clock to 10 o'clock at night. If he doesn't want to pay me, I'll just pay myself.” He looks at it as salary. So you can justify that. Today, you can probably even justify murder and all these other crimes with what people are doing.
What do you see from here? Even though these people are ethical, the doctors will come along and say, “Well, this old lady doesn't have quality of life. What kind of life is that anyway if she can't have quality? She can't play tennis. She can't do the waltz. She can't eat with her hands. Therefore, you know what? It's not really considered life anymore, because life is only defined by quality.” Therefore, they kill old ladies in the hospital without any compunction. These are ethical boards in the hospital. These are people who write books on ethics. And it's the ethical people who come out and say it's okay.
Now, of course, they're rationalizing it because the hospitals are too expensive to keep them on life support, or for other monetary reasons. If they got down to the real reason why they're doing this, they'd have to admit they're coming up with rationalizations to save the hospital money. Exactly: to save the hospital money, to make a turnover, to bring another customer, because it's too much to feed this old lady. So they're saying, “Why are we wasting all this money? The insurance companies are putting pressure on us. People are living too long. We can't pay for all this insurance. Therefore, we've got to figure out a way to make it okay.” So they create a rationalization: quality of life. She doesn't have equality. Therefore, we could kill her. You can go to that extent. You can go to that extent to justify murder.
So even though we might not go to that extent, in marriage, when a person makes a mistake, we can always justify a hundred ways why we don't have to say, “I'm sorry,” because we didn't do anything wrong. That's why he says it should be a red flag. Whenever you see yourself justifying something, that's usually an indication that you did something wrong. The justification process is usually a warning sign that you did something wrong, and that's why you're going into that mode of answering up. He says you have to stop yourself at that point. Once you start explaining yourself, you might be right. Not every rationalization is wrong, but a lot of them are. Therefore, you have to be really honest with yourself: “Am I answering up something that really—” Then you can say to yourself, “Listen, I know why I'm doing it: because it's painful, because I know this is the standard I want to live by, and I know I didn't follow that standard. Okay, we're not perfect. It's easy to say, ‘Chatati,’ and therefore you'll be able to learn from your mistake and get to perfection.”
But if your goal is to get to perfection by denying what you did, that's what the Navi says: God says through the prophet, “I am judging you because you said, lo chatati (I have not sinned).” That's bigger than the sin itself. When a person sins, okay, a person sins; it's human to sin. But then to come along and say after the sin, “lo chatati.” God says, “Hineni nishpat otach al omrech, lo chatati” (Behold, I am judging you because you say, I have not sinned). That's the biggest sin, because now you're rationalizing it. God says, “You made a sin, but use it as an opportunity now. Use it as an opportunity to grow. Use it as an opportunity to get better.” Instead, you make a sin and say, “lo chatati,” and waste an opportunity. The sin now doubles: number one, you made a sin, and number two, you'll never correct it.
Marriage, obviously, the most important thing is to recognize that we're not always right. The second point: he has an old chapter. I'll just make one point. He says that a lot of times, because it's so difficult to say “I'm sorry” or apologize, the apology is made in a very casual way, so the person who deserves the apology won't feel it or sense it. It's common when they deal with Shalom Bayit: the lady will say, “But he did this to me. He said these words to me.” “But I apologized.” She'll say, “I just don't remember when you apologized. When did you apologize?” “I remember when we were going outside and going into the car.” So it's in the middle of an informal moment, when everybody's moving around: “Oh, by the way, I'm sorry for yesterday.” That's done on purpose because it takes away the pain from the person. At certain times, it needs to be done when the person sits down and makes it clear that such an item is not forgotten.
Or the husband or the wife will compensate in other ways without saying the words “I'm sorry.” He'll come home and buy her a gift, okay, but she didn't hear the words, or he didn't hear the words, “I'm sorry.” He's trying to make a gesture. Let it go; the flowers are not going to make a bed for the...
It's like a person made a sin to God and gives 10,000 Tzedaka (charity), okay, but that's not Teshuvah. That's an appeasement to God, but it's not Teshuvah; it's Chatati. So the person has to say, “That's not going to help. It's not going to help either way.” But if the flowers don't work, what will work? I thought the other or text or text. No, no, but a text as a gesture, where the person sends a smiley face, and you're thinking that it means, “We're good; we've broken the ice; I'm happy with you already, I love you, and I never—but you said—but...” But she doesn't get it, because the face is not an admission that you did something wrong. It just pushes it to the side.
So his point is that if you want to save yourself a lot of problems, rationalization doesn't usually help marriages. Being straightforward, apologizing, putting it to rest, and using it as an opportunity to grow would usually be the best solution. So these are the types of ideas this man gives. You can imagine how good he brings a funny story to show how people have a hard time apologizing.
He says one time it happened in a shul, and the Chazan (cantor)—not our shul's Chazan, but a Chazan—offended the rabbi in some way. The rabbi was very, very upset, and the people were upset. The committee said to the Chazan, “You can't offend the rabbi. That's what I mean. Next week, you have to get up in public and apologize to the rabbi.”
When he got up to apologize to the rabbi, he said, “I said something humiliating to the rabbi,” in the tone of a question. He said, “And the rabbi wants me to apologize to him for that,” in a certain tone. The rabbi reacted in a way that was unclear, then said, “You're making a big sin.” Then he said, “He's right, all the respect.” He said something unclear about the tune. You tell me what he's trying to say with that story: even when he got up to apologize, he couldn't—he couldn't; he had to give a zinger. That's as far as it goes.