Ezer K'negdo

In the book of Genesis God declares, “It is not good for Man to be alone.  (The word “Man” refers to any human being.)   “I will create an ezer k’negdo for the Man.”

What is an ezer k’negdo?  The Hebrew word ezer means helper and the word k’negdo means someone opposite who can stand against you.  The Rabbis teach us this person will be a stranger, a deep intimate, a friendly antagonist, a lover who challenges you.  This is someone who gets in your face, to kiss you, to argue with you, to scream at you, to support you, to wrestle with you, to tell you when you are wrong and to forgive you again and again.

An ezer k’negdo can be a man or a woman. An ezer k’negdo tells you the truth whether you want to hear it or not.  And has your back whether you are right or wrong.  This person can be sweet, loving and caring.  She or he can be forgetful, aggravating, exasperating and annoying.  Sometimes they will have room in their heads to listen and care, sometimes not.  But the ezer k’negdo will not stop loving you.   The ezer k’negdo knows you the way others do not and cannot.  The ezer k’negdo gets you.

There’s a great quote from the film, Shall We Dance:

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean?  But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything.  The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day.  You’re saying, “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.  Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.”

I am lucky to have married my ezer k’negdo and I have tried to be precisely that for her.  Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, and sometimes I say, “I’m sorry.”

 I wish for you an ezer k’negdo who will keep you sane and honest.  When you have a day when no one seems to get you and you can’t even get yourself, she will be there to catch you before you fall.  And you will make room in your head and heart to listen to her.  You will listen to her talk about her happy good days.  And you will wipe away her tears on her sad or bad days, as you listen to her talk about her fears.

The Biblical Text is right:  It is not good for Man to be alone.”