{"id":9523,"date":"2014-09-02T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T02:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/?p=9523"},"modified":"2019-11-21T10:08:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T08:08:51","slug":"14-02-05","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/14-02-05\/","title":{"rendered":"05. The Woman\u2019s Mitzva"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we saw in section 2, even though the <em>mitzvot <\/em>of marriage and <em>ona <\/em>devolve upon men, women are equal partners in the fulfillment of the mitzva. Without her responsiveness to her husband, the mitzva is emptied of all its meaning. Therefore, just as it is a mitzva for a man to express his love and desire for his wife, so too, it is a mitzva for a woman to express such feelings to her husband. Indeed, this is perfectly natural, as the Sages say: \u201cA woman\u2019s desire is only for her husband, as the Torah states (Bereishit 3:16), \u2018Your desire shall be for your husband\u2019\u201d (<em>Bereishit Rabba<\/em> 20:7). This desire is sacred; through it, the love between the couple is revealed and the name of God dwells with them (above, 1:1). Moreover, the mutual desire of husband and wife serves as an allegory to express the relationship between God and Israel: \u201cI am my beloved\u2019s, and His desire is for me\u201d (Shir Ha-shirim 7:11).<\/p>\n<p>As we have seen, the mitzva to \u201clove your fellow as yourself\u201d (Vayikra 19:18), which R. Akiva calls \u201ca major principle of the Torah\u201d (<em>Sifra<\/em> <em>ad loc.<\/em>), reaches its ultimate fulfillment in marriage (Arizal, <em>Sefer Ha-likutim<\/em>, Ekev). Therefore, a woman, too, must bring her husband joy through whatever she knows will give him pleasure; the more she does so, the greater her mitzva.<\/p>\n<p>The stronger the couple\u2019s love and desire for each other, the more complete their union will be, and in this merit, their children will be even more wonderful (above, 1:4 and n. 4). Maharal writes that when a woman feels intense desire for her husband, she connects to the root of life and unity, and in this merit, she has children of the utmost refinement, who are deserving of redemption and liberty (<em>Gevurot<\/em> <em>Hashem<\/em>, ch. 43). This is what the Sages mean when they say, \u201cIn the merit of the righteous women of that generation, the Jews were redeemed from Egypt\u201d (<em>Sota<\/em> 11b). By virtue of their desire for their husbands, and their expression of this desire through the mitzva of <em>ona<\/em>, despite all the hardships of servitude, they gave birth to the generation of redemption (above, 1:8).<\/p>\n<p>In order to increase love, wives often adorn themselves in jewelry for their husbands. Ezra the Scribe even allowed peddlers to sell perfumes and jewelry, over any objections of the townspeople, \u201cso that the women would not become undesirable to their husbands\u201d (<em>Bava Kamma<\/em> 82b). According to tradition, God beautified \u1e24ava and braided her hair so that Adam would love her more (<em>Eruvin<\/em> 18a). The main purpose of a woman\u2019s accessories is to arouse her husband\u2019s desire for her (<em>Tan\u1e25uma<\/em> Vayishla\u1e25 \u00a712; Shir Ha-shirim 1:2). R. Hai Gaon writes, \u201cMay a curse befall a woman who is married but does not adorn herself for her husband, and may a curse befall a woman who is not married, yet adorns herself\u201d (<em>Sha\u2019arei Teshuva <\/em>\u00a784). It would seem that he is referring specifically to the type of adornments that men find arousing, and this teaches us the main purpose of perfume, jewelry, and beautiful clothing is to increase the love of husband and wife.<\/p>\n<p>When a woman does not love her husband, does not long to be with him, and does not enjoy sexual relations with him, she can drain the joy from his life. The Sages said of this: \u201cThere is no end to the goodness of a good wife, and there is no end to the badness of a bad wife\u201d (<em>Midrash Tehilim<\/em> \u00a759). Making a similar point, the Talmud (<em>Yevamot<\/em> 63a) relates that R. \u1e24iya gave the following blessing to Rav, his disciple: \u201cGod should save you from a fate worse than death,\u201d referring to a bad wife, as it says (Kohelet 7:26), \u201cI find woman more bitter than death.\u201d (See also section 12 below regarding women who have difficulty fulfilling this mitzva.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we saw in section 2, even though the mitzvot of marriage and ona devolve upon men, women are equal partners in the fulfillment of the mitzva. Without her responsiveness to her husband, the mitzva is emptied of all its meaning. Therefore, just as it is a mitzva for a man to express his love [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14-02"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>05. The Woman\u2019s Mitzva - Peninei Halakha<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/14-02-05\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"05. 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