The Manufacturer’s Instructions

“Hashem created man in His image; in the image of Hashem He created him; male and female He created them.” The Question Everyone Sees and No One Asks Look around you. Our generation has more books on marriage than any generation before it. More experts, more methods, more theories. And at the same time, more broken homes, more pain, more confusion. Every month a new method comes out and says, “We finally figured it out.” And by the time the next method arrives, this one has already done its damage. Where does the mistake come from? The Machine and the Manual Imagine you have a complex machine. Take, for example, a Swiss watch with hundreds of tiny parts. Each one is exact. Each one is in its place. Now someone very smart comes along and says, “I have a better idea. Let’s turn this wheel the other way. Let’s swap out that spring.” What will happen? The watch will stop working. That is not because the man isn’t smart. It is because he is not the manufacturer. Only the manufacturer knows why each part sits exactly where it does. Marriage is that same kind of machine. And not just any machine. In the words of our Sages, it is “an everlasting building.” It is a building that Hashem built with His own hands, so to speak. As our Sages said: “Great is the one who makes peace between a husband and wife, for Hashem had His own holy Name written and dissolved in water, just to make peace between them.” And this building comes with a manual. One manual, exact in every detail, written by the manufacturer Himself. “Male and Female He Created Them”: The Difference Is the Design “Hashem created man in His image… male and female He created them.” Look closely at these words. Hashem did not simply create “a human being.” He created male and female: two, different, distinct. Our Sages explain in the Midrash that at first they were created as one being with two faces, and only afterward did Hashem separate them. This means the separation itself was a deliberate act of Hashem. The difference between a man and a woman is not a defect that needs fixing. It is the design. The Torah says: “It is not good for man to be alone.” That is not because something was missing in creation. It is because wholeness itself needs two. Two different parts, which, when they join according to the manufacturer’s instructions, create a wholeness that neither one could reach alone. As King Solomon wrote: “He who has found a wife has found good.” He did not say “found a partner,” or “found a teammate.” He found a wife. Exactly as she was created, exactly in her difference, exactly in the nature Hashem gave her. When People Rewrite the Manual Here lies the central mistake of our generation. People come along who are smart, sincere and well-meaning, and they say: “The manual needs rewriting. Times have changed. The old machine doesn’t fit anymore.” And they start to change things. The man should act this way, the woman should act another way. The roles get swapped, and the definitions melt away. But notice: they are not the manufacturer. They did not create the man, and they did not create the woman. They do not know what is inside. So when they change the instructions, the machine breaks. That is not because they are wicked. It is because you cannot fix a machine by inventing new rules that go against the manufacturer’s instructions. The Torah says: “But for man, no fitting partner was found.” Not until Hashem Himself built one. Man did not build. Hashem built. As the Torah says: “Hashem built the rib into a woman.” And Rashi, the great Bible commentator, explains that this was a true building. It is a building with a plan, with a foundation, with a purpose. Whoever wants to change the plan would first have to create the building all over again. The Only Advice: Go Back to the Source We are not weighing two methods here. There is one simple question: Who built it? Who made it? Who wrote the instructions? Hashem created. Hashem made. And Hashem gave the Torah, which is, word for word, “the manufacturer’s instructions.” That is true not only of the sections that speak openly about married life and peace in the home. The whole Torah is the guide to how a person lives in a world created in the image of Hashem, and how “male and female” build “an everlasting building.” Do you want to fix things? Go and study the instructions. Not the book that came out last year. Not the popular podcast. The original instructions: the Torah, Jewish law, and the ways of our Sages, whose teachings are the trusted explanation of those instructions. And if someone still claims he can write a better manual than Hashem, let him first go and create a man and a woman himself. Until then, the only manual that works is the one written by the One who made them.