Abraham Twerski
What is love? Baby don’t hurt me no more but seriously though what is love? Along the week of last January I stumble upon a video about what is true love. No it’s not the song of Haddaway on 1992. Its Abraham Twerski he is a rabbi he talks about what is true love and selfish love he did this cleverly with a story about a young man and a wise person. The young man likes eating fish because he love fishes and the wise person said “Oh. You love the fish. That’s why you took it out of the water and killed it and boiled it
“Oh. He says, ‘Don’t tell me you love the fish. You love yourself, and because the fish tastes good to you; therefore, you took it out of the water and killed it and boiled it. So much of what is love is fish love. Young couple falls in love. Young man and young woman fall in love. What does that mean? That means that he saw in this woman someone who he felt could provide him with all of his physical and emotional needs, and she felt in this man somebody she feels that she can write, that was love, but each one is looking out for their own needs. It’s not love for the other. The other person becomes a vehicle for my gratification. “
“Too much of what is called love is fish love. An external love is not on what I’m going to get but I’m going to give. We had an ethicist rabbi Dessler, who said, ‘People make a serious mistake in thinking that you give to those whom you love, and the real answer is you love those to whom you give.’
Those were the words of Abraham Twerski. We often find these types of relationship in our circle of friends where someone is a vehicle for the gratification of their partner. The points he is trying to make is that we only love our self so in order to us to love someone unconditionally we have to invest our selves to someone. Now that part of me that I love my self is now in someone else, there is a part of me in some else that I love. True love is a love of giving, not a love of receiving.’
