Stuck In The Middle With You

Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

One Flesh – Everything important happens in the first three chapters of Genesis*.  Sometimes what’s important isn’t quite as obvious in our language, so we need to take a look at the insights of the great rabbis who studied the Torah in Hebrew.  Rabbi Akiba, in the second century, shows us an amazing message in this familiar verse.  He points out that the Hebrew word for man, ish and the Hebrew word for woman, ishah, contain two particularly important pictures.  These two words have two common letters and two unique letters between them.  The unique letters are the Yod and the Hey.  The Yod is found in the word ish (Aleph-Yod-Shin).  The Hey is found in the word ishah (Aleph-Shin-Hey).  When we combine these two letters, we get Yod-Hey which is an abbreviation of God’s holy name.  That’s right.  Stuck in the middle of the two words for man and women, when they are combined, is God’s name.  Rabbi Akiba says, “When husband and wife are worthy, the Dwelling Presence of God abides with them.”

But what about the common letters between the two words.  Those letters are Aleph-Shin, and that makes the Hebrew word “fire.”  Rabbi Akiba comments on this as well.  “When they are not worthy, fire consumes them.”  In the Hebrew pictographs, we see that unless God is stuck in the middle, marriage becomes a place of the strong devourer (the pictograph of “fire”).  It seems to me that this is a divine law of the universe.  It can’t be broken, no matter how many combinations of marriage relationships we enter.  God must be stuck in the middle or we will have to learn to live in the fire.

In this paradigm verse on marriage, we see God’s intention.  Marriage is about becoming one.  This is the divinely ordained order of things.  Built into us is the yearning to be recombined with God in the middle.  We know that this is about glue, but the word for “cling” (davaq) also has spiritual overtones.  In Deuteronomy 4:4, 10:20 and 30:20 it is used to describe our yearning for God.  The glue needed to hold a marriage together is not merely human effort.  It is the divine glue of God in the middle.  It is the Yod-Hey combination of each part.

This teaching is particularly important for me.  I suffer from work obsession.  I love what I do.  I love investigating God’s Word and being involved in the dissemination of that investigation so that others may benefit from my journey.  But in that pursuit, I often dishonor my ‘ezer.  She tells me that she feels like a distant second place in my life.  She’s right.  How can I learn this wonderful stuff about God’s design and not make it a reality in my own marriage?  That is disobedience, and I am guilty.  So, I’m going to stop writing about this right now and go tell her that I love her, that I am glued to her and that God must be in the middle with us.  And it’s my responsibility to put Him there!

Happy real Valentine’s Day!