I’ll Make Your Peanut Butter Sandwich

In our last column on kavod we discussed how treating another human being with respect is an acknowledgment that the individual has an internal and therefore eternal self. Since we all have a neshamah an internal and eternal self every person is worthy of kavod. Honor gives a person a sense that his life has meaning and substance. This has implications in all manner of human relationships. Here we will expand upon the definition and begin to explore its application in marriage.

The concept of kavod can be derived from its opposite kal. The Navi (Shmuel I 2:30) says in the name of the One Above: “Those who honor Me I will honor and those who humiliate Me will be cursed (yeikalu).”

The meaning of kal or nikleh contemptible is one who has no strength or stability. His existence is dependent on others and therefore is affected by everything around him. Juxtapose this to the mechubad the honorable person from the root of kaveid which implies a reality that is firm stable and sustainable on its own.

In the first chapter of Tehillim David HaMelech provides us with a metaphor for this stability. A person whose behavior is honorable is compared to the tree planted near the water source which makes it firm and sustainable in contrast to the rasha whose behavior is dishonorable and is likened to the chaff that blows in the wind.

One hallmark of an honorable existence is that a person’s needs are provided for him without his having to struggle to attain them. We see this in the way we prepare for Shabbos. The Rambam in Hilchos Shabbos (30:5) teaches that we prepare our homes for Shabbos with a table set and candles prepared to honor Shabbos. Because we are aware of the value of the day we prepare for it like we do for an important guest with all its needs attended to down to the last detail.

Taking care of another’s needs is also central to the laws of honoring parents and teachers. We honor our parents by seeing to their physical needs. We take them out and bring them in. We give them food and drink. We help them dress if necessary. On the other hand the laws that we might logically associate with honor such as refraining from sitting in their seat or not contradicting them fall under the category of morah reverence.

Why Should I Honor You?

When we think of honoring another person particularly a spouse it often pushes our emotional buttons. If I honor you does that make you more and me less? Does honoring you make me subservient? Wasn’t slavery abolished? How do we understand the relationship between seeing to another’s needs and honoring?

Imagine the president of the US in the Situation Room of the White House. The atmosphere is tense as he sits with his advisors trying to avert an international incident. The hours pass and no one has left the room. Realizing he is hungry the president goes to his residence finds a few slices of bread and makes himself a peanut butter sandwich.

What’s wrong with this picture? There is certainly nothing wrong with someone making himself something to eat. It does however take away from the critical nature of what is going on in the Situation Room.

Similarly a surgeon in the operating theater is handed all the tools he requires so that he can maintain his complete focus on the patient. The more important the task to be accomplished the more critical it is that the necessary tools be provided to the person carrying it out.

How does all this apply to marriage? A person’s home is meant to establish his malchus. The world outside is fraught with challenges that hold back a man from what he wants to become in his service of Hashem. A man’s tafkid is to go into that world and try to maintain his standards be they integrity sanctity of thought and more. He needs to come home to a household that values his struggle so that he can maintain his sense of self.

No matter how unique an individual is it is hard to stand out against the backdrop of the world at large. Think about a busy airport or train terminal; in a crowd of people one cannot point out the Nobel Prize laureate or the veteran who saved his comrades in battle. It is only in a person’s home that his uniqueness can be appreciated. That is his malchus.

A woman is naturally ensconced as the queen in her home. This is one of the myriad meanings of the verse “The entire honor of the daughter of the king is penimah — within” (Tehillim 45:14). A woman looks most beautiful to her husband at home where she is the queen who creates his kingdom for him. A woman creates a home that is a reflection of her deeper self. When part of her involvement is seeing to her husband’s needs she is giving him the opportunity to develop which in turn contributes to the shared kingdom they are building.

More than Lunch and Laundry

When we understand that one aspect of kavod is providing a person’s needs we are able to weave this understanding into our interactions with our spouses and children. You have something important to accomplish and by providing you with clean clothes to wear and food to eat I am demonstrating my belief in your importance. I honor you because I value you.

I have heard women say “When he’ll be worthy of my honor then I’ll act respectfully.” This is a mistake. Our ability to honor another person is what creates his value. His value in your eyes cannot be a seesaw moving up and down depending on whether he got up for minyan that day.

Some years ago I became friendly with an illustrious rebbetzin who always spoke about her husband in the third person. “The Rav said this the Rav did that.” I was intrigued and eager for an opportunity to meet the Rav. When I got to know them both quite well it became clear that his status was largely due to her. He was a person of merit. She used the tool called honor and made him into a great man.

This is not to imply that if we are not in a position to cook or do the laundry our families will be thwarted in the realization of their potential. Rather when we are able to do so and it comes with the message “I value you therefore I am happy to do this for you ” it gives a spouse or child an added impetus to move forward and will affect his own perception of what he can accomplish. Even when we physically can’t care for our family members the way we’d like to if we give across the message that we wish we could it goes a long way.

How can we avoid a constant reevaluation of whether our spouses are worthy of our honor? We can do this by working on perceiving both ourselves and others as internally rather than externally defined. When we tie our sense of self or of others to externals — even if those externals are accomplishments — we are setting ourselves up for anxiety and disappointment.

If a sizeable portion of Judy’s respect for Michael is due to his position in a large investment firm what will happen to this respect when the company downsizes and he finds himself without a job? If Sara’s pride in Shmuel is directly tied to how many hours a day he spends in the beis medrash what will happen to this pride when out of necessity he takes a job as a computer programmer and has to squeeze his Torah learning into nonworking hours?

When we are looking to get married we work to understand who the person is internally what are his middos and level of yiras Shamayim. These internal measures need to be the continued focus of our honor and respect. This will lead to less angst and more forgiveness when the external behavior doesn’t always match the inner greatness. Our spouses will feel valued for who they truly are and there are few things more motivating than that.

Most of the concepts in this article are from Ohel Rochel written by Rav Menachem Schlanger.

You have something important to accomplish and by providing you with clean clothes to wear and food to eat I am demonstrating my belief in your importance