“The human is the inclusion of male and female, and the world cannot be built, if male and female are not both present” (The Book of Zohar).
International Women’s Day is upon us again, and this year’s keyword is “balance” – the idea is to drive gender-balance across the world.
The aspiration behind wanting to create balance is good and correct. It comes from a genuine desire to find wholeness, completion and perfection in the interaction between the men and women of the world. But what is gender-balance? How do we determine where the balance is? If we look for it through our own eyes – whether as a man or woman – we’ll only see things partially and incorrectly.
When it comes to balance, we need to see things from nature’s point of view.
There are two opposite forces working throughout all of nature and they manifest through various forces, actions and beings: plus and minus, protons and electrons, heat and cold, ebb and flow, inhaling and exhaling. Or in our case – male and female.
If we try to eliminate or disregard the differences between any instances of nature’s two opposite forces, then we’re attempting to meddle with nature. Trying to turn a plus into a minus will ultimately cause trouble, even when we can’t see it in the short run.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, men and women can only complete each other when the purpose of their relationship is to discover the deeper force of nature that binds them together. As it is written, “man, woman, and the divine presence between them.”
The deeper binding force of nature is one. It is not masculine or feminine, not a plus or a minus. It’s the only true oneness there is. Men and women need each other to rise slightly above the human ego, and discover that force together. To do so, they each need to activate their unique attributes and complete each other. So instead of focusing on how men or women can rise separately, we need to be thinking of rising together.
It’s no coincidence that the drive to find new balance between the genders has become so prominent in our time. Humans are evolving to find a higher experience of life, and this is why we have a yearning for a greater sense of wholeness. But harmony can only emerge when opposite forces complement each other.
The difference between male and female is not a “gender difference.” It is an infinite gap that stems from the very nature of creation. We don’t need to be the same. We need to stay different, and learn how to complete each other.
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