Why Does the Scholar's Wife Receive Greater Reward?

A Jew struggling to find time in the study hall approaches his wife during the busy days before Passover and kindly offers to help clean the house. "If you really want to help me," says the wife who loves Torah, "go study..." After a short while, the man returns home. "Why are you back so quickly?!" the wife wonders, and her husband clasps his hands and says, "How much can I help you..."

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When King Solomon, the wisest of all men, sought to praise the beloved in Song of Songs (1:9), he penned a puzzling verse at first glance: "To my mare among Pharaoh's chariots I compare you, my darling."

And it is perplexing, did King Solomon not find a better metaphor for the beloved than to compare her to... a mare, and that of wicked Pharaoh? What is the meaning of this 'insulting' comparison?

However, King Solomon is praising his beloved: "To my mare among Pharaoh's chariots," to that mare among Pharaoh's chariots that perished because it aided its master - "I compare you, my darling," that if it received such punishment for aiding, all the more so will you receive great reward for helping and aiding me in Torah study.

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Indeed, not only does the wife of a Torah scholar receive reward like her husband, but in general, her reward is even greater, as the early Sages wrote and cited by Mahari Shapira (Parashat Behar), that if the wife of a scholar assists her husband in Torah, even if her husband studies not for its own sake, she does not lose out, and receives her portion perfectly as if he studies for its own sake.

This is echoed by the great Kabbalist RabbiSalman Mutzafi of blessed memory, that if the husband goes to study for an hour, for example, and during that hour a friend comes and chats with him for ten minutes, he loses the reward for Torah study during those ten minutes, but his wife receives the reward for a full hour of Torah study, as she sacrificed an hour of her own time, and is not responsible for her husband's interruption during those ten minutes.

Indeed, this is explained in the Talmud Berachot (17a): Greater is the promise that Hashem promised to women more than to men, as it says: "Complacent women, rise up, listen to my voice; daughters who feel secure, hear my speech" (Isaiah 32:9). Rav said to R. Chiyya, in what do women merit? By taking their children to study halls (children used to learn with their teacher in the synagogue. Rashi), and by allowing their husbands to study in yeshiva (study hall where Mishna and Talmud are studied. Rashi), and waiting for them (allowing their husbands to study Torah in another city. Rashi)

So if the husband truly wants to help his wife (and this time not as a joke...), he should go study...