“We wish we had died! We wish we had died!”
Cry out the people who personally experienced miraculous salvation.
“If only we had died in Egypt, or in the desert…”
They were afraid of potential war in Kanaan, but it still doesn’t seem logical.
They’d prefer to have certainly perished in Egypt or the desert, over the possibility of death OR the possibility of victory and freedom in the Promised Land?
How is it possible that an entire nation collectively lost its will to live?
Maybe this episode is offering an insight about the psychology of trauma and anxiety.
This cohort witnessed unprecedented Divine revelation after years of multigenerational oppression.
Trauma dysregulates emotion and distorts cognitive function.
These people had moved from stable misery to ostensibly unstable salvation.
In the desert, they needed to take the very notion of survival one day at a time.
They only had one day’s worth of sustenance and didn’t know from one day to the next when or whether they were moving. But that level of uncertainty and angst they were already living.
To go from already struggling with that, to even more fear or more unknown may have felt like more than they could bear.
I remember when I was young kid, our school would sometimes invite Holocaust survivors to come and speak to us. At one assembly, upon hearing particularly horrific descriptions of what the speaker endured, I remember being startled by my own thought:
“Wow- if I had been alive then, I think I’d have preferred to have been killed fast, rather than go through that torture and survive.”
I wasn’t a suicidal child, but the idea of a certain level of torture seemed like too high a price to pay. Victor Frankel discusses this at length in Man’s Search for Meaning.
Death isn’t palatable but it’s clear. Lack of clarity, and the possibility of protracted suffering can and often does snuff out a person’s will to live.
When great people in the Torah express their existential ambivalence, and it gets canonized, maybe that’s G-d’s way of acknowledging that this is a universal human struggle. The will to live is powered by a sense of purpose and often threatened by fear of suffering or the unknown.
When people say they wish they died, they generally mean that they’re in so much pain, or so afraid of possible pain, that they can’t imagine facing it. Cumulative angst like this can create a sense of futility and helplessness, which can weaken to the point of surrender. “I wish I could die” is desperation-speak for “I can’t do this. I don’t think I can endure this pain or fear. And I can’t envision an end to it, and so I’m crying out for the only escape I can imagine.”
An antidote for this is hope.
Individual, psychological, national, and spiritual.
Hope creates the belief in the possibility that either the pain will subside, or that there is some transcendent purpose, worthy of enduring and surviving it.
Have you ever wondered how often people engage in sexual activity?
Or how often is optimal for healthy, happily married couples to aim for?
(I purposely used the euphemism “be intimate” in the title because often, people who ask this question in the framework of “supposed to” are uncomfortable with the more direct language of “have sex.” They may prefer to say things like : “be together, do it, make love, have relations, etc.” Whatever works:)
Couples therapists get this question a lot, especially from people who feel like they didn't or don't have enough information in the area of sexuality education.
It’s a legitimate curiosity, but the answer may be unsatsifying.
Firstly: “supposed to” is not a great framework for healthy sex. It works better when the focus is on mutual pleasure, not obligation or comparison.
Second: Frequency is not something that is mandated. Not psychologically, not legally, not Biblically.
It’s determined by and customized to each couple.
There is a Medrash that describes this, and is quoted by Rashi in this week’s Torah portion (I’m writing this the week of VaYishlach, but you can read it any week:)
When Yaakov sent gifts of livestock to his brother Esav, the Torah lists in great detail, the numbers and species of all the animals in the caravan.
Why do we care how many he-goats and she-goats there were?
The answer offered is that the ratio of male to female animals was determined by how often they needed to mate, which was determined by how strenuously they worked. The Medrash extrapolates an analogy to human mating schedules. (The paradigm used by the Talmudic literature is phrased in terms of a husband’s requirement to be available for his wife, not the reverse, but sex should always be consensual both ways.)
The Medrash says that men of leisure might be available daily, laborers twice weekly, donkey drivers once a week, camel drivers ones a month, and sailors/ those who travel for work, every six months.
Of course these are just some examples but Rashi goes on to explain:
“From here we learn that this need is not equal to every person [or couple.]” It depends on the couple’s individual schedules, emotional, and physical limitations and needs.
I’ve heard many people say that they were initially under the impression that couples only have sex when they want to conceive a baby. They were genuinely shocked to learn otherwise. This is not so ludicrous, when you consider the fact that many young people are taught about sex only in the framework of “how babies are made” if that much. Of course, most couples have far more sexual activity than they do children or attempts to conceive them.
It’s a legitimate query to ask how often couples have sex, but there isn’t a one size fits all answer.
Naturally there are some broad, cultural averages, and data. The most commonly quoted one is approximately once a week, but the numbers range significantly, and fluctuate within each couple based on many variables, such as stages of life like pregnancies, having babies and young children, medical or situational factors, and other variables that often make it challenging or more feasible. So please do not use that average to shame yourself or your partner for wanting more or less than that!
The healthiest answer to "how often should a couple be intimate is “as often as works well for both of them at each stage and season of life.”
Desire discrepancies and changes in libido over time are normal, but if you're finding that yours or your partner's are feeling disruptive to your relationship, please take the time to have a loving, strategizing conversation about it with your spouse, read up on the subject, and if necessary reach out for help.
Check out my course!
A Religious Families Guide to Healthy Holy Sex Education: Sacred Not Secret
Elisheva Liss, LMFT is a psychotherapist in private practice. Her book, Find Your Horizon of Healthy Thinking, is available on Amazon.com. She can be reached for sessions or speaking engagements at speaktosomeone@gmail.com More of her content can be found at ElishevaLiss.com