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Health insurance is complicated. We make it simple. Explore Your Options with a 9[hj_ƚ[Z>[Wbj^9Wh[DWl_]Wjeh$ Whether you are signing up for health insurance for the first time, or want to review your existing plan, the navigators at Jewish Family Service will help you enroll, whether through the health care marketplace or through Medicaid. To schedule an appointment, contact Megan Pudlik at 248.592.2269 or mpudlik@jfsdetroit.org FREE and OPEN to all community members! This open enrollment period runs from November 1 to December 15, 2017. S T R O N G E R C O M M U N I T Y For 90 years The hear t of a 28 November 9 • 2017 jn T he fascinating marriage of Isaac and Rebecca — from the circumstances surround- ing their arranged nuptials to the devastating family split over their twin sons' bitter rivalry — contains vitally important lessons for couples in every generation. What seems to be missing from their relationship is open communication. Perhaps no better evidence for the distance between them is their unverbalized dis- pute surrounding the bek- hora, the spiritual blessings bequeathed from father to son. Differences of opinion between parents will always exist, but if the father prefers Esau and the mother prefers Jacob regarding an issue as momentous as who will don the mantle of spiritual heir to Abraham, ought there not be a discussion and an opportunity to examine the true nature of their sons' very different characters to arrive at a consensus? Instead, Rebecca resorts to ruse, casting the otherwise-guileless Jacob into a role of deception for which he is unnaturally suited. Not only does he perpetrate an act that will haunt him for the rest of his life, but what begins as a split between broth- ers comes to signify the far greater division between Jews and gentiles throughout history. Why must Rebecca resort to deception? Why could she not sim- ply have raised the issue with Isaac? The answer can be found in the initial encounter between Isaac and Rebecca, which reflects the gulf that separates them. The Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Berlin (19th century Poland), in his commentary Ha'Emek Davar, explains that Rebecca fell because she had never before seen a religious personality, a spiritual persona who communed with nature and spoke before God. So awesome was the sight of Isaac transformed by prayer that she was literally knocked off her feet. Compared to the lying and cheating world of her father, Betuel, and her brother, Laban, Isaac projected a vision of purity with which Rebecca had no previous experience. When Eliezer revealed the man's identity, she took the veil and covered herself, not only as a sign of mod- esty, but as an expression of her unworthiness. From that moment on, the veil between them was never removed. She felt she could never speak to her husband as an equal. She never felt that she had the right to offer a dissenting opinion. Granted that the veil comes to symbolize the distance between their worlds, why was Isaac unable to bridge that gap? If neither wife nor husband could speak openly with each other, there could be no real communication between them. In my many years of offering marital counseling, I am never put off when one partner screams at the other. As a wife once said to her husband who complained that she yelled at him too often: "With whom then should I let out my frustra- tions? The stranger next door?" Of course, I am not advocating shout- ing, but a far more serious danger is silence — non-communication — between the couple. A crucial lesson, then, from the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca is that we must spend a lifetime work- ing on ourselves and on our relation- ship with our spouse. Most impor- tantly, we must be honest with our- selves and honest with our spouse: love them as we love ourselves, and learn how to disagree lovingly and respectfully.• Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Communication Is Vital spirit torah portion Parshat Chaye Sara: Genesis 23:1-25:18; I Kings 1:1-31.