My friend Rabbi Dr. Sheldon Epstein said this at a sheva brochos. I'd like to post it here.
There are three instances in Tanach that relate the relationships of individual staffs, in Hebrew a "sheivet", to each other. The first is when Moshe and Aaron first come to Pharoah and tell him that Hashem the G-d of Yisroel wants His people to go out of Mitzrayim and serve G-d for three days. As part of their session with Pharoah, Aaron throws his staff down and it turns into a snake. The magicians of Mitzrayim do the same and their staffs also turn into snakes. The Torah then relates that Aaron's staff swallowed up the magicians' staffs.
The second occurance is after the revolt and downfall of Korach. Hashem tells Moshe to take Aaron's staff and a staff from each Tribe and to put them into the Mishkan overnight. Aaron's staff blooms and grows almonds. The other staffs remain plain wooden staffs. This proved to everybody that Aaron was the Holy Kohen Godol.
The third time is in Yechezkel 37 which is the Haftorah of Vayigash. Hashem sends a prophecy to Yechezkel and tells him to take two staffs and write on one Yehuda and Yisroel and on the second Efrayim and Yisroel. Yechezkel should bring the two staffs together and they will become united in his hand and be joined as one staff. This is to show that when Moshiach comes all of Bais Yisroel will again be united as one nation, not as two separate states of Yehuda and Yisroel.
Whenever Tanach relates various occurances with a common underlying theme we can learn a moral or musser haskel from this. When the story concerned Pharoah, one staff swallowed the others. Not a great situation. When the story concerned Korach, a moreid b'malchus, one staff bloomed while the others remained plain wood. Again not a great situation. The third time was to Yechezkel, a holy prophet and this time the two staffs were united, a good finale.
When two people are married, two separate staffs coming together to spend their lives together, three different situations can occur. One spouse can literally be so strong as to swallow the character of the other, not a good situation. One spouse can be so strong as to bloom and grow, leaving the other spouse in their wake. Again not a good situation. But if the two spouses, through the strength and holiness of the Torah, as symbolized by the holy prophet, unite and merge together and become one family unit, then this is a good situation and this is what Hashem says to Yechezkel, this is what I want you to accomplish. A union of two people who will thrive and grow al pi Torah and yiddishkeit.
