Why Husband and Wife Were Created So Differently

Although men and women possess such disparate temperaments and dispositions, they are nevertheless commanded to build a unified and cohesive home and ultimately attain the utmost degree of mutual “love, friendship, harmony and fellowship,” as explained earlier at length.

We must understand: Why did G‑d create husband and wife with such divergent temperaments and dispositions when He could just as easily have created them with similar natures and personalities? The shalom bayis that needs to reside between husband and wife would then be so much easier to accomplish.

This is even more compelling since according to the Zohar, husband and wife possess one soul. How does one soul dwell within two people of such dissimilar and even opposite natures?


Differences Inform Us About the Soul’s True Stature

In truth, there is particular value and advantage to the personality differences between husband and wife.1

The disparate temperaments and dispositions of husband and wife not only share a common goal, but moreover, emanate and originate from their mutually shared common source — their infinite and boundless soul. Moreover, it is specifically these different and opposite character traits of husband and wife that demonstrate the truly boundless simplicity and indivisibility of the soul.

The Divine soul, similar to and reflective of its Divine source, is both qualitatively and quantitatively limitless and immeasurable. It is therefore capable of emanating soul powers that completely differ and are even in opposition to one another. Moreover, these opposing forces will work together, striving toward the same goal, each force clothed in a different body (i.e., that of the husband and the wife).

In our tangible and concrete world, it is most difficult to see and appreciate that which is truly spiritual and intangible. Our senses are much too limited to directly grasp the infinite. However, the compounded nature of the soul and the inclusiveness and coalescence of its soul powers bear testimony to the essence of the Divine soul. By observing this, human beings in physical bodies can also come to recognize an infinite power.

Marriage is thus the coalescing of two halves of a soul. The merger of these halves does far more than complete and make the soul once again whole, it also expresses in a concrete manner the essentially boundless and infinitely Divine aspect of the soul, that it is truly a “part of G‑d Above.”


Verses That Contradict Each Other

An example of the above:2 There is a Torah concept that “When two Biblical passages contradict each other, the meaning [and harmonization of these opposing verses] can be determined by a third Biblical text which reconciles them.”3

This is indeed strange.

Why does the Torah deem it necessary to offer two seemingly contradictory verses only to resolve the apparent contradiction with a third verse? Why not merely state the matter as it appears in the clear and unambiguous text of the third passage and entirely eliminate the first two contradictory verses?

Moreover, how is it even possible for two passages in G‑d’s Divine Torah to contradict each other?4

Since Torah emanates from G‑d’s limitless and boundless capacity, it is capable of containing a vast number of concepts and entities, even those that stand in total opposition to one another, for G‑d’s Infinite Power is capable of “combining opposites,” and in this case, “two passages that contradict each other.”

With their limited intellect, human beings are incapable of comprehending how such a thing can occur. However, G‑d’s Infinite Power, a power that He vested in His Torah, is capable of addressing the same subject with two opposing verses.

Afterwards, however, the “third verse” comes along and reconciles them. True reconciliation and harmonization does not mean that one verse is favored in the face of the other. Rather, that both verses, verses which of their own accord are contradictory, cease to be so in light of the reconciliation of the third verse that serves to unite and combine the two previously opposing verses.

Were the Torah, however, to have only written the third verse and ignored the first two contradictory verses, we would be unaware of Torah’s boundless ability to unite and combinetwo opposites.


Disparity Is an Indicator Of Completeness and Perfection

The same is so with regard to marriage.

Husband and wife were created with disparate temperaments and dispositions in order for them to utilize the opposite forces of their natures and meld them into one seamless entity. This unity and conjoining of all their disparate forces will enable them to build one home and one family.

Thus, the coupling of their opposing temperaments and dispositions is not for the sake of causing division between them, G‑d forbid, but for the exact opposite reason — in order for them to achieve true unity and harmony. This is to say that the innermost purpose of the very opposition itself is that it serve to fulfill a single goal and purpose: establishing and achieving one unified home. For only when this “one” home is composed of the opposite forces that reside within husband and wife will the truly complete, perfect, united and harmonious home and family be constructed.

True peace and harmony is thus realized not only in the goal and end result, but within the very opposition itself: that unity is achieved within these two disparate bodies because of their mutual connection and source, both springing from one Divine source, the holy soul.


Peace Can Only Be Realized Where Opposition Exists

If the truth be told, the most fundamental aspect of peace only exists where there was previously opposition and division.

The concept of peace implies that there exist two forces that by their very nature oppose and clash with each other. It is the quality of peace that brings them together. However, we cannot say that peace was ever achieved between two things that were never in opposition; for, in point of fact, they were never at war with each other.

Thus, the true concept of peace applies when husband and wife — two completely different types of people and despite their differences — attain a state of true “love, friendship, harmony and fellowship.”