Behind Every Great Man Stands a Great Woman (Power of Women #1)

Rav Chaim Kanievsky, the son in law of the great Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who over here there's a picture of him in case you don't know what he looks like, reports an incredible story. He, as we all know, once a year, every year, Rav Chaim would make a siyum on kol haTorah kulah. That's right, Bavli, Yerushalmi, Midrashim, all of Tanakh, Mishnayos, etc., etc., etc. He would go through all of it, not only make a siyum, it's even on sefarim that we don't even know their names. His wife daily would always want to see, ask her husband if he made the hesped, did he manage to finish today, did he manage to finish today? So, therefore, when he finally made the siyum on Erev Pesach, he did it by the Taanis Bechoros, and he made that siyum on Erev Pesach, she was extremely emotional about the episode. It was something that she was very dear to her. Her Her Her husband's learning was so important to her, but to be able to see her husband make a siyum on kol haTorah kulah was very uh it was very it was very an emotional time for her. She stood in the front of the Ezras Nashim in Leterman, and she would listen to her incredible husband make a siyum on kol haTorah kulah, and she would have tears in her eyes. That's how he would describe it. Not only that, when people are busy taking care of their kids, or cooking, or getting ready for the Seder, and of course all the We're talking about Erev Pesach, right before Pesach, she was there with him from the beginning until the end, and she made, listen to this, a completely chametz gamur cake. She wanted to make sure the siyum was appropriate, so she would make actually mezonos from proper chametz in order to make the siyum appropriate, to make him happy. Did the the shul appreciate it? I don't know. But al kol panim, that's what that's what she did in order to recognize her incredible husband. I know when he was when she was nifteres, her I heard from the grandson, from one of their grandchildren, that Rav Chaim Kanievsky, unlike him, was not able to learn. He was able to concentrate. When she passed away, he went through an extremely difficult period of time because that was what we call real partners in life, the two of them together. For me, I want to bring out an incredible idea to realize that the power that lies behind every person is the power of the woman. The woman The power of the woman is the one who's able to build a man or destroy him. As Midrash even brings down The Midrash even brings down about a tzaddik and a tzaddika that were married together and for whatever reason had to divorce, they couldn't have kids. And she went and married a rasha and he married a rasha'it. Don't ask me why, that's what the Midrash says. And it says over there the rasha'it, the man who married the bad woman ended up becoming a rasha himself. The woman who was a tzaddika that married the rasha ended up turning him into a tzaddik. I don't recommend trying this at home. That's not what I meant, but we're coming to show that the power of the house is driven by the koach of chochmas nashim bnos tza'avah. And that's what we're having right before Pesach when we know b'schoch nashim tzidkaniyos the power of the women They're the ones who were able to get us out of Mitzrayim. It was the power of their encouragement that was able to get there. We have always parshas Vayakhel and Pekudei right before the parshas that have to do with Pesach. And over there in parshas Vayakhel Pekudei, when it was happening at that time, they went and gave over the mirrors that they used in Mitzrayim to build the kiyor. That's the laver the laver where he washed his hands, where the kohen where the kohanim would wash their hands and feet out of the kiyor. That's where they were able to wash their hands. And as we all know, Moshe Rabbeinu was not interested in taking these mirrors cuz he felt that they were things that were used for the wrong thing. What they would do is a woman would show herself in the mirror with her husband and kind of wake him up. He was very depressed. They were very It was unfortunately in a very bad state of mind. He worked out a hard day, was sweating, not interested in anything, and she would go ahead and build a house based on these mirrors. They were able to keep them coaxed up. They were able to keep them excited and able to get them going and that's how they were able to build the millions of multitudes that came out of Yitzi's main tribe. The source of the nation that were a bunch of people that's how they were able to build up the house. And what the meaning behind that is that Hashem was so interested in this being the place to be placed inside of the Beit Hamikdash is because the women are the ones who are able to build another person. And with that we can understand a sipur, an incredible hora'ah, which I once saw with Devorah. Devorah was a neviah. She was a dayanit. She was a shoftet. Do you realize she knew all of Choshen Mishpat? She was an incredibly intelligent woman. And the Midrash says in the Yalkut in Shoftim, it he writes over there that according to one shita, her husband Barak was an am ha'aretz and she's called Eishet Lapidot. Why is she called Eishet Lapidot? Because even though her husband was an am ha'aretz, what did she do? She wanted him to go out and catch up and tag up with talmidei chachamim. So she would make wicks. Listen to this. Devorah the neviah, one of the seven neviot in Sha'as we bring down, she would go ahead and make wicks, give it to her husband and say you should take it to the Beit Hamikdash for the menorah. You should go ahead and give it to the Beit Hamikdash in order to honor the Beit Hamikdash. And she was hoping he would be able to rub shoulders over there with the Kohanim, with the talmidei chachamim Yerushalayim in the area and be able himself maybe to be able to learn something and be able to not be such an am ha'aretz. Do you understand what this story is telling us? The woman who is one of the biggest women that has ever walked to this planet. She was an incredible talmida chachama. She used to teach, used to give shiur to the men in choshen mishpat in understanding in monetary ideas. All right, in all of hilchos choshen mishpat. She herself was a prophetess and she was married to an Amorite. I would have thought that she should have, you know, maybe divorced him or maybe she should have just been very depressed or disappointed or have something to bicker about. What to do it, but instead of feeling victimized, instead of feeling like she's at a loss, she went ahead and realized this is my position. She was happy with it and she built her husband to make him what he was. He became a big person eventually. He became Baruch. But it came from her koach of understanding and not going and always feeling sorry for herself. To know that this is the objective of a woman. We are the ones who are there to build a house. We're the ones who are able to put things together. It's our capabilities that get us to the ones who are able to build everything that happens inside of the house, whether it's from the children and from the husband to build them bottom up and that's how a woman has to take her position, to make her realization. There was once a young lady that came to a rav. True story. She came to a rav and she said she's quite disappointed with her husband and the rav was already hearing stories that she was kind of putting him down, very upset. She was kind of frustrated with it, the person she was married and he says, "I expected to marry to the chacham. I was a very mutzliach and I was a person that was very mutzliach, very successful in what I was. I thought I would marry to the like he doesn't barely learn. He does a lot of chesed. He likes to do chesed and going out and doing this gemachim and all the like. He's very into his chesed and but it very much frustrates me. What should I do? Should I separate from him? Should I continue? How should I take the perspective? So the rav said to her, "You wanted to be the wife of Rebbe Akiva. You expected to be the wife of Rebbe Akiva and get a Rabbi Akiva. But instead, Hakadosh Baruch Hu made you Devorah Hanavi'ah. He made you into a Devorah. That she had a husband that wasn't exactly top of the line, and maybe she's even ahead of him. Why don't you do like Devorah who was able to build up her husband, but instead of building her up, you ended up putting her in a different direction. You ended up putting him down in a different direction, and who knows what's going to be with him in the end. Okay? That's what he told her. And this is really an important idea for a woman to realize her task, her capabilities of what she can do for her husband, cuz it's built into the system. It's built into her capabilities of being able to to uh to build up everything, to build up her husband, or to build up everything that is necessary for what needs to be done. Reb Chaim Soloveitchik brings down a maaseh in the Gemara in Avodah Zarah. The Gemara in Avodah Zarah brings the one of the greatest Tana'im, Reb Chanina ben Teradion. That he was going to be held by the authorities that were upset cuz he was teaching Torah barabbim. And the rabbis explained the reason why he was punished, kavyochol, is because he did something very subtly wrong. He when he was giving over his shiur, and he said the name of Hashem, the name of Hashem, and he enunciated it in a specific way which he wasn't supposed to do. He was the Gadol Hador, apparently he held that was okay to do for whatever reason, and that's why he ended up getting punished. What's interesting is the Gemara says his wife also got killed by the authorities. Eishet Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion. The wife of him Chanina also got punished. And the question is, what did she do wrong? So, you know what the Gemara says? The Gemara says because I she was supposed to be limkoach b'yado, she was supposed to stop him, and she didn't stop him. And Reb Chaim asks such an obvious question. Are you joking? We're talking about A, the Gadol Hador. B, did an aveirah that was extremely subtle, I wouldn't know there was anything wrong. How in heaven's name is she supposed to know there's something wrong? And he obviously paskened it was mutar, so she was zorem, she went with what her husband paskened. Obviously, that was okay. So, Chaim says an incredible yesod, an incredible foundational idea, which is what we're mentioning over here, is that every woman has a chush re'ach, she has a sense of smell for her husband. I don't mean if he didn't take a shower. I'm talking about the fact that she's able to smell out everything that is the pluses and minuses from where he comes from. That's the lashon that he uses. She has a binyan asirah, she's the ezer k'negdo, but the fact that she's this ezer k'negdo, she's supposed to be the one that's helping. She's able to seep out, to understand, to infiltrate, to understand every the deep recesses of what he does right and wrong, and be able to pick it right. And that's a tremendous lesson A for the women, but maybe even for the men, to make us realize that yeah, maybe she does know what's right and wrong even when we think it's not necessarily it's not necessarily true. Listen to this. The S'lach, that's the Noda b'Yehuda of Lando, he lived in the middle of the 1700s. He was one of the greatest poskim that we have, we use his farm all the time. In his drashot, in one of his drashot, it's called the drashot of S'lach, he writes over there he has a tremendous hakaras hatov, he's m'gabei ishto, he's very proud of his wife because she was mocheach oso, she gave him rebuke in the right places. V'zeh she dared to b'derech nachon, and that put him in the right place at the right time. She was able to know what's right and what's wrong and when to do it and when that's when not. So, this is the incredible koach that we see b'choach hanashim tzidkaniyos that took us out of Mitzrayim. They are the ones who built all of Klal Yisrael, the 3 million, really there were 15 million that came out was because of the z'chus avos. That's why it's connected to the parsha which has to do with the mirrors that were given because Hashem said those mirrors are kodesh kodashim. They know what to use it because that's their purpose in life. That's their kochos, that's their capabilities, to be able to back him up in the right place and to be able to do. And that's also why we find right in the parsha right before by the eigel hazahav, they were trying to get their the gold off of them. The men were trying so hard to get the gold off the women and they refused. And in this week's parsha we find the leshon of the pasuk is "Vayavo'u anashim al hanashim." The men came to the women. And the Ramban says that that means is by the time the men came to do the work in the Beit Hamikdash, the women were already there. They already gave their the gold, they gave all their stuff. And the idea behind it is you might have said that by the eigel hazahav, by the golden calf, they didn't give gold because, you know, women like jewelry. If you don't believe me, ask your wife. They care about it, they love their stuff. So maybe that's why they didn't give it. But when the Mishkan was being built, they were the first ones off to break them off, they were the first ones to give them over. They showed it in retrospect. Well, in the freya they showed that no, no, no, before it was because of an avera. When it's for kodesh kodashim, when it's leshem shamayim, when it's for the Mishkan, we're all in and we'll beat you to it also. The men were hesitant to give over their gold and were so excited to give over the gold for the eigel hazahav, and the women was exactly the opposite. That's why they were gifted with the power of Rosh Chodesh. Rosh Chodesh is a holiday for the women because of this incredible capability of being able to know what's right and what's wrong, when to put things together and when to separate them. And that is the power of chochmas nashim bonah vaysah. They're the ones who had the binah yesairah, the extra understanding. The chochma of binah is putting things together, to build something. They're the ones who build the house, they're the ones who build the child. The man is very a small part in the building of a child. The woman is the one who takes everything and is able to build them up from the bottom up. She's the one who carries the child. And then eventually is the one who raises him until, yeah, when he gets older so then maybe he could speak to his father if he's mature enough. But that's the idea because she is the capable with her being a Sarah to be able to do that. A woman should always realize her role, her section in life and instead of sometimes feeling victimized or why me or how did happen and whether or why this occurrence is and why why this family is looking the way it is, always realize that it's my capabilities, it's within my reach to be able to go that far. There was a person who was the mayor in city in the north here. And he was he told his wife one day his wife had a broken shidduch before she married her husband and he said, "Could you imagine if you married that original person? You wouldn't have been married to me. I became the mayor of the whole entire city here. I'm a very important figure, a nice income. And Baruch Hashem, you are zocheh to be able to be married to me." She said, "You don't understand. If I was married to that guy, he would have been the mayor of this city and you would not be. You'd be sitting and still be back to where you were in the first place. There's a lot of truth to that joke." So much so that I know.