Many marriages are struggling these days. The light has gone out of the house; often the husband and wife do not know how to restore it. Recently someone told me about a couple that has been married for many years, but the wife actually feels repelled by her husband. This is a very dark scenario, and I am told that it is not unusual.
I would like to suggest something.
First a little background: Chanukah is the Yom Tov of the Oral Torah, Torah Sh’baal pe. Why is this? First, Chanukah is not mentioned in the Written Torah; it is described only in the Gemora, which is Torah sh’baal pe. It is the principal Yom Tov of Golus … Exile.
Exile is where the Oral Torah has assumed its place as the central pillar of Am Yisroel.
Part of our tzouris in Exile is that the other nations claim our Torah was written for them. They are really trying to steal it from us. They base their beliefs completely on the Written Torah and claim that the Torah was taken from us and given to them. On that basis they claim to be superior to us.
They do not even begin to understand the Oral Torah and the fact that it is the key to the Written Torah. All this comes out in Exile. Am Yisroel has survived only because we have the Oral Torah. If there is anything that the Satan (who is also called the Yetzer ha Ra, the Evil Inclination and the Angel of Death) hates, it is the Oral Torah, because that is what keeps us alive, attaches us to Hashem and saves us from the Satan.
Chanukah is the Yom Tov where, in the light of the menorah, we work on defeating the Yetzer ha Ra by strengthening our attachment to the Oral Torah. And this is our key to strengthening Shalom Bayis and marriage, as I will b’ezras Hashem try to explain over the next few days.
