Avos 5:16

בס׳ד

אבות ה:טז

Any love that depends upon desire - lose the desire and you’ll lose the love. But love free of desire will never be lost. What is an example of love dependent upon desire?  The love of Amnon and Tamar. And a love free of desire?  The love of David and Yonasan.

כָּל אַהֲבָה שֶׁהִיא תְלוּיָה בְדָבָר, בָּטֵל דָּבָר, בְּטֵלָה אַהֲבָה. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, אֵינָהּ בְּטֵלָה לְעוֹלָם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא אַהֲבָה הַתְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת אַמְנוֹן וְתָמָר. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת דָּוִד וִיהוֹנָתָן:

        This mishnah is a beautiful example of how the wisdom of the Sages can make use of and deepen insights of Gentile learning.  Since the time of the philosopher Plato, the tradition of Greek and Roman philosophy had made an important distinction between two sorts of love.  The first sort of love, eros, was the kind of love that sought to possess the beloved.  Our English word, “erotic”, comes from this and refers to love grounded in physical desire.  A second sort of love was called agape (pronounced ah-gah-pay).  This was a kind of love that was directed at the beloved with no regard for the lover’s own self-interest.  It was a love of the beloved for his or her own sake.  For the Greeks, eros had its place, but agape was the highest sort of love.

        The sages of the Mishnah made the same distinction between love born from physical desire and love that seeks only the well-being of the beloved.  The present teaching adds the key point that the former type of love is ultimately selfish.  In the mishnah’s terms, it is based upon a davar - an object of desire.  As soon as the beauty fades or the desire is satisfied, the love begins to crumble. Since you really love only a davar - your own pleasure - and not the other person, you will naturally move on to the next opportunity for self-gratification. But love grounded in concern for the beloved is not ultimately love of oneself. Therefore it survives our own selfish needs and provides the basis for a firm relationship.

        As the Tosfos Yom Tov points out, the specific examples offered in the mishnah of each type of love are to be taken as dugma b’alma, points of departure for further reflection.  They can be multiplied, as we shall do in a moment.  But they are excellent examples.

        The story of Amnon and Tamar is told in the second book of Shmuel, chapter 13.  It is a horrifying story set in Davis’s court.  David had two sons, Avshalom and Amnon, of different wives.  Tamar was Avshalom’s sister from the same mother, and Amnon’s half-sister.  As the story goes, Amnon had an overpowering sexual attraction to Tamar and devised a ploy to get her alone.  She resisted his advances, and he ultimately raped her.  Immediately, he felt nothing but contempt for her.  Publicly humiliating her, he threw her out of the palace.  In an ultimate act of revenge, Avshalom later conspired to have Amnon killed.  So Amnon’s selfish satisfaction of his desire led not only to the anguish of Tamar, but to the loss of his own life.  Self-love led to self-annihilation.  The ultimate lack of davar -nothingness!

        The mishnah’s example of a totally selfless love is the love story of Yonasan for David.  Yonasan was Shaul’s son.  Despite Shaul’s growing jealousy of David, Yonasan consistently defended David and protected him from Shaul’s attempts to have David murdered.  In describing the character of Yonasan’s love, the Torah uses a crucial phrase: “Yonasan’s soul was bound up with (niksherah) David’s, and Yonasan loved David as himself” (Shmuel 1, 18:1).  The same quality of love is described in the Torah to describe Yaakov’s love of his youngest son, Binyamin: nafsho keshurah binafsho, “one’s soul is bound up with the other’s” (Bereshis 44:30).  From this we learn that the highest type of love is that of parents for children, a selfless love that denies one’s own well-being for that of the other.

        Is this sort of love possible only for parents?  No, it is the stuff of friendships like those of Yonasan and David, as well as other sorts of relationships.  A beautiful example is Ruth’s love for her mother-in-law, Naomi - “Wherever you go, I shall go; Your people shall be my people; And your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16).  The love that bound these two women made Naomi attempt to spare Ruth the harsh realities of becoming a Jew, but Ruth’s love was so fierce it compelled her to identify herself totally with Naomi without regard for her own well-being.  Out of this love, of course, came the line of David, for Ruth became a Jew and married Boaz.  Here we learn that the model of selfless love stands at the foundation of our hopes for messianic redemption.

        This hope, of course, is based on our confidence in HaShem’s love for Israel: “It is not because you were the most numerous of the peoples that HaShem set his heart upon you and singled you out - indeed, you are the least significant of peoples.  But it is because HaShem loved you and kept the oath He had made to your ancestors that HaShem freed you with a mighty hand…” (Devarim 7:7-8). HaShem’s love was, and is, based on no-thing, no davar. Perhaps that is why He gave us His ultimate davar, his ultimate word - the Torah. That is why, in His own good time, He will send us the Root of Yishai and the ultimate descendant of Ruth and Boaz.

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