Belief That Builds
“With wisdom a house is built, and with understanding it is made firm.” Where It Begins There is a famous story about Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, a towering Sage of the Talmud. Akiva was a simple shepherd who came to her father’s door, and she saw greatness in him. It was not a greatness anyone could see. It was not even a greatness he knew he had. She saw something that did not exist yet. On that belief she built an entire life. And what came of that belief? Rabbi Akiva, a pillar of the whole Jewish oral tradition. So we have to ask: what exactly did Rachel do? She did not teach him. She did not fix him. She did not point out his faults. She simply believed in him. What kind of power does a belief like that have? The Problem Every young married man, every family man with a job, knows this feeling. You see what needs to change in your spouse. You see the flaw clearly. And logic says: tell him. Explain it to her. If we know what is wrong, we can fix it. But experience teaches something completely different. Criticism does not fix. Rebuke does not build. Sometimes it does exactly the opposite. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, wrote in one of his letters that when a person “breaks someone’s heart” with rebuke that does not come from real love, he tears out the very root of that person’s growth. Why? Because criticism works on the outside, on actions and on the body. It does not reach the inside: the soul, and the hidden strength at a person’s core. Seeing the Inside There is a deep principle here. When you look at a person through his flaws, you meet the shell. When you believe in him, you meet his true essence. Rabbi Schneur Zalman writes in the Tanya that love for another person is built on seeing the divine spark inside him, not on seeing his body and his traits. A person who believes digs inward, to the point beyond every failure and every flaw. And this way of looking is not passive. It creates. My friend, keep this parable in front of your eyes. Say your wife sends you out to do some business, and she tells you, “I’m sure of you. You can bring home a million dollars.” Something in you wakes up. You feel the strength. You find ways you never saw before. But say she sends you out and tells you, “At least make sure you take out the trash, because that’s something you can’t manage...” You will forget the trash. You will forget everything. A person rises exactly as high as the trust he is given, and sinks exactly as low as the doubt that surrounds him. That is how people are made. A Deeper Hasidic Look There is a model for this at the very highest level. In the Song of Songs, King Solomon’s love song, the Jewish people say: “I am dark, and I am beautiful.” Rabbi Schneur Zalman explains what this means in his book Likkutei Torah. The Jewish people are saying: “I am dark. I have flaws. I have an outer side.” But also: “I am beautiful.” What does this beauty rest on? On the fact that the Beloved, Hashem, believes in her. He says to her: “You are completely beautiful, my love.” This is not because there is nothing in her to fix. It is because the Beloved’s gaze goes all the way inside. His belief is what reveals her beauty and makes it real. This is how it is between Hashem and the Jewish people. When He gave us the Torah, He said: “You will be for Me a kingdom of priests.” He did not wait until we were worthy. He believed in us, and that belief gave us the strength to become it. Hasidic teachings that look toward the days of the Messiah call this “Hashem’s trust in the Jewish people.”
Putting It into Practice
“With wisdom a house is built.” What is the wisdom that builds a house? In Hasidic teaching, wisdom is the power to see the “nothing”: what lies beyond what is visible, the point that comes before any definition or limit. So the wisdom that builds a home is the ability to see the point of Hashem in the other person, and to believe in it. It means believing in a strength that has not yet come out, in the “million dollars” inside him, even before he has brought home a single penny. And through this wisdom, “a house is built.” The home is built. It is not built by fixing from above. It is built from within. So, my friend: stop trying to fix. Start believing. Not blind belief, but belief that sees, a belief that reaches the true point inside your spouse. Change the way you look, and you will see that reality itself changes. And one more small note, so it is not left out: you need this same belief toward yourself as well. Believe in your own hidden strengths, at least as much as you want others to believe in you.
Questions and answers
Q: What verse from Proverbs about building a house with wisdom opens this essay?
Rabbi Landau answers: “With wisdom a house is built, and with understanding it is made firm.”
Q: What did Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, see in him when he was still a simple shepherd?
Rabbi Landau answers: There is a famous story about Rachel, the wife of Rabbi Akiva, a towering Sage of the Talmud. Akiva was a simple shepherd who came to her father’s door, and she saw greatness in him. It was not a greatness anyone could see. It was not even a greatness he knew he had. She saw something that did not exist yet. On that belief she built an entire life. And what came of that belief? Rabbi Akiva, a pillar of the whole Jewish oral tradition. So we have to ask: what exactly did Rachel do? She did not teach him. She did not fix him. She did not point out his faults. She simply believed in him. What kind of power does a belief like that have?
Q: How does believing in a person let you meet his true essence instead of his flaws?
Rabbi Landau answers: There is a deep principle here. When you look at a person through his flaws, you meet the shell. When you believe in him, you meet his true essence. Rabbi Schneur Zalman writes in the Tanya that love for another person is built on seeing the divine spark inside him, not on seeing his body and his traits. A person who believes digs inward, to the point beyond every failure and every flaw. And this way of looking is not passive. It creates. My friend, keep this parable in front of your eyes. Say your wife sends you out to do some business, and she tells you, “I’m sure of you. You can bring home a million dollars.” Something in you wakes up. You feel the strength.
Q: What does “I am dark, and I am beautiful” from the Song of Songs teach about seeing others?
Rabbi Landau answers: There is a model for this at the very highest level. In the Song of Songs, King Solomon’s love song, the Jewish people say: “I am dark, and I am beautiful.” Rabbi Schneur Zalman explains what this means in his book Likkutei Torah. The Jewish people are saying: “I am dark. I have flaws. I have an outer side.” But also: “I am beautiful.” What does this beauty rest on? On the fact that the Beloved, Hashem, believes in her. He says to her: “You are completely beautiful, my love.” This is not because there is nothing in her to fix. It is because the Beloved’s gaze goes all the way inside. His belief is what reveals her beauty and makes it real.
Q: What is the wisdom that builds a home, and how can a spouse put it into practice?
Rabbi Landau answers: “With wisdom a house is built.” What is the wisdom that builds a house? In Hasidic teaching, wisdom is the power to see the “nothing”: what lies beyond what is visible, the point that comes before any definition or limit. So the wisdom that builds a home is the ability to see the point of Hashem in the other person, and to believe in it. It means believing in a strength that has not yet come out, in the “million dollars” inside him, even before he has brought home a single penny. And through this wisdom, “a house is built.” The home is built. It is not built by fixing from above. It is built from within. So, my friend: stop trying to fix. Start believing.