On relationships, investments and eggs

I listened to a talk recently (while driving through upstate NY and Connecticut countryside) based on a work of mussar by a famous godol. In this talk, the author (not the godol himself, but a well renowned rabbi, whose ideas and lectures I usually enjoy and respect very much) talked about the nature of relationships from the point of view of mussar.

His main point seemed to be that we have been granted by G-d a quality of giving, of sharing. In order to be G-dlike we have to give. After all, he asserted, this is what G-d is all about: giving to His creatures. (This talk, by the way, followed another lecture with a similar message. I shall address that lecture soon, iy"H.) I found this to be a rather controversial statement, especially in light of the teachings of Chassidus, but that is not the part that I will focus on.

The rabbi then continued to talk about the nature of relationships. The whole essence of relationships, he asserted, is investment of oneself. The giving. When one values one’s wife, what one really values is the time, energy and attention one put himself into the relationship. That way he can value his wife as himself, because the bond between him and his wife literally now has a part of him in it. So, by loving his wife he loves himself in the relationship — and that way, he can love her as himself; not just in the same quantity, but in the same fashion.

I must say, I found this incredibly distasteful. I have never been married, but I would hope that when I am, I shall be able to go beyond loving my wife, because my relationship with her now has a part of myself in it. I do not argue at all that this is how it should be, but I do not see this as a prime motivation for love. Perhaps, however, I am being a bit naive, and the aforementioned words of the rabbi are full of wisdom as a bee is full of honey. Even if that is the case, what I disliked the most was the egocentric nature of the presentation of what a relationship is all about. Educated by Chassidus on the value of bittul and letting go of the focus on one’s self, I found such egocentrism lacking in eidelkeit.


Next, the speaker proceeded to tell a story about a couple of parents who were separated from their children during the WWII. The father remained with the son throughout the war, and the mother remained with the daughter. After the war they reunited, and tragically, as the story tells, it took the parents some time to re-establish the relationship with the children from whom they had been separated, respectively. For instance, the father had a much closer relationship with the son (by the virtue of having been with him throughout the war) than the mother was able to.

One reason that was given is that when the mother let go of her son, he was a baby. All the time during the war, she had the image of her baby in her mind. She longed for her baby. After the war, she got back not her baby, but a six-year-old boy. Naturally, it took some time for her to come to terms with the fact that her baby is gone, and this is her son.

The main reason, however, that the author gave (in line with the above logic of the necessity of investment in the relationships) was that all these years the father took care of the son. He invested into his son. The mother did not. Therefore, something became lacking in her relationship with that particular child.

Now, I personally do not know much about children, parenthood and the like. I only recently learned how to hold a baby properly (I was taught by my chavrusa, who is a musician and naturally knows such things). Therefore, I asked my mother who (besides being a parent herself), is a specialist in child education and development and a daughter of my grandmother, a kindergarten teacher and (later) a principle of a kindergarten (and somewhat of a revolutionary and a legend in childhood education herself, in her years and in our city).

My mother’s response to the story was: “Balderdash.” (She used a word in Russian with a similar meaning.) It is impossible, she said, for a parent to lose a feeling to her child, no matter what. Especially, she added, for a mother. (I don’t know if she might be slightly biased.) Also, she added, she thinks that the use of the term “investment” when referring to parenthood is rather silly. A proper parent does not exactly invest in her children.

I offer no thoughts of my own on the matter.


The third story from the talk that I would like to relay is that of an egg. The rabbi’s wife was involved in an exercise, in which people were given an egg each that they had to wrap in soft tissue and carry with themselves for the duration of a whole week, ensuring the egg’s safety. At the conclusion of the week, the participants had to present their eggs. At which point each participant was asked to crack his-or-her egg into a pan, fry it, and eat it.

Now, half of the participants were men, and half were women. Those men who had not yet had lunch that day readily cracked their eggs, cooked and consumed them. Those men, however, who were sated, expressed some reluctance to do so.

Women, on the other hand, were all aghast at the idea. “My egg?!” one woman exclaimed. “But it was just an egg”, mused the rabbi. What happened, he concluded, was that these women invested themselves into caring for these eggs, and as a result became attached to them. That, he said, is what a relationship is about.

Now, I must confess, the story had an effect upon me opposite from the intended. Not only did it not strengthen the argument about the ontology and essence of a relationship being that of investment, but it illustrated its fallacy. Not to belabor the point, but these were stupid eggs! So, you’re saying that the nature of your relationship with your wife or with your children is in essence no different from a relationship with an egg? In other words, it is truly nothing but hormones, synapses, psychology and sociology? It’s a trick that you play on your brain, or, perhaps, that your brain plays on you (or on itself)?

I am sorry, but I would hope, and not only as a religious person, that the nature of my relationship with my wife, with my children and with Hashem will be qualitatively, infinitely different from that of mere “investment”.

To finish this already very long post, I shall relay what I once heard from a rosh yeshiva talking to a mashpia of the yeshiva who had not yet been married. Being married, the older man argued, greatly enhances one’s relationship with Hashem (if done properly). “It is a big change,” he said, “when you enter a grocery store, and your first thought is not: ‘What brand of cereal do I like?’, but: ‘What brand of cereal does she like?’”