Parashat Lech Lecha
You walked past her today.
Maybe twice. Maybe ten times. You said good morning, you asked who’s doing pickup, you told her you’d be home late. You were going through your morning routine.
But did you see her?
This week Avraham is walking down to Egypt with Sarah. There’s a famine, they’re leaving everything they know, and in the middle of the road he turns to her and says:
הִנֵּה נָא יָדַעְתִּי כִּי אִשָּה יְפַת מַרְאֶה אָתְּ
“Now I know that you are a beautiful woman.” (Bereishit 12:11)
They’d been married for decades. Now he knows?
Rashi says that until then he had never looked at her that way, because of the modesty of both of them. The Midrash says it happened at a river. They were crossing, he caught her reflection in the water, and he stopped.
Avraham didn’t look because he was holy.
We don’t look because we’re running. To work, to shul, to the next thing. And the woman we married turns into the one who keeps everything going.
We see the dinner. We see the house. We see the schedule. We stop seeing her.
Here’s what nobody tells a man. The flowers matter. The trip matters. But they land when she already feels seen by you. When she doesn’t, even the nicest gift can feel like one more thing you did, instead of a sign that you noticed her. She can sit in a full house, surrounded by her children, married to a good man, and still feel alone.
And here’s the part nobody tells you. A few verses later the Torah says וּלְאַבְרָם הֵיטִיב בַּעֲבוּרָהּ, “it went well with Avram because of her” (12:16). Rabbi Chelbo learns from this that blessing rests in a home because of the wife (Bava Metzia 59a).
You work so hard to bring blessing into your home. Some of it comes through your work. A lot of it comes through her, through how she feels in the home you share.
When she feels seen, there’s more of it, for everyone.
This Friday night, try something
Sometime Friday afternoon, take two minutes and think about something nice to say to her.
What do you see when you look at her? How beautiful she still is to you. The feeling she brings into your home. The Shabbat she creates, week after week, that you may have stopped noticing.
Use your own words. One sentence is enough.
Then, before Kiddush, before everyone sits down, stop. Look at her, not at what she cooked or set up. Say it. Simply. Then let it sit. Don’t add a joke to cover it, and don’t wait for her to say something back.
It will feel awkward. Do it anyway.
Then watch her face.
Isaac (Zooky) Jemal is a marriage coach in Deal, New Jersey, who has worked with more than 500 couples over 20 years. jemalcoaching.com
