Avram in MD

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!

Quote: “As a matter of fact, we receive with disgrace anyone who has been a member of Hitler’s youth movement and has served as an officer in the Nazi army during WWII, during which six hundred of our people were brutally murdered as the Vatican and its leaders idly stood by.”

Six hundred?? That’s off by a factor of 10,000! Six million. Editor/Moderators: is it possible you could make the correction?

Thanks!

Teen: As an object with mass (like us) accelerates towards the speed of light, the mass increases exponentially (think of mass as a distortion of space-time). Therefore, to keep accelerating, more energy is required (takes more force to accelerate something more massive). As the object approaches the speed of light, mass approaches infinity…

brooklyn19: The “C” in “JC” is not actually a name, but a Greek word equivalent to “anointed” or “Messiah.” Therefore, rabbis engaged in counter-missionary efforts (e.g., Rabbi Tovia Singer of Outreach Judaism) advise Jews to never use the “C” word at all when referring to the Christian god, because we would be in effect honoring him with the title that the Christians claim he has. In his lectures, Rabbi Singer generally refers to him as “Jesus of Nazereth” and the like, but even that is in the context of his work drawing Jews away from missionaries. I’m not sure if it is appropriate to use either name at all in general conversation.

lesschumras: Christians persecuted Jews both on Christmas and Easter (e.g., the Warsaw Pogrom of 1881 began on Dec. 25). Truthfully, Christians never needed a holiday to attack Jews; the attacks just increased during both holidays. Today in the U.S., anti-semitism often increases more during the Christmas season–take, for example, the incident a year or two ago at the Seattle Airport, where the airport authorities removed Christmas trees instead of allowing the installation of a Chanukah menorah… even though the rabbi involved never asked for the trees to be removed, and was actually upset that they were removed, local Jewish organizations were flooded with hateful and frightening letters. Also, I don’t think that Joseph is disputing with you that Easter is a big day for anti-Semitism. He is referring to a minhag of partial mourning on Dec. 25th because of the violence on that day in the past. That minhag probably wouldn’t work on Easter, since Easter almost always falls during Pesach.