I didn't expect this question. It caught me completely off guard. How, Ribbono Shel Olam, can I try to convince my dear student Yerachmiel that this is possible, when I myself find it difficult? After all, I deal with this particular problem each day with my wife at home! I recalled the difficult discussion that I had just had with my sponsor on this very matter only a few weeks ago. This is perhaps the most difficult issue that I deal with since I started my own journey to recovery last year. How can I talk about this with Yerachmiel?!
I didn't have much time to think about it, because Yerachmiel arrived in my office.
"Did the Rosh Yeshiva get a chance yet to read what I wrote to him?" he asked restlessly, while taking a seat and attempting to hide his anxiety.
"Yes, I read it. The question is excellent, as usual. It's truly not a simple matter, and the question again shows how much you understood the issues we discussed yesterday. But with your permission, before I address the question," - suddenly Hashem put words in my mouth - "let me preface with an introduction".
"As you surely know, there are two types of pleasures: physical pleasures, which include all the bodily pleasures such as eating, marital relations and others, and then there are spiritual pleasures like Love or learning. These two types of pleasures have completely opposite characteristics. The basic characterization of physical pleasures is, that at first the pleasure is very strong but the more we have it, the weaker the strength of the pleasure becomes. For example, if the Yeshiva's cook would prepare pizza for supper, I assume everyone would be very happy and the pizza would be delicious for everyone. But what do you think would happen if the cook made pizza every night?"
"We'd get sick of it", smiled Yerachmiel.
"Right", I said. "And if the cook still insisted to make Pizza for a week straight?"
"I would suggest that he at least use a different topping every day", answered Yerachmiel.
"Now let's think about spiritual pleasures. Let's take, for example, learning a sugya in Gemara. When do you have more pleasure from the sugya, the first time you learn it, or after a few times - when you are already proficient in it and are able to answer a question or say a good s'vara? The truth is, you in particular, Yerachmiel, are a good example of this. I've observed you a lot in the Shiur Klali, which - by then - you've already prepared the sugya well and know it backwards and forwards. And I've seen what pleasure you have from a good s'vara or a good answer! This implies, that with spiritual pleasures, the situation is exactly the opposite: The more we taste of it the stronger the pleasure gets. And the same goes for Love. Who do you think love each other more: a couple who have just met, or a couple who have lived together for many years?"
"Surely, the longer they are together and give to one another, the stronger the love grows", answered Yerachmiel.
"How wonderful that you already understand this!", I said.
"So let's take a look now at what happens when a couple gets married. According to what we just explained, they would apparently find themselves in a problematic situation at the very start. On the one hand, they want to retain enjoyable marital relations in the long term. But this is something that, according to what we just said, should not be possible, because marital relations are bodily pleasures - which grow less enjoyable with time. But on the other hand they want to love each other, and Love is something that grows with time.
So based on what we've discussed until now, it would seem that every couple that gets married is faced with an impossible choice: either they stay together for only a short time and enjoy their sexual relations while giving up on true Love, or they can opt to stay together for many years and merit a real love, but their marital relations will become less and less enjoyable as time goes on".
"It's a problem", summed up Yerachmiel with half a smile.
"But we know", I said, " that Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves us, and he created this world for us to enjoy, yet still, the Torah commands us to get married! Apparently there's a secret here and if we can figure it out, we can enjoy both worlds together: to remain together for many years, and at the same time, still retain the enjoyment of marital relations the entire time!"
"But that goes against all the rules we laid down until now!" called Yerachmiel.
"True", I said, "and now I am going to reveal to you the secret, and I believe that this secret can help us deal with your question". Yerachmiel gazed at me with full concentration and attention.
"We determined that with physical pleasures, the more we have of them, the less enjoyable they become. But this is only true if the physical pleasure is the purpose and goal unto itself. If, however, the physical pleasure is only a means to achieving a spiritual pleasure, then all the characteristics of the spiritual pleasure attach themselves to the physical pleasure as well, and as a result, not only does the physical pleasure not get weaker over time, but the opposite is true, it gets stronger over time!"
"But I don't understand, Rebbe, how can this be?" asked Yerachmiel.
"Let me explain", I answered.