Family Culture
There was once a teenaged girl who used to write me enthusiastic fan mail on a regular basis. My policy being to answer all such letters, we soon had a lively correspondence going. Then, after a few years of talking about books, she shared the good news: she was engaged to be married!
I was struck by the fact that her letter was filled to the brim with glowing descriptions of her chosson’s mother and sisters, with hardly a word about the lucky fellow himself. Since she belonged to a segment of Jewish society where the men and women spend a great deal of segregated time, it made sense that the kallah’s future sisters-in-law would loom large in her future. But her letter also drove home to me something which I hadn’t really thought about much until then: when we marry another person, we are also marrying that person’s family.
However similar families might be in terms of background, outlook and customs, there is something unique about every such nuclear group. The differences in your family culture and mine can be few… or they can be numerous enough to make a newcomer feel as if she’s just moved into a foreign country.
By “family culture,” I mean the way the members of a particular family talk to each other, think about each other, and think about the world. How they do things, and how they would never do things. Is humor a large part of the family patter or are conversations on the more sedate side? Is the house excruciatingly neat, pleasantly untidy, or unpleasantly messy? Is the household run like a tight ship or like a carnival? At the Shabbos table, is there a brief, obligatory vort at each seudah or hours of animated Torah discussion?
Do political topics take central stage, or do they never appear at all? Are emotional displays and outbursts par for the course or discreetly non-existent? Are the family deeply absorbed in themselves and each other, or are the antics of their neighbors a source of endless fascination?
I could go on forever, because the permutations are virtually infinite. Even a family that appears on the surface to be “exactly” like another will, at closer scrutiny, show unexpected differences. That’s because no two couples are exactly alike, and therefore no two couples can create the exact same kind of family.
However similar they may seem to be starting out, the subtle or not-so-subtle differences between one young married couple and another will loom larger as time goes on, as will the personalities of the children they produce. Not to mention outside factors such as issues of mental or physical health, parnossah or the lack thereof, and other stressors that can and do alter the course of a family’s life.
No two families are exactly alike; rather, each is like a sovereign country with its own laws and customs, stated or unstated. Each has its own way of getting through the day, its own way of talking or not talking about their successes and failures. Walking into a house, a sensitive person can sometimes sense a “vibe,” serene or jagged or something in between. This has little or nothing to do with how well-appointed the house happens to be and everything to do with the family living inside it.
It has to do with the accumulated effect of thousands of tiny interactions between the family members which creates a sweet or sour taste in the air. Or, most often, a combination of both.
The Difference that Makes a Difference
Just about every society has laws forbidding the marriage of very close relatives such as brothers and sisters. That taboo, which has its roots in our Torah for which we do not know its reason, is understandable on a practical level as well. Everyone knows that inbreeding, where a few families marry into one another repeatedly through several generations, frequently produces genetically weaker offspring. Having the members of a single family intermarry would, in theory, horrifically multiply the negative effects of inbreeding.
To grow strong, every system needs the proverbial shot of “fresh blood” to infuse it with new vigor. If that sounds like a layman speaking, it is. Still, the facts speak for themselves. And the fact that the Torah forbids it speaks loudest of all.
Because they necessarily come from separate families, every young couple starts off by being different from each other right from the start. Though it’s always a good idea to look for someone with a similar background and upbringing, it is still true that however much two families are alike, no two are the same. In myriad ways, large and small, the family cultures will be different.
Which is why, when it comes to entering another family, no one can avoid, at least to some degree, feeling like a stranger in a strange land.
The Discomfort that Delights
What happens when two family cultures rub up against one another, as happens every time two people marry?
When we marry, as when we go through life in general, we have two conflicting goals. One goal is to be comfortable. The other is to achieve something. How we balance these often-conflicting goals will determine how much we accomplish in our years on this earth.
The only way to be one hundred percent comfortable with the family culture we marry into would be to marry someone with precisely the same culture… which, as we’ve said, the Torah forbids. Everyone, therefore, at least to some degree is introduced to a “foreign” way of life after they stand under the chuppah. To the extent that their spouse’s family culture is similar to their own, they will feel comfortable. To the extent that the cultures are different, there will be inevitable bumpings and scrapings as the two systems adjust to one another.
When two tectonic plates scrape against one another underground, the result is an earthquake. Some marriages, where the adjustment does not go smoothly, can be no less catastrophic. Surprisingly, it is often the small things that wreak havoc in a relationship: tidbits of family culture or personality that rubs a spouse the wrong way. It may call for much communication, compromise, and sometimes counseling, to make the transition go well.
To integrate a pair of sometimes vastly different family cultures into a new one that not only survives, but thrives, can be a formidable task. But one whose rewards are well worth the effort!
Hashem instilled in us a drive to build families and to build ourselves as people. These drives help us reach our other, much more admirable goal, of achieving something meaningful during our lifetimes. I once watched a clip in which a gentile woman proudly boasted about how she never wants to be tied down by motherhood. Children, for her, are a massive inconvenience and nothing more. When it comes to the choice between being comfortable and achieving something truly noteworthy, she’s opting for comfort.
We make the other choice. We know that creating a harmonious marriage and raising a new generation to light up the world in Hashem’s service are aims that deserve to be fiercely pursued. We’re willing to put up with the difficulties, because the prize is well worth the game.
Moreover, it’s those very bumpings and scrapings that help us grow beyond the limitations of our former boundaries, so that we can create the brand-new sovereign country known as “our family.” I learn something from you, and you learn something from me. The new family culture will include some things from each of our former family cultures. But it also grows and evolves, to become unique in its own right. Each individual personality, each interaction, each setting of priorities, will impact this new culture. And each and every member of the family will have his or her part in creating it.
Until, one day, a “stranger” comes along and chooses one member with whom to build yet another beautiful new family culture … and so on, until the end of time!
