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THE CENTRALITY OF TRUST IN MARRIAGE, PART THREE
- Thursday, January 11, '01 - Parshas Vayechi 5761

[The Maharal analyzes the midrash, starting with strong words.]

You must know that these two things, the weasel and the well, correspond to male and female.

The weasel corresponds to the male. This is corroborated by the fact that weasel [in Hebrew, CHuLDaw] is from the same root word as thrusting [in Hebrew, CHaLawDaw], and by the related fact that the nature of the weasel is to dig. The digging, thrusting, active connotation represents the male.

The well is the opposite, being an open receptacle, corresponding to the female.

The male-female relationship is the same as the relationship of Heaven to earth. In each case, there is an active provider (Heaven, or, the male) and a receiver (earth, or, the female). Both are relationships of faith, meaning:

* that each (the provider and the receiver) must be entities of total, unchanging, unending faithfulness, so much so

* that either one may always have total, unchanging, unending faith in the other.

When the weasel and the well were the witnesses enforcing the sacred covenant to marry, they were each designated to be witness to their corresponding corollary:

* the weasel - male, and

* the well - female,

towards the end that the faithfulness between the man and the woman be ensured so that this faithfulness would endure permanently.

You must know that the man and the woman have a relationship together exclusively based on faith. Any falsity, breach of integrity, is antithetical to the union of husband and wife. Marriage and violation are mutually exclusive.

When the weasel and the well were designated as witnesses to enforce the union of the man and woman, it constituted designation of the marriage relationship as a relationship of trustworthiness; with each partner:

* to be faithful and

* permitting the other partner to have faith,

mutually and together. Therefore, the children born to the first wife had to be lost specifically through a weasel and a well, precisely because the weasel and the well were the enforcers of man-woman faithfulness [the first marriage was a breach of faith to the first young woman].

Understand that the reason that the young woman remained faithful is that the female is naturally inclined to more faithfulness than the male. We see that the female corresponds to faith by virtue of the fact that "faith" [in Hebrew, "emuna"] is a feminine-gender word. The male corresponds to "truth" [in Hebrew, "emess"], a masculine-gender word. The female is less inclined to truth than to faithfulness, and a male is less inclined to faithfulness than is the female [end of Maharal's essay]. To be continued, applying the Maharal's writings to the practical marriage relationship.