לע"נ מרת אסתר בת שמואל
Continuing a train of thought ...... [Now is "Bein Hazmanim" so I have time to do so. To be honest - I am a "kofer". I don't believe in Bein Hazmanim. Why stop the zman? Torah is so sweet. Plus, I live in the "Judean hills" and from the window of my study I see beautiful, holy G-dly mountains. So it is like I am in the Catskills - just with Kedushas Eretz Yisrael. It's like Bein Hazmanim here all year round. When I was 19 and didn't yet fully appreciate the light of Torah I enjoyed vacation time. But a Yid turns 20 and he realizes where the true pleasure is at. טעמו וראו כי טוב השם].
Quite recently there was an well publicized episode in a major Charedi metropolis. A serious, shtark chasidishe avreich, ben aliyah, left his wife a plastic bag one day with a note inside. The bag was filled with his peyos and beard and the note said "I fell in love with another woman".
That was it.
I don't know what happened since then and I certainly don't follow these stories, but I will say this.
I am in favor of love. הכל בחביבותא תליא the Zohar Hakadosh writes - it is alllll about love. One should be mamesh infatuated with his wife. He should love his children. He should be head over heels in love with the Ribbono Shel Olam. Rav Kook writes in Middos Ha-ri-iyah that האדם צריך להתמלאות באהבה לכל - A person must be filled with love for all.
In a moving passage elsewhere the Rav writes as follows:
אני אוהב את הכל.
איני יכול שלא לאהוב את כל הבריות,
את כל העמים.
רוצה אני בכל מעמקי לב בתפארת הכל,
בתקנת הכל.
אהבתי לישראל היא יותר נלהבה, יותר עמוקה,
אבל החפץ הפנימי מתפשט הוא בעזוז אהבתו על הכל ממש.
אין לי כל צורך לכוף את רגש אהבה זה,
הוא נובע ישר מעומק הקודש של החכמה של הנשמה האלוקית
איני יכול שלא לאהוב את כל הבריות,
את כל העמים.
רוצה אני בכל מעמקי לב בתפארת הכל,
בתקנת הכל.
אהבתי לישראל היא יותר נלהבה, יותר עמוקה,
אבל החפץ הפנימי מתפשט הוא בעזוז אהבתו על הכל ממש.
אין לי כל צורך לכוף את רגש אהבה זה,
הוא נובע ישר מעומק הקודש של החכמה של הנשמה האלוקית
I love everything.
I can't NOT love everything.
All of the nations [even those Dominicans who live in the Heights....]
I desire with all the depths of my heart the glory of all.
The rectification of all.
My love for the Jews is more enthusiastic, deeper.
But my internal desire spreads with its powerful love to all.
I have no need to compel this feeling of love.
It emerges from the holy depths of the wisdom of the G-dly soul.
[Arpelei Tohar]
Oyyyyy, beloved friends. That we could only reach his lofty level. To love everyone from the depths of his soul. It wasn't just Rav Kook. So is the way of all tzadikim to be filled with love [although not all tzadikim would be Rav Kook's partner in his love for the nations]. The highest level of avodas Hashem is to serve with love. Love for Hashem. Love for all Jews. Love for Eretz Yisrael. Love. Not the Beatle's "high-on-LSD-lust-filled-animalistic-self-serving-love" but the real deal.
So we are love aficionados. Go for love!!!
BUT. Big but. NOT WHEN YOU HURT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.
This man who I mentioned earlier [and I don't know the details so I refer not to him specifically but use him as a paradigm] doesn't love his wife anymore and loves another woman. Who cares?? When he leaves his wife, he is hurting her terribly. What about the kids who lost a father?? The wife will [rightfully or wrongfully] probably try to stop him from having contact with them in order that he should not subvert them from the derech hatorah. Even if he does have contact, the kids don't have a father at home. They lost a father with whom they can share what is most meaningful to them - their religious practice and lifestyle. And it could well be that his wife will never marry again and be alone for the rest of her life.
Man is not an island. Our actions affect others. We can't just get up in the morning and do whatever we want to make ourselves [what we think will be] happy. We have to think how our actions will affect others.
A son or daughter has to think of his parents. A wife of her husband and a husband of his wife. We are also the memeber of a people with a long history. That can't be disregarded because a person has a תאוה. There was once a boy I mentored in yeshiva who recently left his wife for a non-Jewish woman. [I guess my mentoring wasn't very successful]. Where does this come from?
Excessive self love. He abandons his wife and children and am yisrael because he lusts after a goyishe woman. We believe that love emanates [as Rav Kook writes] from the depths of a person's soul. Believe me - his soul doesn't love her. She is a guaranteed ticket to a long and unpleasant stay in a place where the soul will suffer terribly. But he fell in love with her? Love shmove!
My point sweet friends is that morality dictates that we take other people into account when we make choices. Those who willingly choose to live in ways that deeply hurt others should not be "encouraged on their path of self discovery" as some would have it. Live and let live. That attitude is anathema to everything we believe in and quite repulsive. It gives license for a wild, unchecked existence of unbridled hedonism.
There was once a boy in yeshiva whose aunt was a divorcee and decided to marry a kohen. His [Orthodox] family was very supportive. Hey, they are in love. Ahhhh - but there is more to life than whom I chose to love at this moment [love is a choice]. There is a Higher authority. There is a system. We are members of a nation where all of our actions affect other people.
That doesn't mean that every rebel and defector should be hung in effigy. It does mean that people are resonsible for their choices and there is a moral imperative for people to try to make the right choices and to never hurt another human being. If one stumbled [as we all do] then he apologizes profusely and moves on with added love for all.
This is a topic that requires much more discussion. The purpose, however, is not the "talk". The goal is that we should become better and more sensitive people.
