Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg - The Key to Successful Relationships: Intentionality

foreign [Music] to talk to couples about their relationships I hear a common refrain and when I hear again and again is it wasn't intentional I didn't mean to hurt her feelings I didn't mean to be disrespectful I didn't mean to forget to tell my spouse I was coming home five hours later than usual and cleanser to me was a couple that I had the opportunity to help a lot who the husband was working really really late hours and he forgot to tell his wife that he was going on a business trip for the weekend and they have a few small children and she was Furious like on the phone I could tell the smoke coming out of her ears and he says to me he goes Rabbi it wasn't intentional and it hit me that in our relationships it's not enough to not be intentional we have to strive to be intentional the goal of our relationships is to be intentional what does it mean to be intentional to be intentional I think means that we take the time and the effort to think about what does our spouse need sometimes it is about what our arguments are but it's about having that intentionality yeah you know we often talk about the fact that our relationship with Hashem is mirrored with our relationship with our spouse those are the two relationships that are considered most parallel to each other when we want to talk about the closest relationship we have with Hashem sometimes we refer to Hashem as our father sometimes we refer to Hashem as our King in the beautiful prayers we say our father I saw a beautiful explanation why do we say Aveeno malkino Our Father our King because what's the product that was the perfect father he is willing to do anything for his child but he's not all evil what's the perfect King he is all able but not all willing and we say avinu the one who is all willing and all able but that's still not the closest relationship the closest relationship is the relationship between a husband and a wife when we want to think about the closest relationship with Hashem we think about the relationship Jewish people Shabbat we say we are the bride and God is the groom why is that relationship the closest because that's the only relationship that the goal is to become one every other relationship the goal is not to become one but the relationship between the husband and wife the goal is they should become one flesh and the different class that I give I talk about the importance of respecting each other's individuality and respecting your own individuality as a way to become one but this relationship between a husband and wife and relationship between us are the most parallel the most uncommon and this idea of being intentional is true in our relationship with Hashem as well the Hebrew word kavana when we pray we want to pray with kavana what does kavana mean I would like deposit Havana means intentionally means to be intentional it means that when I'm doggony as much as I could of course it's hard to do it all the time I'm actually not just saying words but I'm thinking I'm connecting to the words when I say a prayer in the morning and I say but actually I think about or I should think about the one who opens my eyes how your eyes are portal to the world how you can look at the same thing a hundred times and not see it and then 101 times everything your eyes are opened up being intentional is the way that we get the closest to our shadow and this is what what Hashem wants from us and this is what our spouse what our children want from us more than anything else they want us to be intentional Rabbi is a higher Wallace team such as being lost it's hard to even say his name and say that he's not here he makes such a big difference to the Jewish people I saw a short clip where he was speaking about this and he said very often you'll see a person he talked about himself he said when I was just getting married I said oh my children as soon as I have a child I'm going to take them to parks and take them to the aquarium and take them to the zoos every Sunday is going to be with them I'm gonna play sports with them and then he goes well then I only had daughters but he goes I can still do them and he says what his original intention was didn't necessarily follow through and he says what you see so often is the person who says oh I'm going to take my kids to the aquarium but the whole time they're on their phone she says that's not really connecting with your kids a father says I took my kids to him to a Yankee game to a baseball game the whole time the kid is trying to get his father's attentions who's that player be quiet go Yankees and then he tells he tells his friends afterwards oh I took my kid to the Yankee game and the father's like and the kids are like I don't even want to go with you right the father takes a kid to it to a restaurant and the whole time he's talking to his friend who comes by to see him and the kid is sitting there and trying to get his attention daddy daddy two minutes two minutes Daddy Daddy finally the kid's like Daddy I still hold the soup on my foot and the father I'll get I'll get to you soon he may think that he's connecting with his child but this is lacking of that intentionality it's lacking that sense of attention so we need to try to do in our relationships it's not so much about the quantity but it's about the quality and it's really about as much as possible to be intentional the other point I wanted to make is that in relationships we want to try as much as possible to understand things from the other person's perspective so understand what is it like being that other person what's it like to see the world from their eyes Dale Carnegie very famous author he said that you'll make more friends in two weeks trying to understand other people then in two years trying to get them to understand you I have a little bit of a Funny Story happening over to cook it's funny now because it's over we we started hearing noises on this topic of the second floor of the second floor of our house in Kew Gardens and he was like these running sounds you know so we had a feeling so some animals had had come in and we found out that we had some squirrels between the second floor ceiling and the atom so we actually were going to the Suka to escape the squirrels in the house right oh go figure right and um we got we got an exterminator and um really really good exterminator if you guys need one I'll let you know um African-American gentleman about 50 years old his name is Rocco he he's he only works with like Jewish clients he refused to come out to coach because I'm not coming at a Jewish holiday the squirrels will rest your house is going to be fine I'm not coming at the Jewish holiday he came he came afterwards and he got rid of the squirrels really fast and then I was talking to him and he told me that he had a Jewish client who lived next to the Long Island Express a railroad and the client had a big problem with raccoons and all these different exterminators came and the yard all over the yard was very close they couldn't get rid of them so they came to him they said okay you're the expert you're going to figure it out so he says to me like this he goes I decided to sit in the yard and think like a raccoon he's like I'm gonna think what does a raccoon do what is a raccoon gonna do and he accept it for a half hour because it didn't work I came back a few days later again what would a raccoon do right now and he said he figured it out it has something to do with the garbage and where the garbage was ended raccoons liked the he was putting the everyone put in the traps a certain type of food the raccoons needed human food not other food he got rid of all the records I was thinking to myself not to anyone should look at their spots like a raccoon but I was thinking to myself if we could only try to look at life the way he was looking from from that perspective what is it like to be in that person's shoes what is it like to be home with the kids how does it feel like to be in their shoes how does it feel like to be on call all day in a certain type of business the more we can do that the more we can try to understand each other the closer we will be when the Torah refers to the intimacy between Adam and khaba the Torah says refers to intimacy as knowledge because when we try to understand another person and sometimes when we accept it we don't understand the other person that's also knowledge accepting that you don't know that's the way we come to real closeness [Music]