For a Holy Love Valentine Year

The greatest sin that Greek philosophy inflicted upon all three Abrahamic religions was the erroneous idea that Allah-God does not need or desire our prayers or our moral activities because Aristotle taught a concept of God as a perfect “unmoved mover”. All of creation is dependent on God, but God is totally independent of everything. This means that God, like gravity, has no personal relationships with anyone or anything. The Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible and the Qur’an teach exactly the opposite.

The foundation of all three monotheistic religions is that personal relationships are the essence of human life with other humans; as well as Salah-prayer for the one God who created us all.

Naturally, it sounds totally self-centered to say that an individual person, who is one of eight billion humans on planet earth, is of concern to a Deity capable of creating a universe of billions of galaxies, each one containing hundreds of millions of stars, most with solar systems, with many of these planets providing a home for various forms of life.

Yet to me it sounds even more self-centered to say, that intelligent life developed only at one time and in one place in this fantastic universe. If you can believe that our universe is not simply the result of random chance, there is no reason not to believe that the Divine intelligence that created it, can also relate personally to every individual aspect of that Divine creation.

And this relationship is mutual and reciprocal. Of course, we all have questions about difficult aspects of each person’s relationship with God. Why do some have it easy and some have it hard? Why can’t we always understand the relationship better? There are no easy answers to these questions.

This is my advice. If you want to be married to a Goddess; worship your wife. For Jews a Shekinah wife is best. But for everybody: “Happy wife, happy life.”

My experience is that of one man and one woman. But any couple truly in love for decades can share this experience.

Some men feel they are blessed because the women they marry are gifts from God. I know I feel this way. Not all loving relationships are arranged in heaven; but if you are in one of them you should thank God. I do.

At first I thought it was just love that made our relationship so great. But as the years passed (we married in 1966) I realized more and more that my wife is a gift from God. Since I am a Rabbi, it is not surprising that I think about life in religious terms. I am also a teacher of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) so I often use Kabbalistic concepts to explore and understand one of the most profound of life’s personal experiences.

Although I always thank God for my wife, it is when we make love that I feel closest to her and to God. Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of the Hassidic movement, said (in Zava’at ha-Riva’sh), “Prayer is intercourse with the Shekinah” (the feminine presence of God).

I would add that intercourse with a God given Shekinah wife is a divine service because one is always aware of God’s presence and blessing. As Rabbi Akiba taught, “Husband and wife: if they are worthy, Shekeenah abides between them; if not, fire consumes them.” (Talmud: Sotah 17a)

For a Shekinah wife: “It is better to live outside the garden with Eve than inside it without her. Blessed be the One who brought us together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her soul! Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.” (Adapted from Mark Twain)

For Shekinah wives in India: “Woman is the Creator of the Universe. She is the very body of the Universe; Woman is the support of the three worlds, She is the very essence of our body.
There is no other happiness as that which woman can procure.
There is no other way than that which woman can open to us.
There never was, is, or will be a fortune like a woman: no kingdom, no pilgrimage site, no yoga, no prayer, no mystic formula, asceticism, or wealth.” (Shaktisangama-Tantra II.52)

For the Sakina wives of Islam the great Sufi Ibn-Arabi 1165-1240 wrote this famous poem “the religion of love”: “My heart has become capable of every form (of Love): a pasture for gazelles (Nature), and a convent for Christian monks (unnatural), a temple for idols and the (Muslim) pilgrim’s Ka’ba, the scrolls of the Torah and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: whatever path Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”

For Shekinah wives within the People of the Book: 10 Who can find a capable wife? Her value is far beyond that of pearls. Her husband trusts her from his heart, and she will always be a great asset to him.
 She works to bring him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

13 She procures a supply of wool and flax and works with willing hands. 14 She is like those merchant vessels,  bringing her food from far away. 15 It’s still dark when she rises to give food to her household and orders to the young women serving her.

16 She considers a field, then buys it, and from her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17  She gathers her strength around her and throws herself into her work. 18 She sees that her business affairs go well; her lamp stays lit at night. 19 She puts her hands to the staff with the flax; her fingers hold the spinning rod. 20  She reaches out to embrace the poor and opens her arms to the needy.

25  Clothed with strength and dignity, she laughs at the days to come.
26 When she opens her mouth, she speaks wisely; her tongue is a compassionate Torah. 28 Her children arise; they make her happy; her husband too, as he praises her: 29 “Many women have done wonderful things, but you surpass them all!”

30  Charm can deceive, beauty can vanish, but a woman in awe of Adonai should be praised. 31 Give her a share in what she produces; and her works will speak her praises at the city gates. (The Biblical Book of Proverbs 31:10-20..25-31)

So every committed relationship always involves both joy and sorrow; risk and reward, love and loss. This wisdom tale says it well: One day a young man stood in a town square proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole country. A large crowd gathered around him, and all admired his heart, for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. It truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen.

It was an ideal heart. As beautiful as a Greek stature of an ideal youth. The young man said that his perfect, beautiful heart, was due to his philosophy of following a path of self realization, reason, calmness and detachment.

Then a Rabbi named after Martin Buber, a great Jewish philosopher, who proclaimed that, “the purpose of all great religions and religious movements is to engender a life of elation and fervor which no (later negative) experience can dampen and stifle.” appeared at the front of the crowd and said, “Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”

The crowd and the young man looked at the Rabbi’s heart. It was beating strongly, but it was full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in; but they didn’t fit in quite right, and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared. How could Martin Buber say his heart was more beautiful than the heart of the ideal youth?

The young man looked at the older man’s heart and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine; my heart is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”
”Yes,” said Rabbi Buber, “yours is perfect looking; but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to people, and often they give me a piece of their heart, which fits into an empty place in my heart. But because the pieces are never exactly equal, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared.

“Sometimes I give pieces of my heart away, and the other person doesn’t return a piece of his or her heart to me. Those are the empty gouges… giving love is taking a chance. And then there are places where my heart is broken, reminding me of the love I have had, and lost. I say Kaddish then to praise God for the pains of living a life of loving and caring; for it is better to love and lose than never to love at all.”

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the older man, reached into his perfect, young and beautiful heart and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands.

The Rabbi took the young man’s offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from Rabbi Buber’s heart now flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.