Correct but Insufficient
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. Genesis 2:22 NASB
Brought– When I wrote Guardian Angel, I thought the title would be The Perfect Enemy. My thinking was this: God brings into the lives of husbands precisely those wives who act as polishing stones, grinding away the rough edges until God gets what he wants from the man. The wife is the perfect abrasive tool. She knows her man only too well. She is closer to him than his mother (hopefully), and since her designed role to is act as the relationship manager in his life, she should act in ways that push him toward a deeper relationship with God. After all, that’s her purpose; not to shape him according to her desires, but to act as the divine sharpening tool for God’s purposes. In other words, she is the perfect enemy because even though she will oppose him where he is off track, she is also the one who is most anxious for him to find his God. His task in relation to her is to learn to transform his perfect enemy into his closest friend.
Of course, the title didn’t turn out to be The Perfect Enemy. My wife rightly perceived that even though the title was provocative, it wasn’t as positive as her title, Guardian Angel. Fortunately, I listened to her. She was right. Guardian Angel is a much better title. But there was something missing, something in the back of my mind that said, “This is correct, even exegetically correct—but, is not quite sufficient. There’s more to this somewhere.
Now I’ve read a comment in Avivah Zornberg’s work. It’s all about Leah, the other woman. Leah is the other side of the ‘ezer kenegdo coin, a side that is just as important and just as revealing. In fact, when I have lectured about the ‘ezer kenegdo, the designed role of the wife in Genesis 2, almost all the objections from men in the audience are something like this:
“I know the Bible says that the wife is supposed to play this role, but my experience is much more complicated. It just seems like she’s always trying to correct me. Even if I see what she’s talking about, she usually isn’t gentle. It makes me want to resist, to fight back for my own choices. How come it’s so cutting, even when I know God wants me to listen to her?”
Zornberg’s comment about Leah offers something profound:
“ . . . the spouse who is experienced as intervening, even disruptive: she does, after all, bring death into Adam’s world . . . She comes to represent an uncanny value, baffling and transcending his own framework of understanding.”[1]
In other words, Leah plays a crucial role in the total picture of the ‘ezer kenegdo, one that is only marginally discernable in the life of Havvah. It is a role we cannot afford to miss, but it isn’t a pleasant one. Leah is the abrasive wife, the correcting wife, the chastising wife, and the reason this is so unwelcomed is because the husband really expects and dreams for something else, a fictional fantasy. Perhaps we need to add Rachel and Leah to the Adam and Eve story before we see the whole truth of this matter.
What do husbands really want? Can I suggest that they don’t really want to be in control? Control is just a means to an end. What they really want is peace, that is, a peaceful life of safety and tranquility. A retreat from the pressures and demands of the world. A place where they can be known without risk of reprisal. A place where the trauma of their lives can be safely unpacked without critical oversight or additional demands. Since they don’t believe this is naturally possible, they attempt to achieve this state through control. Of course, control is only an artificial means of achieving peace. It doesn’t work—and it doesn’t last. Control is interpreted by the wife as demand and expectation, and these two elements engender further resistance. All she really wants to do is fix him. She sees his shortcomings better than anyone else and so she sets about correcting them with the noble intention of improving his life. But trying to fix things is like applying the grist mill to the wheat husk. Something has to give, and what usually gives is the peace in the relationship.
I am sure most of us can recall those blissful days of courtship when the intention of both was not to fixthings but rather to just enjoy the experience of each other together. Ah, but those days are long gone. Most men still pine for them. Why? Because they were peaceful. Now life together is hard. Of course, there are times when it is still enjoyable, but underneath it all is this: the man’s desires, his fictional fantasy, are not being fulfilled. The truth is brutal. The fantasies were never meant to be fulfilled. The fantasy of pure love is Rachel—the first love, the only one, the one worth everything. But the wife who arrives is Leah—the one who reminds us of who we really are, the one who wants to love us but who knows we are flawed, and we know that she knows. Rachel is unbridled desire worthy of our sacrifice. Leah is the agony of transformation, recalling our past failures.
Now the really ugly truth. God made it that way! “and brought her to the man.” The verb is bôʾ, filled with implications here. It usually means, “to go in, to enter,” and, of course, this is precisely what happens. The man enters into her life in all the obvious ways. He becomes a part of her, as he expresses, “She shall be called . . . because she came from . . .” bôʾ is also idiomatically “to die.” And it is used for YHVH’s involvement with the people. The woman comes to him. “Can’t live without them” is the second part of the aphorism. You know the first part. If Leah is the other side of the coin, “Can’t live with them” is also true. The ugly truth is that God designed it this way. He brought Leah into the picture, both physically and figuratively. “The other mode [in opposition to the mode of fully seeking the object that will satisfy desire], however, is represented by Leah: unwittingly or unwillingly, Jacob finds her lodged in his life. She has been sent by God, she comes to him; but Jacob experiences her as a grotesque disruption of his design. Such forms of ‘helpmate’ which appear shelo mi-da’at, as incoherent, inscrutable elements of experience, often bring a sense of moral dissonance with them.”[2]
If we, as husbands, chafe at the bit of Leah because our naive fantasy desire is only for Rachel, we will not only be constantly frustrated, we will also miss the handiwork of God in us. Atonement, resurrection and the ‘olam ha’ba do not come through Rachel’s line. They come through Leah’s.
“Jacob and Leah thus represent a turbulent matching that disrupts Jacob’s world of desire. Their children, too, are problematic, the protagonists of troubling narratives: Judah and Tamar, Reuben and Bilha, Dina and Shechem. But, significantly, it is from this marriage that the Davidic—and messianic—dynasty eventually emerges.”[3]
Topical Index: Guardian Angel, Rachel, Leah, bôʾ, come in, Genesis 2:22
[1]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious, pp. 290-291.
Masterfully explained Skip. The notion that every wife is the combination of both Leah and Rachel brings understanding and balance to my often disoriented view of our relationship.
Skip, you nailed it! Thank you for breaking it down so beautifully. This is one I need to print off and read at the beginning of each day to prepare myself for the abrasive moments that are undoubtedly coming. That is not a negative reflection of my ezer, but of the fact that I need lots of sand blasting and she sees it all to clearly!
This brings up the unknowable question: what was God before creation? Surely He was everything. I think there might have been perfect harmony without possibility of interference or misunderstanding or the need for compromise or, worst of all, starting over again from another place. Therefore, I am asking if there may be the possibility (not being a man, and so not being able to understand what drives one, of course) that perhaps what man may dream of is that pre-creational reality without Other; which is to say, perfect peace and harmony with no possibility of anything other than himself? Is this the primeval ‘control’ he dreams of? The time before woman? The time before himself, even: even the time before creation when the One (of whom he is the created image of) was in perfect alignment with Himself?
No woman I have ever met has ever been tormented with this desire. As we are derivatives, I think we come from another place entirely. I think we are the Other that requires a void (missing rib?) in a man so as to make a space for ourselves to exist. If a man is ‘full of himself’ it can challenge a woman’s very sense of existence. Therefore, I submit that we are not only inspired to disabuse him of that pre-cosmic fantasy (so as to carve a place – in him of course – for our own identity), but also to seduce him ‘out of himself’: out of his sense of who he is, for it is only there – in the void created by his desire – that that desire can flower and fruit. Can a man willingly cut himself and divide himself from himself so as to be able to fulfill his deepest desire for the (self)completion – that filling of the void – that woman represents? (I mean, I think the Creator was able to do that ‘by Himself’ so as to make space for the Other of creation, but I rather doubt that a man is capable of (self)creation at that level.) However, men, not to fear: I think a woman has a thousand ways to help(meet) him do just that! Hey, guys, just remember: you asked for it first!
I think when it comes right down to admitting our design in the image of God – particularly our sexual design – neither men or women are inherently happy about it. Why? Because it is humiliating! Incomplete? That goes directly against our desire to “be as gods” i.e. “perfect”(ly entire; wanting nothing).
God may be able to humble Himself, but it appears us humans meet our humility-by-design in the other sex. It appears none of us start out really liking what that implies. In their search to deny their design, I think men most often attempt to objectify women into mere sexual objects, but women can also want to be men (wanting to do without men is also a form of wanting to be one, I think) in return, but I suspect that humiliating the other sex is probably a knee-jerk response to the desire to hide from the humility that our sexual design requires of us.
In just re-reading what Laurita wrote the thought came to me, since Eve came from Adam, doesn’t that make sense that she would have an intuitive understanding of him. Not always necessarily conscious but from her “woman’s intuition “ ? Also, since the woman came out of man, man must have resident in him traits or characteristics ( unless God extracted every bit of woman DNA out of Adam) similar to a woman. There tends to be a reluctance when a man displays more feminine characteristics than society endorses. In our society at that point man either is labeled gay or effeminate ! I hear it said , that women view a man who is tender and compassionate as being strong. But the world has a different take on things. Interesting when you think about the big picture, that we came out of God. We are made in his likeness and image. Just like there are similarities between men and women we should be displaying some of the characteristics of coming out of God! What a wonderful thing to be challenged by the prospect of possessing the character and nature of God. Just thinking out loud, nothing concrete, necessarily.
I can roll with that, Larry. I, too, think that both men and women have shared abilities, but they can learn from each other’s strengths and help each other’s less developed places.
I know we are trained to think that we ‘are’ what attracts us, but that would leave people like me, who started out attracted to the other half of disfunction (codependent in search of a dependent) up a creek without a paddle. These days, I can see that my attractions are a RESULT; not a ’cause’. That gives me hope that one day dependents looking for a codependent will walk right on by me and just think I am a tree!
I think I am finding that when I choose healing and completion in Christ, what I am attracted to and what is attracted to me changes accordingly (Michael Stanley, somehow I am experiencing deja’ vu with this phrase connected with you). I am not a victim of identity: I am returned to being a chooser of identity, and God honors (powers) that choice with Himself (His identity). At that point, this then becomes just another way I think we have been lied to. Sigh.
Powerful Laurita….I wasn’t looking for answers when I wrote, what I wrote today, I just wanted to be authentic and real, some type of disclosure of where I’m coming from.
But apparently God had other plans and must have felt I needed some direction/answers as well as support. So, thank you so very much for those insights and Truth! We get a new mind thanks to Truth( Jesus) and then we are transformed! Romans 12:1-2.
That better hold true for all of us, Larry, or else we are all sunk!
Deja’ who? Laurita you tagged me saying: “when I choose healing and completion in Christ, what I am attracted to and what is attracted to me changes accordingly.” Prophetic or prescriptive, not yet descriptive, but thanks for the bread crumb trail. Now if I can just get the birds and squirrels to quit feasting on these morsels of moral support.
Swat the squirrels and birds off the crumbs. Michael, I was hoping you would help me remember! Something about I must have made that statement before, and perhaps you reminded me that I might have repeated myself? Anyway, you do know us drunken sailors have to prop each other up. Here’s a shout out to you today! I pray that I see you through the eyes of our Father in heaven, and that we will abandon our eyes and learn to see ourselves through His, instead, too. Father-colored glasses. The real ones, that is. Us fatherless children.
I have given Guardian Angel to a number of friends to read. Some really need it more than others but somewhat typically their remarks are a bit baffling like; I get the equality of both partners just fine but the theo-philosophical part beyond that is heavy going. Some never finish it. This TW will be a perfect printout to insert that should go a long way to making this book an easier to read and understand (I hope), instruction manual for marriages that are not quite “made in heaven.”
Relatedly, I heard just yesterday a story about Martin Luther. He had been in a depressed state (don’t think it was clinical) for some time, and his wife came down the stairs dressed all in black, as if going to funeral or in mourning over a death. “Who died?” asked Luther. She replied something to the effect “God died–or at least you’d think so, given your present state.”
Totally unrelated to this thread, but somewhat thematically related to this site: I just found out the parents of Geddy Lee (bass player/singer of the rock band Rush) were holocaust survivors. Interview about it here: youtube dot com/watch?v=hPxwSF4CGyo
It seems a bit strange to use the marriage of Leah and Jacob. Vulnerability between a husband and wife. Where is that learned? Not too many places if any. Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah so what kind of analysis can we truly do about marriage? He didn’t love Leah as a wife. It seems that we would be better served to look at Jacob and Rachel’s marriage. Love between a husband and wife based on fantasy is the wrong place to start to begin with. But that is probably where most marriages do start. Sorry, but I struggle with the whole message in this. If God has brought a man and woman together, I believe it is for the purpose of harmony and unity. Is there conflict? Hopefully not a lot. One can learn, grow and change without conflict.
I wonder if your aversion to learning about marriage through Jacob and Leah isn’t a wish to have everything work out well. My observation is that it usually doesn’t. If we ignore the Leah side because we don’t like the implications, then are we willing to say that God had nothing to do with Leah and Jacob because Jacob was “tricked.” Ah, but that’s the crux of the story. Jacob was in Mesopotamia precisely because he “tricked” someone, and now it comes back to him. Is that life as you know it? Or maybe you just want Pollyanna’s version? If you believe God is active in every life, then He is active in this one too. Right?
Do you know how disconcerting it can be to accept that Jacob chose the dance floor of trickery, but then YHVH danced with him on it? Ps. 18:26, Webster’s says “With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt contend (wrestle). Why does YHVH contend? I think it is because He does not want to accept (rubber stamp) our death choices, but He has to speak to us in the language (function method) we have chosen to use. Proverbs says in several places that the wickedness of the wicked shall be their own snare. It is said that a liar cannot tell when they are being lied to; at least in the places that they are trying to deceive others.
The years I questioned God, I found myself having to answer questions: “who am I?” “what do I really believe?” “what am I afraid of?” “am I able to sacrifice for love?”. I called a moratorium; a truce on the questioning. I decided to accept Him just as He said He was – and I found myself accepted just as I was, too. It is amazing how this works!
“moratorium; a truce on questioning”
Laurita… this word picture is powerful and much needed. Todah!
No, not a Pollyanna version. We can learn I think it goes without saying that a marriage based on deception is not going to be a marriage that works out very well for all parties involved. But perhaps I am being too technical (oops, big word) about the points being made. Leah chose security over love. She chose dishonesty over trusting YHVH. She could have told Jacob what her father was planning. Then Jacob could have made his choice. Leah got what she settled for. Children and security but with no real love. So we can learn a lot about marriage through this example. And yes Jacob was played the way he played his brother. I don’t view Leah as being sent by God, but He did use it.
But the reason I find this so disturbing is because I believe that being “in love” and love go hand in hand. I believe God designed it that way. But “in love” sometimes gets confused with in lust. People get married without really knowing each other. People get married for all kinds of reasons and without any thoughts as to whether it is ordained by God. Part of living in a fallen world is that not many couples get to experience love as God would have us experience it. But that doesn’t mean it cannot happen. I am not saying either that confrontation doesn’t need to happen in a marriage. But in a relationship where trust is secure and faithfulness has not been violated, it doesn’t have to be abrasive.
No doubt that in a loving relationship (that is, “in love”) we work to secure trust and not to violate faithfulness…our problem is that it requires an act of God.
For single folks and for people such as myself, (a celibate gay, who has chosen not to embrace and engage in this lifestyle) , what comparable do we have with marriage?! Could it be the work of the Holy Spirit as our partner in our lives. Playing the role as a lover/wife. I say that in the most hallowed sense! Instead of looking to another person for completion, I am left to find that in God for myself. Aren’t we all looking for a sense of wholeness? Completion?
So we go down those avenues where we think we are going to find it. Similar in relationship with God would be the same in a heterosexual narriage. Our walk with God although having the possibility of it being spectacular, this sense of spectacular and sense of being complete can only be sustained to a certain degree and period of time. Having times when you are in the desert and times when you are in lush pastures . Times in the wilderness and times in the promised land. Times of mount transfiguration and times of walking it out in the soil of life. This is all a part of the whole experience here.
I guess, I represent a certain segment of society, a segment that is also in the church struggling to find their way in it all. We cannot be ignored .
That was very difficult to write.
Ideals are wonderful, but most of the time we have to live in the world and adjust to what is, not what we wish it was like. That’s why pornography is such an easy and slippery slope to fall into. Fantasy. Retreating into a world of fantasy for a time period. It’s one of the big issues in marriage right now. Men retreating to their private chambers when relating
becomes too difficult! This is a reality in this generation far more than any other and it cannot be ignored. How is the body of Christ going to step up to the challenge?
This wasn’t well written by me but it’s the best I could do with the complexity of some of these issues. I believe Jesus wants all of us to be whole and to be healed. Truth is we are and yet we are not. We are in process and we are becoming who we are as we follow after him !
That was very courageous Larry. Thank you for sharing some of your pain with this community. God bless you.
Thanks for that John. And it’s not just sharing the pain, but sharing who I am. We all want to be known and taken into the collective body of Christ. According to the word, we are members one of another. God’s heart is always moved towards His people, and as he is, so are we in this world !
Who told you it wasn’t written well? I read it, in someone else’s voice, whom I do not know, but ‘know’ (?), and understood it and even related to it. While we are on different G-d-spectrums (my wording, I consider myself a Jew), I agree that G-d wants us to be whole and healed and that we are becoming who He know us to be. Very well written, indeed.
Skip, easy buddy… all of this MEAT! EASE UP BRUV! Too many books to read and research and absorb and meditate on- but WAIT! THERE IS ANOTHER ONE the very next day!
I am absolutely grateful for the shake-up and possibility and perspective and every single thing I have gleaned (and have SHEDDED) since encountering you and your way of study. Man, I love/hate this! It’s very merry-go-roundish….. up and down and very dizzying….
See you Friday~ G-d Willing
Well said Skip.
Husband’s do you want God to bless you? Listen to the suggestions of your wife, accept her denial at times as she is also busy growing to serve you better in the boundaries that are acceptable to make her do justice unto protecting you in more ways than you will believe…
Wives do you want to live a bountiful life. Nudge your hubby gentle past the comfort zone you have created for him. He will then be more prosperous in what he does. He will then start doing more of the things that enrich the environment of the relationship and this will make the relationship blossom even more. Remember Ecclesiastes teachings go out and find the task that suites your husband’s talents so that he can do more to address your needs…
God blessed me with more Leah and forced me to accept less Rachel… Both in the beautiful and righteous woman I married. The difference I wanted Leah because of her godly traits, truthfulness and blunt honesty. I desired Rachel because of her feministic standard above others of the same age.
Please. Truthfully 28 years later my life was not a blest relationship, we had more up hills and steep slopes than plateaus. My life and marriage evolved into a harmonious supportive oneness, living through major turmoils because of choices I made surviving on the bare minimum yet never being blamed rather always being encouraged by the sacrifices my wife made. Which believe it or not never resulted in my wife asking for a divorce but rather in my wife shoving me every time out of my comfort zone into my next path of discovery and being able to settle into an acceptable level of survival crisis after crisis.
We men want sex, fancy cars, right neighbourhood, well balanced bank account etc. as we need tangible truth of the peace we desire. These things make us feel more worthy as dominant alpha beings… Our wives cannot give us peace that is not their blueprint, they can create the environment for us to find that peace in. We need to look harder or rather clean our lenses we are looking through to see the environment. God then provides us an even greater peace during our closing chapter of life, when we see and understand what a fantastic task our wives have done in rearing our children to actually be better than both of us combined…
That is the greatest legacy for me that God can bless a husband and father with. All because of the standard, boundary and support the Leah side of the beautiful Rachel could manifest because we could willingly surrender to our wives Godly blueprint.
Life has taught me that it is not what is outside the wife’s body (the form we see) that counts but that which manifests from the inside into the arena of our relationship (her godly blueprint). That ever increasing boundary she is creating for us to grow in so that she too can grow and be more useful and add more value to our short lives.
Just the reminder husband, our role is to align our wives with our perceived truth of God’s will in our lives we are not there to align her to those other people outside our relationship…. Do not live up to the Jones. That will suppress both the godly blueprints in husband and wife.
“God then provides us an even greater peace during our closing chapter of life, when we see and understand what a fantastic task our wives have done in rearing our children to actually be better than both of us combined…”
………. and here I am 50 years later as living proof of exactly what you wrote Seeker………..Well written!
Correct but Insufficient. February 5, 2019.
I have recommended GA many times and have also said at the time that I had no idea why it was titled GA. It didn’t give away what the book was about. Nothing to do with angels so I was so baffled at the title.
PE sounds like it was only a book for men and I didn’t get that impression from the YT series. (I saw the series on YT first.) And if a spouse (male or female) is like an enemy, it’s probably an abusive relationship or a very stressful relationship. Some spouses want the other spouse to make all their dreams come true, to make them happy. They use them to get what they want. I have seen people (male and female) lose everything because they loved themselves more than anything else or anyone else, even their own children. Lots of verbal and emotional abuse and financial abuse. No shortage of psychopathic thinking in a world where our minds have been altered without realizing it.
Anyway, I have no idea what the perfect title would be. Something to let you know what the book is actually about. Maybe you can’t change the title but if you could, I would change it to something like:
1. ‘Mutual Submission’’. The truth about Adam and Eve.
2. Adam and Eve. Whose fault was it? The mystery has been solved.
3. The Truth about Adam and Eve. What went wrong?
4. Walking Together. What God Intended when he created Adam and Eve.