Love, Actually
Moving Ideals from Head and Heart to Hands
It was the Summer of '69. The weather was balmy, and the karma felt groovy. Summer and Brook had crossed paths at a festival and were setting out on their first formal date. But something was weighing heavily on Brooks' usually untroubled mind. Summer could sense it. "What's wrong, Brook?" She demanded. Brook sighed, his eyes welled with tears. Summer, do you love me? He hesitantly inquired. "Of course I do", Summer eagerly replied, "I love everyone!"
This tongue-in-cheek tale conveys effectively, if rather crassly, that under the right circumstances, even the most high-minded ideals can become meaningless. Love is a powerful concept. The Beatles even went so far as to proclaim it's 'all that you need' (Though I'm not advocating taking John or Paul's advice too seriously). Summer insists she loves Brook. That's great. But we are forced to ask what her love actually means. Given that her devotion extends to everyone, there's something about it that feels amorphous, detached, unreal.
At times, it almost seems like we're in a hippie-style relationship with God. I find it relatively easy to express affection for the Creator. My life has been blessed. And I have an ever-growing collection of things to be thankful for. Brilliant. Yet I can't help worrying that I'm acting just like Summer. Am I achieving anything with my love? Does it have enough substance?
Perhaps we should be galvanised by the fact that both love and fear of God are codified as commandments. In his celebrated work, the Mishna Torah, the Rambam writes as follows:
It is a mitzvah to love and fear this glorious and awesome God, as [Devarim 6:5] states: "And you shall love God, your Lord" and, as [Devari 6:13] states: "Fear God, your Lord."
As such, one could argue that the mere act of starry-eyed infatuation with the Almighty should be taken seriously. Pop a few soulful psychedelics, and you are essentially there. Hold up, though. Don't pencil in your shamanic consultation just yet. The Baal HaTanya quotes a Zohar describing love and fear as wings that elevate our positive deeds to a higher plane. Cryptic right? Turns out most sayings of the Zohar are.1 The Tanya explains that while passion and emotions animate our engagement with God's commands, they do not constitute the essence of the commandments. In other words, what matters most is the act itself.
So it is in this sense that love and fear function like a bird's wings. One couldn't overstate the pivotal role wings play in feathered flight. And yet birds can still manage to get by without them. Consider those poor parakeets we've all seen hopping around pet stores, their wings clipped to prevent future aeronautical endeavours. Life must be miserable, but they're still around and kicking. Similarly, any mitzvah that is stripped of its passion is degraded, impaired, and even pitiful. Nonetheless, it remains a mitzvah.
This exposition, however, leaves us in a bit of a bind. We've gone ahead and assigned emotional drivers with a supporting role to the mitzvahs. So if God's commandments are like Batman, the suitable motivations are like Robin. There's a catch, though. We've been ignoring the fact that the Rambam designates fear and love as commandments in their own right! How can these two states of being be considered auxiliary and central at the same time?
To answer this question, we need to refine our understanding of what serving God with love entails. Rabbi Dr Abraham Twerski consistently returned to the idea that our society construes love as self-gratification. When people say 'I love you', what they really mean is 'I enjoy how you make me feel'. In other words, the fondness they express for another person is similar to the enthusiasm they might exhibit for cake or skiing. I love those things because of what they do for me.
But adoring confectionary goods for their deliciousness doesn't exactly imply you're helping them. After all, if cakes could talk, they'd probably tell us they don't want to be gobbled up and ingested. Forget about homemade; they'd want to be long life. The truth is, though we like to pretend otherwise, that warm fuzzy sentiment inside doesn't mean we are helping others. Take, for instance, Augustus Gloop. He had an insatiable craving for chocolate. Yet he was utterly unprepared to administer Willy Wonka's future finances. 2
Even after moving beyond this crude manifestation of love, there is still a hill to climb. With modernity came high ideals. States are now geared toward securing freedoms and promoting human dignity. The national government now sees protecting rights and alleviating poverty as core responsibilities. Wealthier economies will even donate aid towards establishing less-developed regions. Such change was unimaginable in past centuries. These developments, however, come with their own set of costs.
Rav Shimshon Pincus astutely observes that the ease and efficiency with which we can now give, erodes character development. Vast sums of charity can be donated with the swipe of a finger. This has incredible benefits. The problem is we have also lost the challenge of really offering of ourselves. As a result, we sacrifice the character refinement that comes from encountering need up close. When "giving" becomes detached from our immediate experience, from investing our sweat and blood in another's plight, are we actually doing as much? What does our love really mean?
My intention here is not to pass judgment on whether our detached but efficient approaches are inherently better or worse than the messier but more hands-on style of old. The point I am trying to tease out is that the less involved we personally are in actively performing a deed, the more abstract or unreal their accompanying passions become. And this understanding goes some way to making sense of our earlier inquiry.
We asked how love and fear can simultaneously be mitzvahs themselves and also merely the 'wings' or drivers of mitzvahs. The answer is that fear and love lacking expression through action are not considered genuine fear and love. If we don't direct our feelings for God into action, they remain unrealised potential. How deep can they go if they're not embodied in tangible acts of service?
I am someone who finds words and ideas easy. Action, though, now that's something I struggle with. I love ruminating, reading and mulling things through to the death. But when it comes to getting something done, I'm probably the last person to ask. Yet without deeds, words are cheap. Actions are what give ideas their force and weight. Actions without passion are severely hampered. But emotions that never lead to movement don't even begin to exist. Between self and other, thought and deed, whether for God or humanity, let's go beyond what words alone can convey.
Keep Pondering, and Have A Wonderful Week!
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For the record, I haven’t actually read that much Zohar.
Great stuff Yaacov!!! I can relate to this ;) and I also find myself struggling with this. Changing soon to action though, going to Israel to volunteer. Thank you for this and yes, am Israel chai!!!!
What an interesting piece! Thank you! Am Y'Israel Chai!