Hello,
I almost never write posts, but I have followed some of the conversations here on YWN. I decided to write this post because I was a little surprised that the discussion of “al tarbe sicha im haisha” in this thread appears to have broken down into two camps working to get around the mishna. What I mean by this is that, unfortunately, many people seem uncomfortable with what the mishna says, so they either dismiss the mishna as good words but not binding, or state that it is binding, but modern women have somehow changed over the years so we now have a heter to talk to our wives more than we should.
It is my thinking that the answer may be not to work around the mishna’s seemingly explosive statement, but to examine the statement directly with the assumption that the Tanna had built a bayis ne’eman b’Yisroel with his wife, and had a good and healthy marriage relationship. Here’s a few statements and questions:
1.) The ikar of this mishna is that a man not talk “in excess” with a woman. The Tanna brings the statement that we are not to talk in excess with our own wife to demonstrate his argument with a kal v’chomer that we really should not do this with another’s wife. My question is: if we know not to talk “in excess” with our own wife, why the extra warning about another’s wife?
2.) This passage comes immediately after a statement that our homes should be open to guests.
3.) What is talking “in excess”, anyway?
Ultimately, I believe Hashem wants us to build a strong home and family, and this involves and has always involved constant and meaningful sharing and communication between husband and wife. Therefore, I think that talking “in excess” does not include this kind of home building communication. I think what the Tanna is getting at is that mindless chatter, small-talk, is the no-no. This type of talk does not bring people closer together in a real way, rather it can create a false sense of chemistry without the participants really getting to know each other. I think the reason our context is a situation inside a home with guests is that the potential for chatter is greater then. When guests are over, a man making a lot of small-talk with another man’s wife can CV”S cause severe shalom-bayis issues for both families. We don’t normally chatter nonsense with our wives if we have a good relationship, our talk goes much deeper than that. Why build a fake connection with our wives when we can build a real one with true sharing and communication? And we surely shouldn’t form any connection, real or fake, with another’s wife.
We all know that forming a real connection with another’s wife is a serious aveirah. I think the misha states “al tarbe sicha im haisha” because some people might mistakenly believe that small-talk doesn’t form any connection. Recently, I have heard about terrible online swindles in the news, where foreign crooks swindle lonely, vulnerable women into transferring large amounts of money to them. How do they do this? They form a false connection with the women through excessive small talk. They chatter for hours online, and the woman thinks she has developed a real, deep bond, when in reality, there is nothing there at all. The chatter obviously has a lot of power.
I think that the Tanna is telling us that we should have a real relationship with our wives, with meaningful communication. And a man who would threaten that real bond by making small-talk with another woman, truly causes evil to himself.
Please feel free to correct any errors I have made, I would be delighted to hear other thoughts.
All the best!