The Limits of Love
Love is powerful. Love is passionate. It allows strangers to overcome great distances, both physical and spiritual, it allows them to come together. It fuels the overcoming of great obstacles in the path of two distinct beings who want to become one. It is the glue that binds families, friends and all relationships. It is the force that brings a person to oneness with G-d.
Love is the focus of the first paragraph of the most important prayer in Judaism, the Shema, taken from the words of Moses to the Jewish people in the book of Deuteronomy[1]: “And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might”.
Western culture and society preach love. They told us that a relationship can endure exclusively on love. They told us that ideally we should be in love every moment of our life. They told us to follow our hearts and fall in love.
And yet, they did not tell us the entire story.
They failed to mention that love is a torch of fire. Like fire, it keeps jumping, first up then down, never staying in one position. They failed to teach us that love's fiery passion, the force that overcomes great distance to bring people together, will have ups and downs just like a torch of fire. They failed to tell us that anybody who tells us that we can constantly experience a fiery love is lying to us.
They failed to tell us that in order to have a healthy relationship we must experience not only the love described in the Shema but also the fear-awe-respect described by Moses in this week's portion[2]: “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, demand of you? Only to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to worship the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul”.
To have a balanced relationship one needs to experience love as well as awe.
Say we love our job. If we were to go to work only on the days we feel the burning love, we would be fired. For it is impossible to feel the love constantly. So what do we do when we don't feel the love? We go to work because we respect. We respect the needs of others. We respect that there are people counting on us, and the question of whether our heart is in the mood is beside the point.
Love is about me. My heart loves what makes me feel good. “All love returns to the lover”, means that the lover loves because the subject of his love is desirable to him.
For a relationship to survive there must be respect. Respect means that we are not focused on “what’s in it for me?”, but rather, we respect that there is another person with a differing point of view. While love is about the self, awe is about respect for the other.
This, parenthetically, is why the Hebrew word for awe - Yirah - is comprised of the same Hebrew letters as the Hebrew word for seeing - Reiyah. Love’s center of gravity is internal; I look to my heart to see what it wants. On the other hand, awe, the ability to acknowledge and respect the other’s existence, personality and point of view, is predicated on the ability to see outside of one’s frame of reference and relate to the perspective of the other.
G-d created the world with opposite forces, the force of expression and the force of restraint. The world was created by the expression of Divine energy, yet the divine energy is concealed within creation. These two forces are reflected in humanity. To connect is to express your love, express the fire burning in your heart. When the fire subsides, and it absolutely will, it is time to show respect. Hold back from expressing your own love, it is time to listen and feel the perspective of the other. Understand that your beloved is a distinct person entitled to their own personality and space.
And then, when your heart feels that you respect the boundaries of your beloved, when it senses that there are two distinct beings that respect each other despite not being in love at this moment, only then, the fire hidden in the soul will do what it was designed to do. It will surge into a flame of passion.
Moses is teaching us that, like any relationship, our relationship with G-d can only be supported by the two pillars of love and awe, of passion and respect.
[1] Deuteronomy 6:5.
[2] Deuteronomy 10:12.