Relationships: When light met light and the Divine Presence dwells between them

Source: When the Divine Presence dwells between male and female

"One who sets out on a journey and is not found as male and female, the Divine Presence departs from him."

(Translation: One who sets out on a journey, and is no longer 'male and female' [far from his wife], the Divine Presence distances itself from him).

(Zohar, Parashat Vayikra 5a)

Explanation: Merging lights: The doctrine of relationships as divine revelation

The Zohar describes relationships in terms of the Divine Presence (Shechinah). Every person radiates light upward (Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Iggeret HaKodesh, chapter 2); when a couple meets, their lights merge into a new light in which God is present. A relationship that succeeds in uniting rather than erasing invites holiness into itself—this is the glue that holds a couple together.

Perspective: The distance between the ideal and the daily burden

These wonderful words should only be read after quite a few years of marriage, certainly not beforehand. The gap between those great lights and the practical, financial realities of married life—taking care of the children, running the house, and so on—which make up the heart of marriage, is vast, and only few of us are capable of seeing any light in it rather than a burden. In retrospect, as we look back on the life we have lived, a burden turns into light, a chore turns into meaning.

Going Deeper: The science of shared identity: When the other becomes 'me'

Prof. Arthur Aron is considered one of the foremost researchers in relationship psychology in the United States. In his "self-expansion" research (Aron et al., 1992), he found that happy couples develop a shared identity—truly feeling that the other person is part of them. In brain scans, areas activated when thinking about "me" are also activated when thinking about one's partner. The shared light of Iggeret HaKodesh is not just a metaphor.

Culture: Almost one body: The song that became a wedding processional anthem

When Ehud Manor and Ofra Fuchs married, Ehud wrote her a song called "Brit Olam" (Eternal Covenant). A decade later, Matti Caspi performed the song at the Israel Song Festival, and from then on it became the anthem for walking down the aisle to the chuppah at countless weddings. The opening stanza captures the secret of relationships—closeness and distance:

Soon, almost / We are one body - / You gave your hand / Into mine forever.

Two words sparkle inside this stanza: "almost" and "my hand." There is an almost-union, a merging of longing, and in the end, holding hands is that "almost"—the most delicate expression of the respect within a relationship, always almost one body. And we should remember: in the end, there is one body, in children.