Rebbetzin Esther Offengenden
The source of all love, even the lowest, is in the highest of worlds. Rabbi Aharon of Karlin
We have already discussed the paradoxes of love.
We long so much to be loved—yet we need to learn to love.
We long so much to love—and yet how many inner inhibitions and contradictions we have to overcome.
You imagine love to be carefree and ideal—but in life you encounter something quite different. Either it is not love, or we first need to agree on the terminology.
I love… my child.
I love… chocolate.
I love… my husband.
I love… the view of the mountains.
I love… helping.
And so on.
What do all the possible kinds of love have in common?
Everything we call love is, in essence, a bond. It is something or someone we accept. Something or someone we give ourselves to.
Why not say that love is pleasure? Isn't pleasure the main thing we expect from love?
This is the question Rabbi Dessler asks. He explains that seeing pleasure as the purpose of love is the same as seeing pleasure as the purpose of eating. The Almighty loves us and wants to make the important aspects of life pleasant. A person must eat, but what happens if someone begins to see food only as a source of pleasure? Either they eat a lot of food that tastes good but is unhealthy. Or, conversely, in pursuit of "lofty spirituality" or, more commonly in today's world, extreme thinness, they try to give up this "bad habit"—eating—entirely.
The consequences in both cases are obvious. A person harms themselves, perhaps even endangering their life. The Almighty created mechanisms that protect a person. One is hunger. There is also a mechanism that helps them—the pleasure they get from eating.
The same happens with love. Connection and closeness with other people are vital to us. A person is created according to the principle of a “jigsaw puzzle”—incomplete and imperfect on their own, without a partner. Since coming together is no easy task, the Almighty created pleasure as a mechanism that helps people form a couple.
to be continued