A Helper Against Him

"It is not good for man to be alone; I will make for him an ezer kenegdo": a helper, kenegdo, opposite him, even against him.

Rashi is the first stop when you learn the Torah, and what he gives is pshat, the straight understanding: the first of the levels at which a verse is read (pshat, remez, drash, sod). Here Rashi says: זָכָה – עֵזֶר; לֹא זָכָה – כְּנֶגְדּוֹ לְהִלָּחֵם. If he merits, she is a helper. If he does not merit, she is against him, to fight him (Rashi on Bereshis 2:18, from Yevamos 63a).

The Maharal, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers since the Rishonim, points something out in his commentary on Rashi, the Gur Aryeh. Rashi is supposed to tell me how to read the verse. "If he merits, a helper; if not, against him" doesn't sound like pshat. It sounds like a nice dvar Torah for the Shabbos table. So why does Rashi bring it here?

The Maharal's answer: because otherwise, why does the verse say kenegdo at all? "I will make him a helper" would have been enough. Kenegdo tells us what kind of helper this is. That is pshat, he says, and if it were not, Rashi would not have brought a Midrash that isn't close to the plain meaning (Gur Aryeh on Bereshis 2:18).

There is a helper who is never against you: a father to a son, a son to a father. They never butt heads; there is never a contradiction between them. This helper is a different kind. האשה שהיא חשובה ושקולה כמו האיש: the woman is as important as the man, his equal. She helps the man, כי האיש מביא והאשה מתקנת לו: the man brings, and the woman fixes it for him. That is called ezer kenegdo. And so אם לא זכה – היא כנגדו לגמרי: if he doesn't merit, she is against him completely. A father and son are never against each other.

So there are two questions. Why is it not good for a man to be alone? And what is the woman's role in the marriage, this dichotomy of a helper who can be against him?

Everything in creation has a role. With a good enough model, or years of research like the people before the Flood who lived almost a thousand years, you could understand how every species sustains the world, the way the honeybee sustains a whole ecosystem.

The Maharal points out that in no other language are the names of man and woman alike. Only in Lashon HaKodesh does Adam say, "She shall be called ishah, because she was taken from ish." In Aramaic they are gavra and itta, in Spanish hombre and mujer (Gur Aryeh on Bereshis 2:23). And man and woman are not two humans who are basically the same. They are two separate creations, and they don't operate the same way.

There is a role for the man and a role for the woman. The man's role is to bring raw materials: biologically, in the mundane world and in the spiritual world. He goes out to the field with his hatchet, cuts the wheat and brings it home. Rabbi Yosi asked Eliyahu how a woman helps a man. Eliyahu answered: a man brings wheat; does he chew the wheat? He brings flax; does he wear the flax? She lights up his eyes and stands him on his feet (Yevamos 63a). She takes the wheat and makes it into bread. She takes the flax and makes it into clothing.

To bring a baby into the world, the man can't bring a baby. He brings the raw material, and the woman takes it and builds the baby. She is a nurturer, but the Maharal's word is mesakenes: she is a fixer. That is why it isn't good for a man to be alone. He can bring materials, but he can't produce. Have you ever seen a single man's fridge? Or his dorm room? There's nothing nice in it.

So what does Rashi mean by "if he merits"? It means if you work at the marriage. Put effort into the marriage, and she is your helper. Don't put work in, and she is against you.

Why? The Maharal brings something deeper about a man and a woman. הזכר והנקיבה הם שני הפכים: male and female are two opposites. When they merit, they join into one complete power, because Hashem, who makes peace between opposites, connects them. When they don't merit, the very fact that they are opposites makes her against him (Gur Aryeh on Bereshis 2:18). Two opposites can bond with extreme power, or not fuse at all.

Think of magnetism: opposite charges attract, like charges repel. That is why, of all the Noahide laws, people steal and people kill, but incest hardly seems to be an issue. What is too familiar, too much the same, repels. There has to be something different, a different charge. It's the same reason people run after something new.

What does it mean to work at fusing? Since they are two different creations, what isn't good about a man alone is that he sees the world only through his own eyes. Here is a metaphor I saw in a book. A huge map of the whole world covers a wall, and over it hangs a sheet of paper with one tiny hole. Someone asks whether you've seen the map of the world, and you point to the hole: right here. Take the paper off, and there's an entire world. You were basing all your logic and all your decisions on that one tiny hole.

Everyone sees through their own two eyes, but a man thinks he knows. That's the ego of a man: I know what's best, I know the reality of things, I know what's up. Men don't like to ask directions; we'd rather be lost for forty years. Then he gets married and thinks: I'll teach her, I'll show her the world. I'll tell her exactly how to fry the onions: a little higher, a little lower, I know much better.

The way to work at a marriage is to understand that the person you married is, as the Maharal says, an equal who sees the world in a completely different way. Most people's default is to decide their spouse is just not as smart. It's much easier to dismiss them than to lower your ego and say: maybe they came to this from a different perspective. Get off your horse and ask how they came to this conclusion. This is a human being I'm married to, a separate entity, so what is their operating system? It's the same exact thing on the woman's side.

When both of them work at it, he brings the raw materials and she understands what he's intending with them. They have common goals; they run on the same operating system. So she brings back exactly what he was after. That is zachah: ezer, a helper, because everything she produces is how you want it. When nobody works at it, either she isn't tapping into what he's trying to get to, or he isn't tapping into what she's about, her goals in life and her direction. She brings back a product he never ordered: I brought the raw materials for this, and you're giving me that. That is kenegdo, against him.

These are the fundamentals of a working marriage, and they assume two people who are emotionally healthy. With two healthy people, even one of them can repair a marriage. The man's nature is to bring, so when he sets the tone, she can answer it.

In Aramaic a wife is called d'veisehu, from bayis, a home: the woman builds the home.

For people who aren't emotionally healthy, my favorite book is You Are the One You've Been Waiting For. Why do people like drugs? Because they numb the pain; I don't have to think about everything I'm carrying inside. Clubbing, this, that: it's all external stimulation.

Then it's time to settle down, and a person looks for meaningful external stimulation: a wife, or for a woman, a husband, who will be my support. Not support in a healthy way; support in a dependent way. Once they marry, that person can't always be the helper. When they aren't in the mood to support you, you start coming up with ploys to manipulate them and make them feel bad for not being there for you, and that dismantles the marriage.

The book's point is that the craving and the fulfillment you're looking for are in yourself. Repair yourself, become healthy, and then get married.

Step one: become that person. If you're a guy, become masculine: be the provider. I bring to the table; I'm not expecting someone else to bring.

Step two: look for the opposite charge. As a guy, I want someone who, when I bring the materials, is interested in connecting with me: the same values, the same things in life, going in the same direction, someone with whom those two opposite forces can fuse into something so powerful. If she's just like me and we love the same exact things, that's nice, but there's got to be an opposite charge. A woman looks for the opposite too: she fills her role as the builder, the one who takes the man's raw materials and builds the family, in every aspect, and she looks for a provider.

There's no average marriage. A so-so marriage is one where some days you're tapped in together and some days you're opposites. A good marriage is when you're tapped in together.

Step three: respect. When you're dating, ask: is this someone I respect? That means I don't think they're dumb. When they do something there's a reason behind it, an operating system that's actually really good, a different perspective. And be willing to work at understanding it.

On a date you're not really showing up yet; you're seeing whether it can work. It's in the marriage that you show up.

The raw materials aren't only physical things. I didn't dress that nicely before I got married: a pair of pants from Old Navy, a little Aeropostale, brown shoes with black pants. You get married, and she is mesakenes, the Maharal's word: she fixes it. She knows where everything goes, and it all comes out so much nicer. Emotions too: when a man is all over the place, without direction, she refines him and calms him down.

Marriage is the path to completion. Hashem created Adam and Chava as two halves of one, joined back to back: the man walked forward and the woman walked backward, and then Hashem split them into two people (Berachos 61a, brought in the Me'am Loez). A complete person is not one person; a complete person is a man and his wife.

When you fill those roles well and understand the other one's perspective, the Torah says, "and they shall become one flesh." Two opposites, one unit, and that is the most powerful thing there is.

"One who has found a wife has found good" (Mishlei 18:22). Why found? Because it is something that was lost from you, and now you're finding it (Kiddushin 2b).

When a person taps into this, they will have the best marriage. There's no in-between: either you're tapped in, or it's kenegdo, because a person didn't work at it. Opposite charges either work amazingly or don't work at all, and you see it: people with great marriages, and people without them.

So all a man has to do is make money? No. Raw materials are physical, money, and they are also spiritual. He learns Torah, he learns Gemara, and he brings it home. She takes that spirituality, brings it down to practice, and gives it over to the next generation, to the children.

He can only do that well if he really understands her and supports her, physically and emotionally. Then she receives the raw materials well and can build with them. If not, there's a disconnect, as if he thinks she isn't as smart, and the transfer to the one receiving it breaks down. She worries he's only trying to take from her, not to give, and she can't build.

So many times I bring an idea home and tell my wife, and she asks sharp questions, boom, boom, boom, and refines it. She knocks off the sharp corners, and what comes back is a product that makes sense: that's how we're going to go. She doesn't take it as information. She turns it into the values of the home, she lives by it, and the kids see it and go with it.