Love, part II

If we look at the portrayal of the avos, both in their relationships with Hashem and with their families, I believe you find three distinct models for loving relationships.

Avraham is noted by Chazal for being a baal chessed, for being generous, giving. As we saw in part I, this is in imitation of G-d. The purpose of creation (to the extent that we can know the mind of G-d) is to provide Hashem a recipient to whom to give. I would like to suggest that for Avraham, love was not primarily expressed by giving to the beloved, but by giving of oneself to further the beloved's goals. This is also how Chazal portray the relationship between Avraham and Sarah. "'And the soul[s] which they made in Charan' -- he brought the men close [to G-d], she brought the women." A couple sharing a common dream. This kind of love is described in words Antoine Saint-Expaury places in the mouth of "The Little Prince", "Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

However, the word ahavah only appears once in the naarative of Avraham's life. "Take your son, your only one, asher ahavta, whom you love, Yitzchaq" to the aqeidah. The word itself first appears in a relationship to Yitzchaq. And in fact, when we get to Yitzchaq the word appears often. When he takes Rivqah into his home, "... and he took Rivkah, and she was for him a wife, vaye'ehaveha, and he loved her..." In their relationship to their sons, "Vaye'ehav Yitzchaq, and Yitchaq loved Eisav, for he hunted with his mouth, veRivqa oheves, and Rivqah loves Yaaqov." (BTW, note the change in tense: Yitzchaq loved Eisav, but Rivqah loves Yaaqov.) At giving the berakhah, Yitzchaq asks Eisav to bring him sweets "ka'asher ahavti, the way I love", and Rivqah tells Yaaqov that she will make Yitzchaq those sweets "ka'asher aheiv, the way he loves."

Yitzchaq's love was more straightforward. It was giving to the beloved. That's why it warrants explicit use of the term ahavah rather than letting it remain implied. Avimelekh knew that Yitzchaq and Rivqah were spouses when he saw him "metzacheiq es Rivqah ishto", making her laugh or perhaps otherwise acting intimately. (Not sexually, as this was in public.) The word-playused in the Torah, "Yitzchaq" and the more rare usage of "metzacheiq", gives us a sense that this behavior is inherent to what it is to be a Yitzchaq.

When Rivqah arrived at Avraham's home, Yitzchaq was returning from prayer. He went "lasu'ach basadeh, to talk in the field". The word "lasu'ach" is not the usual one for prayer. The mishnah uses the root to caution us "Al tarbeh sichah im ha'ishah, don't overly engage in sichah with women." Sichah has a connotation of flirting; Yitzchaq's prayer was one of flirting with G-d.

When we get to Yaaqov, we find a synthesis of the two. Yaaqov's avodas Yashem is identified with "titen emes leYaaqov, give truth to Yaaqov", "veYaaqov ish tam yosheiv ohalim, and Yaaqov was a pure/whole man, who dwelled in tents" and chazal add: in tents of study. Yaaqov worshipped G-d by studying what was known so far of His Torah, by trying to understand him. This love through understanding the other is also what we find at the end of his life, when Yaaqov blesses each son according to that son's personal strengths and weaknesses. This focus on the essence of the individual might be how Yaaqov succeeded keeping all of his sons within the proto-Jewish fold, while Avraham and Yitzchaq only were able to succeed with one of their sons.

Yaaqov's love is unconditional. It's getting beyond the beloved's behavior to the essence of the beloved underneath. Loving someone just for who they are. This directly bores through the barrier between "me" and "him" (again, see part I), even that of the barrier the beloved himself put up. You therefore naturally give to the other the way you provide for yourself. And, by knowing what the person truly stands for and aspires to, perhaps better than the beloved does himself, you share in their dreams and work together toward them.