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176 | A New Light 6 Chapter Five:
The advice for a woman is that she learn The Wisest of Women,
in which I address in a fundamental manner all of the issues that a
woman needs to work on: faith, joy, modesty, peace in the home,
patience with the children, rectifying speech, rectifying the desire
for food, and so on. These are the most important issues for a
woman to repair. Every woman must have a set structure of work
in which she deals with all of her traits and cravings. She must
devote at least half an hour to her self-rectification. Every day, in
the course of an hour she should devote half an hour to the work of
the will on one of the subjects discussed in The Wisest of Women.
The first item for a woman to work on is the rectification of the
mouth. As our sages said, “Ten kab of speech descended into the
world, of which women took nine” (Kiddushin 49b). The rectification
of the mouth involves both speech and eating. As Rabbi Nachman
emphatically states: “If a person is immersed in the craving for
eating, that is a sign that he is a liar. Even if a man is righteous and
no longer has that craving, he may fall from his level and descend
to the craving for eating if falsehood has come out of his mouth”
(Likutei Moharan I 47).
As a result of falsehood, a person is never satiated. And
falsehood refers to every word that is not in accordance with the
will of Hashem! That includes all forbidden speech, such as gossip,
defamation, slander, sycophancy, expletives, invective, profanity,
derogatory nicknames, insults, and of course falsehood in its simple
sense—and more. This includes not only forbidden words, but even
shouting and threatening. That is called “falsehood” because every
type of speech that hurts other people is not the will of Hashem,
and it is thus false.
When a woman blemishes her speech and pollutes her mouth, she
feels hungry. As a result, she gorges herself and grows overweight—
and that causes her great frustration. And it is known that the
feeling of hunger causes nervousness. Therefore, she is agitated and
short-tempered, and has frequent outbursts of anger. She has great
difficulty raising her children and her relationship with her husband
is precarious.
But when she rectifies her speech, guards her mouth perfectly,
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speaks respectfully and calmly—as the Ramban writes in his Epistle,
“Accustom yourself to always speak calmly”—she uses her speech
only to pray to Hashem and bless Him, to teach faith, to thank
Hashem, to appreciate people, to invigorate them, make them happy
and bless them. That shows that she has rectified her speech. Then
her mind sends her a signal of satiety. As Rabbi Nachman writes
in Sefer Hamidot (Emet 7): “Truth brings satiety.” She never feels
the desire to eat, but she only eats when she understands that she
needs to. A person should eat based on understanding, and not on
desire and appetite. When a person eats based on understanding,
he is in control. He prays before he eats, he recites the blessing over
the food with feeling, he only eats as much as he requires, and he
only eats healthy foods. Because the woman feels sated, she is calm.
As a result, she can easily relate pleasantly to her husband, to her
children, and to everyone around her.
A Person’s Purpose
Both men and women must set aside a significant amount of time
every day to work on acquiring the trait of faith. That is because
faith is the purpose of all creation, as I explain at length in my book,
In the Garden of Faith. Every living soul must work on advancing
in his faith. Everything that happens in every person’s life at every
moment is a test of faith and an opportunity to acquire faith. All
of a person’s imperfections come from a lack of faith. Therefore, a
person has a very holy obligation to engage in the work of the will
in order to acquire the trait of faith.
Since I am already on the topic of the trait of faith, I will quote
a passage that provides wonderful encouragement regarding the
great obligation to work on and acquire the trait of faith, by the
mashgiach, Rabbi Yechezkel Levinstein:
A person’s purpose is to recognize his Creator, to
renew this awareness in his heart at every moment, and
to attain new meaning in his faith—and not distract his
mind from this for even a moment. Faith is like air for the
body. At every moment we must inhale faith. Everything