"If your wife is short, lean over and whisper" (Talmud, Bava Metzi'a 59). Rashi explains: "seek her advice". Although there can be many ways of understanding this, i wold like to offer the following:
Rabbi Nachman has a teaching in which he comments on the Kabbalistic concept that prayer is feminine, i.e., it is the practice of "opening up" to receive the Divine. Study, on the other hand, is masculine; i.e. we ponder a topic, and as soon as it makes some sense, we share it with others. Often the ideas are isolated from each other, and need further insight to "connect the dots". Rabbi Nachman compares the words of Torah to the male seed. It contains much, but means little on its own. Prayer is a womb. The womb on its own likewise means very little. But when it receives the seed, it shapes it, gives it length and breadth, until it becomes a human being. So, prayer is the place where Torah becomes meaningful and vital!
In my own life, I know more facts...book learning than my wife. Yet, it all seems disjointed. I "whisper" to her what I am thinking. She immediately puts it all together, giving my ideas shape, breadth and ... life, until something is born which I in no way could have anticipated. This is true in Torah, but also in all other areas.Men tend to think in a linear manner. Women, like prayer, like the womb, will turn things around and inside out, until it makes the kind of sense that enables us to really live.
We need more whispering.