By Five Towns Marriage Initiative
When it was time to eat the Korban Pesach, the men carrying the bones of Yosef came before Moshe with a complaint. Why should they have to lose out from doing the mitzvah if they were impure from tumas meis? They were only impure for the sake of doing a mitzvah so it did not seem fair to them that they should lose out on an additional mitzvah now. We know that one mitzvah is supposed to bring another mitzvah in its wake, as it says in Pirkei Avos. But in this case, their concern stemmed from the fact that this mitzvah would lead them to an aveirah of not performing the Korban Pesach in its appointed time. From this encounter, the laws of Pesach Sheini were taught. From then on, if someone was far away or if someone needed time to become pure, he could bring the korban after Pesach.
The Meshech Chochmah points out something interesting. He says that the language used to describe the bearers of Yosef’s aron was “those that were impure to the soul of adam (man).” The Meshech Chochmah brings a Gemara in Yevamos that says that any man who does not have a wife can’t be called adam, like it says, “and their name shall be called Adam.” This shows that adam refers to a case where there is plurality, where a wife is in the picture as well. Yosef had the honorary title of adam after his death because he refused to be with the wife of Potiphar; he ruled over his inclination and waited for the right time when he would be properly married. His insistence on marriage the way it was meant to be, and not giving in to pleasure for its own sake, gave him the right to be called adam even after his death.
Let us contemplate what it means that marriage makes us whole and brings about the fulfillment of our task to be adam. Marriage has the capacity to bring us to a whole new level of humanity that we can’t reach otherwise. Let us use this capacity as a source of growth and as a tool to become all that we can be. v
Five Towns Marriage Initiative provides educational programs, workshops, and referrals to top marriage therapists. FTMI will help offset counseling costs when necessary and also runs an anonymous shalom bayis hotline for the entire community Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings, 10:00—11:00 p.m. For the hotline or for more information, call 516-430-5280 or e‑mail dsgarry@msn.com.