Frank: Loving and being loved are the most important human emotions of life and a feeling that can enrich lives in countless ways. Uttering the words, “I love you,” are clearly the three most powerful words one can communicate to another person. Yet there are types of love that differ from one another. There is the instant love, the romantic and evolving love, the love of stranger and neighbor, and the love of oneself. Each of these originate and are expressed in dissimilar ways.
Instant love is the love, one feels the moment one holds a newborn baby for the first time and the feeling a newborn child feels for its mother and father. It could also be a grandchild that evokes that instant feeling of love. It is interesting that the first love mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 22 is parental love. “Then God said, take your son, your only son, whom you love - Isaac- and go to the region of Moriah.” Instant love is a feeling that translates into a world of action. Humans and animals alike will sacrifice their lives to save and protect the life of their child. It is a sacrifice that we make without thought or consideration. It is a pure act of instant true love.
While evolved love may have its origin with a growing friendship, it often begins with “chemistry” that we may confuse with a true and enduring love. Many call that lust. That lust then evolves into what some term an obsession which often takes over one’s entire life. One is consumed with intense feelings for another person and a desire to be with that person as much as possible and to have that person become an integral part of everyday life. As time moves on and with the proper person that obsessive feeling evolves into what scientists say is a long-term attachment. It is this long-term relation that we then call true and enduring love. This true love also involves the elements of respect, pride, and trust.
Mark, you have had to deal with all types of love in your profession as a Rabbi. How do you view the issue of love of the neighbor and the stranger?
Mark: Within the Hebrew Scriptures, in the central book of the Torah, and within the portion of Leviticus known as the Holiness Code, we reach the ultimate pursuit and challenge to all of humankind: To love your neighbor as you would love yourself. The words are easy to read, yet excruciatingly difficult, at times, to achieve.
To love you neighbor as yourself, means that we are commanded to love someone in our lives, despite their faults and failings, to be able to overlook their shortcomings and to try to ignore those things within them that infuriate or exasperate us. In short, we must be as forgiving of them as we are of our own selves. This is much easier said than done.
But what about the stranger in our midst, those who are different from us, those who look differently than us, or who speak a different language than us, who come from a different culture or faith or background than us? What of the foreign born or the immigrant to our shores?
On this the Bible and Jewish tradition are clear: We are commanded to love the stranger among us. As we read in the Book of Exodus: You shall not oppress a stranger nor wrong him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Ex 22:20) The commandment to love the stranger is the single most referenced instruction in the Torah. Tradition records that similar instructions regarding the treatment of the stranger occur no less than thirty-six times in the sacred text.
This tells us much about the need to extend both the definition of our love for others created in God’s image, as well as the inclusion and embrace of that love. The Exodus story, the journey from bondage to liberation, from slavery to freedom, is not meant for us to enjoy and cherish alone. We retell the story at Passover each year to remind ourselves to treat others — even those who are different from us — with compassion, empathy and love. We who have known the bitterness of being treated harshly because we were the outsiders, we have a sacred obligation to treat others better than we were once treated, because we know how difficult life can be for those excluded or ignored.
Frank, you mentioned the importance of the love of oneself. Can you expand on what you mean by that? It sounds like it could lead to idol worship, with oneself as the idol to be worshiped above and over God.
Frank: Mark, of all the different qualities and descriptions of love that we have discussed, the love of God seems the most difficult to explain and expound on. In my discussions with friends about their love of God, I received numerous answers, and I suppose that most of us have a variety of ways to describe how they come to the place of loving God. In that regard, I have my own way of describing my love of God.
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The God I believe in is within my human form, embedded in the DNA that God created, and this God helps direct me on a path of goodness and righteousness speaking to me through a Still, Small, Voice. Many religious leaders from different religions have explained that the path to a meaningful and spiritual life could only be possible if one genuinely loved God. It seems, therefore, that I had only to love myself and that act alone would put me on a path of true understanding, spirituality, and love of others. This love of myself and therefore also God, involves feelings of trust, respect, and pride. I have come to a point in my life where I feel that I have been a trusting and respectful person and that I can justify a feeling of pride in how I have conducted my life. Therefore, I feel love for myself with this love resting on the premise that I also love God. I do not believe this is narcissistic, rather it is the God within me that has created who I am. It was not me alone.
Rabbi Mark Schiftan can be reached at mschiftan@aol.com
Dr. Frank Boehm can be reached at frank.boehm@vumc.org
