QUESTION:
1) How can a wife respect her husband, if he goes to sleep very late at night because he learns until he has no energy left, then he gets up late the next morning and davens Shacharis way past the zman (through he does say Shema in time) and because of this I have to work so hard in the morning getting the kids ready for school because my husband is still sleeping in bed?
ANSWER:
You need to find his good points, and respect him for that.
QUESTION
2) How can I respect my husband when he learns all the time on his laptop? I don’t hear the kol Torah (the sound of Torah) coming from him because he just learns quietly on his laptop all day, and the kids just see a father looking at a computer screen all day and there’s no “sound of Torah learning” in my house.
ANSWER
Everyone has their own personality based on their unique soul makeup. It is not proper for a wife to set forth rules to her husband on how he should be learning and in what manner. That is what Rav Shach told a wife who complained that her husband learns bekiyus (cursory reading of Gemara and not in-depth) and doesn’t learn iyun (in-depth). The same would apply in this situation.
QUESTION
3) Since my husband davens late in the morning, he comes late every to yeshiva. I work to support the family and so that my husband can learn seriously, but he doesn’t take on the responsibility of learning Torah as I had hoped. Instead he only learns whenever he feels like it and he comes and goes when he pleases, based on his wishes and without any sense of responsibility. Do I get the same reward for enabling him to sit and learn as if he would be coming on time to seder?
ANSWER
It seems to my feeble understanding here that you have certain thinking patterns here, in which you want your husband to do exactly as you wish, and he’s acting according to his personality which is built differently than yours. You have a great reward for enabling his learning. It is important that you not involved yourself at all with his learning. But you can certainly ask him to help you in the house, just as all the wives of all the Gedolim throughout the generations asked their husbands to help them in the house. But you should not get involved with his learning, with how he should be learning and in what way, etc.
QUESTION
2) How can I respect my husband when he learns all the time on his laptop? I don’t hear the kol Torah (the sound of Torah) coming from him because he just learns quietly on his laptop all day, and the kids just see a father looking at a computer screen all day and there’s no “sound of Torah learning” in my house.
ANSWER
Everyone has their own personality based on their unique soul makeup. It is not proper for a wife to set forth rules to her husband on how he should be learning and in what manner. That is what Rav Shach told a wife who complained that her husband learns bekiyus (cursory reading of Gemara and not in-depth) and doesn’t learn iyun (in-depth). The same would apply in this situation.
QUESTION
3) Since my husband davens late in the morning, he comes late every to yeshiva. I work to support the family and so that my husband can learn seriously, but he doesn’t take on the responsibility of learning Torah as I had hoped. Instead he only learns whenever he feels like it and he comes and goes when he pleases, based on his wishes and without any sense of responsibility. Do I get the same reward for enabling him to sit and learn as if he would be coming on time to seder?
ANSWER
It seems to my feeble understanding here that you have certain thinking patterns here, in which you want your husband to do exactly as you wish, and he’s acting according to his personality which is built differently than yours. You have a great reward for enabling his learning. It is important that you not involved yourself at all with his learning. But you can certainly ask him to help you in the house, just as all the wives of all the Gedolim throughout the generations asked their husbands to help them in the house. But you should not get involved with his learning, with how he should be learning and in what way, etc.
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