A Jewish Folk Tale

This Jewish folk tale demonstrates the confusion associated with the simple statement "I Love You," while illustrating how difficult it can be to get the word "Love" right:

Once upon a time, an angler pulls a large pike out of the water.  "Look at the size of this fish!  I"ll take it to the Baron.  He loves pike."

Hearing these words, the poor fish says to himself, "There's hope for me yet."

When the fisherman presents himself at the gate of the manor house, the guard inquires:  "What do you have?"  

 "A pike for the Baron."

"Great," replies the guard.  " The Baron loves pike."

Once  the fish hears the words, and while he can hardly breath as he is brought into the palace, he still finds hope: the Baron loves pike.

As he is brought into the kitchen, all the cooks get excited as they look at the fish, nodding to one another how much the Baron loves pike.  The fish is then placed on the table, and the Baron himself enters and examines the fish.  "Cut off the tail, cut off the head and slit it this way."

With his last breath, the fish cries out in great despair, "Why did you lie?  You don't love pike, you love yourself!"

The poor fish is as confused as we are about the different meaning of the same verb.  Love is the most complex word in the english language.  The most misused and abused word ever stated and by now the most unloved word we use.  More has been written about love than any other word.  The dumbest words ever written about love:  "Love means never having to say you,re sorry" (Love Story by Erich Segal)

"Love" is a hard word to get right.  The true character of love is self-giving, the emptying and expending of oneself for the well being of others.  True love lays down the draw bridge of the self so that others can cross over into this kind of love.  You don't find love by looking for it you find love by laying it down and letting it go.

It has been said that "Agape" love (the Greek word for God's love) doesn't expect anything in return.  I disagree.  There is no such thing as one-way love.  Also there is no such thing as self-less love.  All love is relational.  The notion that we can give love without receiving love violates the Biblical understanding, where, "Love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 Jn 4:7-8).  For us to experience love , we must receive the love offered to us.  "God love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 Jn 4:9-10).  It all starts with God and not us.

We can't reciprocate God-love; we can only respond to God-love.  To love as God loves, the love of forgiveness, grace, hope and sacrificial giving, is not possible without God's power.  

One last thought, one of the most incredible verses in the Bible can be easily overlooked: "Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her" (Gen. 29:20).  Upon reading it again you find that it does not say, "and those seven years were as seven life times."  It says those seven years of unrequited love were as seven days.  For Jacob, the love itself and not the quest of the object of his love was the satisfaction.  

"To love at all is to be vulnerable.  

Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, 

you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal".   

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

PS  I think this might become a series of articles.  

The Synergy of Two

"YOU"  A New Intimacy.

Christianity is a religion of the "I", but it quickly becomes the relationship of the you.  In fact, Christianity is best described as a first-person faith that puts the second person first.  Especially the last person.  In the Shema (Deu. 6:4-9)  "...Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength.  The first part is addressed to the individual (heart) and the second part is in the plural and is addressed to the Hebrew people as a whole (Deu. 11:13-21).  This is the beginning of Jesus answer to the question as to which of the commandments was the greatest.  In Jesus own words "Love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself".  You must first Love as a singular person and then love in a plural sense, your community or neighbor.  In fact God told Adam in Genesis that it was not good for him to be alone, so he created Eve for him.  It has been said for many years that when "God put Adam to sleep and took Eve out of his side and when Adam woke up he found out he was married." That has been happening ever since to us men, one day we wake up and figure out we are married.  

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis in an interview with USA today stated,  "You can have everything under the tree that you ever wanted.  and if you're sitting there alone, you are the saddest, loneliest human being on the planet, and there is absolutely nothing that money can buy that will fill your soul."

None of us can go at it alone in today's world. The price for trying that is being left alone. It has been said that "New York was once a city where one could weep on the sidewalk in perfect privacy."

It's interesting how individualization works here in the West.  When every individual is born, you get some kind of document that proves you were born on such-and-such a date in such-and-such a place. This is called a birth certificate and is used to get a passport, drivers license and other such important documents that prove we are who we say we are.  In the East, when parents give birth to a child, that child's name is added onto the family of record.  While in the West, every child enters life legally defined as a separate entity.  In the East, every child enters life legally defined by the network of relationships into which one is born.  In some African cultures, a child does not achieve "moral" standing until he or she is "presented" to the community.  Until an infant is introduced into relationships with others, he or she has no "moral arrival,"  only a "biological arrival".  The African people have introduced us to probably the most important global spiritual truth, the Ubuntu principle of "I am because we are."  

One of the greatest spiritual heresies of our day is the notion that we are separate from one another - that I can function in this world without you, that I can cry "in perfect privacy."  The well known "Lords Prayer" begins with "Our Father."  The disciples never approached Jesus for a personal prayer, but a prayer that would teach "us" to pray.  They asked for the good of their brothers and sisters.  It has been said that in the Lord's Prayer the "I" is silent.

The Talmudic reading of the "rib" from which Eve was made is the word "face".   Adam had two faces.  The "I"(singular) becomes truly itself only in communion, in the "YOU" (community).   In the community, we see something  that reminds us of intimacy, and connection.  In human life as well as divine life, two is really one, and one is really two.  Love needs two.  When love is only one, there is something missing and homesickness happens.  God's original intent for Adam and Eve was that, "they become one" but it takes two to do that.  We are in need of each other and were not created to go it alone.  We need each other.

I need to stop writing and go hug my wife, I'll talk to you later.

Bob