<span style="color: rgb(47, 76, 90); font-family: Signika; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Behar, 13 Iyar, 5784, May 21, 2024, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.
The Midrash recounts that in the second century, in the famous seaport town of Sidon, on the coast of Lebanon, there lived a married couple blessed with wealth and an honored position in the community. There was, however, a great void in their lives. Although they were married for ten years, they had no children. The couple decided to get divorced.
They turned to the great Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai for advice. He looked at the couple for a long time, and then he said to them, &ldquo;I ask only one thing of you both: If you must part, then just as you wed with celebration, so should you part from each other with celebration.&rdquo;
They took his advice and arranged a great feast. During the evening, the husband raised his cup and said to his wife, who would soon leave, &ldquo;True, this is the last meal we shall share. Before you go, look around at the treasures of this house, choose the most precious jewel your heart desires, and take it back with you to your parents&rsquo; house.&rdquo;
The wife did not respond to his offer. Instead, she mixed and spiced the wine, and they drank a lot. The candles burned low in the room, and the husband fell asleep, overcome by heavy drowsiness. While he was asleep, the wife told her servants to lift him on a bed and carry him to her parents&rsquo; house. As dawn broke, the husband opened his eyes in a daze and discovered he was in unfamiliar surroundings. Astonished, he asked, &ldquo;Where am I?&rdquo; &ldquo;In the house of my parents,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; he asked.
&ldquo;This is where you asked to be taken. Did you not say to me last night, &lsquo;Take with you the most precious thing your heart desires?&rsquo; To me, dear husband, there is nothing in the world more precious than you. 
They had found each other again. They now fully realized how strongly they loved each other. The next day, the couple of Sidon appeared again before Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. He prayed for the couple, and after a joyful year, they were blessed with a child.
What is the message of this story? And why didn&rsquo;t Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai pray for them in the first place? The story of the couple of Sidon, says the Alter Rebbe, is not only about them; it tells an eternal truth about every marriage and the enduring power of love.
When the couple first came to Bar Yochai, their love for each other was conditional and goal-oriented. If the marriage was not producing a child, there was ultimately no point in it. But then as they were about to part, they discovered how deeply they loved each other. They began to celebrate the intrinsic value of love. So, the couple returned to visit the rabbi, not because they had a solution, but because they knew they wanted to be together. Paradoxically, when the couple began to understand the purity of love that has no ulterior motive, their relationship bore fruit.
The class explores how our first marriages must morph into second marriages, even with the same partner, and how the setbacks and betrayals we experience are often cries of the soul for a deeper, more authentic, and more vulnerable relationship. We can grow from a superficial relationship to one in which the very relationship means more than anything else. The same is true also in our relationship with Hashem. 
We tell a story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe saving a marriage, even after divorce, when the husband discovered he was not a Kohen. &nbsp;&nbsp;

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This weekly women&#39;s class was&nbsp;presented on Tuesday, Parshas Bechukosai,&nbsp;23 Iyar, 5782, May 24, 2022, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

King David&mdash;whose yartzeit is on Shavuos&mdash;remains one of the most fascinating, perplexing, and majestic figures in Jewish history. The combination of wisdom, humility, honesty and spirituality coupled with courage, power, passion, and leadership, and all of them with incredible intensity, conferred upon him the status of the ultimate Jewish king, leader, and poet.

Two of the most powerful stories of love in the Tanach are also associated with him and one two of his children. They are summarized succinctly by our sages in the Ethics of the Fathers ch. 5: &ldquo;What is an example of a love that depended on something? The love Amnon had for Tamar. What is a love that did not depend on anything? The love between David and Jonathan.&quot;&nbsp;

Let us recall these two narratives of love. Let us also understand why the Mishnah needs to find illustrations for two models of love from two ancient stories, when both of these models play themselves out in each of our lives on a constant basis?

At a &ldquo;farbrengen&rdquo; in the spring of 1973, Shabbos Parshas Bechokosai 5733, the Lubavitcher Rebbe offered an explanation to the Mishnah. As was his style, he demonstrated how the answer to the above enigma lay in what seems like a discrepancy of a single world. It teaches us a novel idea about how family members need to nurture relationships between themselves and also what type love we are capable of achieving with our spouses and even toward strangers.

The riveting stories of how Amnon violated Tamar and how Jonathan loved David illustrate what we are capable of and what we must be caution of in the volatile and complex world of love.

Siblings Can Learn to Hate Each Other; Strangers Can Learn to Love Each Other

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Speech about Marriage at "Emet"

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