RABBI DONIEL FRANK | Director, M.A.P. Seminars, Inc., Marriage and Family Therapist

Click here to download PDF transcript for Ki Seitzei

The Torah requires a young married man to v’simach his wife. Rashi in the name of the Targum says that this means that he should make his wife happy.

But Rashi doesn’t stop at that. He also tells us what it doesn’t mean, that he should be happy with his wife, because, he says, that if that were the case, the Torah would say v’samach, not v’simach.

And here’s the simple question: Why isn’t Rashi satisfied by telling us the right way to learn the posuk? Why does he have to go out of his way to tell how we should not interpret it?

According to the Kotzker Rebbe, Rashi isn’t just making sure that we don’t make a grammatical mistake. He’s really making sure that we don’t make an attitudinal one. It is v’simach and not v’samach that teaches us that the right attitude towards marriage is to do what we can to make our spouse happy, not in order to find our own happiness.

This is a very relevant message. Today we hear many singles talk about the search for someone who will bring them happiness, and we hear people complaining about not being happy in their marriages and how they are entitled to be happy. But before we write off our spouses, we have to reflect on our own attitude and behavior in the relationship and and ask whether we have been working towards providing happiness in our marriage, or expecting to receive it.

That’s why we can appreciate the frustration people sometimes feel when they say that they are unable to make their spouses happy. We can appreciate their intentions, and do our best to help them figure out why their benficience is not getting through.

But what about our own happiness? After all, the Gemara does say that one who lives without a wife lives without simcha, which clearly suggests that having a wife brings a person happiness.

The answer is based on the law of relationships that goes as follows: If we help people get what they want, we are likely to get what we want. So when we help others achieve happiness, we will be happy ourselves.

And that’s not only true in marriage. It’s true with all relationships. All we need to do is make it our mission to make others happy and we’ll be happy. It’s what marriage – and life, in general – is all about. And so if v’simach is our goal, then v’samach is not far behind. That’s the recipe to achieving real happiness in life.

DEDICATED TO A REFUAH SHELAIMA FOR YITZCHAK ben DEVORAH

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