Light Notes # 9-“ Motherhood/Fatherhood ”-(Adar 2-5771)-Tazria
Dear Friends,
We see here the preciousness of a mother. Both in perceiving one’s own mother, as well as how you look at your wife as a mother to your children that she has brought unto this world. And in truth, we need to look at ourselves as fathers, and even a bocher needs to view himself as a potential father, and even a person who will always be childless, there is yet within him or her, an aspect of motherhood/fatherhood that they have within them, than can be enhanced and brought forth even at an advanced age.
The Ali Shur alludes to this concept but I’m not sure that he would intend to apply it the way its written here, but the idea is a novel one. When a young boy becomes a young teenager, changes in his body takes place. He can be the holiest of the holiest of the holiest of boys he will be aware of the sexual impulses within him as well as the semen that will come out of his body at a certain point whether he wants it to or not. Even if he kept his thought very pure and did his best- this will happen. To his dismay,
he will realize that he is not Yaakov Avinu. But this should not shake him. And in general, he needs to know that this is a special gift, the gift of potential fatherhood, the gift of a future special union, and therefore this gift needs to be guarded with patience until the time that it is meant to be used.
Emunah plays a large role in a bocher grappling with sexual urges that he knows cannot be acted upon at all for many years. A bocher, especially in our generation is in a very difficult situation. He has a battle from within and without. And as Rav Twersky has said many times “Marriage is not a hospital”. If one marries just for the purpose of releasing sexual tension, then his marriage will have serious problems. That is not why you marry. And yet, there is no denying, that in most cases, a healthy marriage is one where this aspect of one’s humanness can be realized and expressed joyfully.
Emunah helps with this. It helps being patient. It helps putting our energies in other healthy productive endeavors. That until the time comes for him to marry, he can focus his energies joyfully on healthy things, knowing that he has a bright future ahead of him. The same would apply to every Jewish girl, knowing that she is a potential mother, this gift being realized later in life.
It is not easy to be a teenager in any generation. But in this generation, it’s an extremely difficult position to be in, if one is committed to living a pure life. Therefore, a lot of compassion and sensitivity is required of us to give them guidance and chizzuk. A Blatt Gemorah alone will not do. A dismissal of their frustrations by telling the, “Ligt in Lehrnen”-“just put your head in learning and put your mind off this nonsense” will not help at all. Their fears ,and struggles have to be addressed. And a Rosh Yeshiva whose only interest is that his student appreciate his shiur, and cares nothing for his talmid’s inner world is a fool, an idiot, and it too tied up in his own ego to realize what is really taking place in the soul of his talmid that he is doing absolutely nothing about. As Rav Reuvain Feinstein commented of the attitude of some Magidei Shiurim “you, bocher ,have a question on the shiur?, I will answer you now. you have a problem? , see me in 3 weeks”
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