“I love you because”

Senior readers may recall a song, penned in 1949, with the title “I Love You Because”. It became a minor hit in the 1960s and has since subsided into respectable obscurity. Its theme was that of the ranking of reasons for loving another person, culminating in an endorsement of unconditional love as the highest form (“I love you most of all because you’re you”).

There’s a fascinating anonymous mishnah in the fifth perek that addresses this very them. It reads thus:

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

Any love that is dependent on something—when that thing ceases, the love also ceases. But a love that is not dependent on anything never ceases. What is [an example of] a love that is dependent on something? The love of Amnon and Tamar.  And one that is not dependent on anything? The love of David and Jonathan (Avot 5:19).

There is an obvious problem for any modern reader who is familiar with the back stories of these relationships, both of which are found in the Tanach in the Books of Samuel. The comparison appears inappropriate in that, while David and Jonathan’s feelings towards one another were reciprocated, there was no loving relationship between Amnon and Tamar. We would describe Amnon’s feelings toward his half sister in terms of infatuation and a lust to possess her sexually, while there is no record of Tamar having any warm feelings towards Amnon at all.

Are there better examples of relationships that failed when the condition that underpinned them no longer prevailed? That of Shimshon and Delilah works no better than our case here, since again we have no indication that Delilah actually loved Shimshon or that Shimshon ceased to love Delilah. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) however hits the target in Megillat Esther, where he points out that Haman has lots of friends (ohavov, which also means ‘lovers’) when he is in the ascendant at 5:14. However at 6:13, once it becomes apparent that things are going against him, he still thinks of having such friends but they are not. Having seen the beginning of Haman’s downfall they are now chachamov, men who are wise to him.

Reverting to our mishnah, since no love was felt by Tamar towards Amnon, the only thing that could be described as “love” in their relationship was Amnon’s desire to possess her. But on what did that desire depend? Presumably on her unavailability to him, and once that unavailability had been forcibly removed, Tamar no longer appealed to him, The Alshich (Yarim Moshe) puts it another way: it was not her unavailability that drew Amnon to her but her innocence which, once lost, was irretrievable. Additionally, Amnon may have assumed that, once he possessed Tamar, her eyes would be opened and she would see him through fresh, admiring eyes. When this did not happen, he may have felt inadequate and humiliated himself. We shall never know.

Bartenura suggests that Amnon’s attraction was based on Tamar’s beauty, which indicates that the element on which the love was contingent can be subjective. Unless Tamar’s appearance altered radically as a result of the rape, we are given to understand that what changed was not her beauty but Amnon’s subjective assessment of it. Rabbi Eliezer Liepman puts it differently: what changed was Amnon’s self-induced delusion that his feeling towards her was one of love.

Does it actually matter whether we know the trigger that destroyed Amnon’s desire for Tamar, or whether it is what we might today call ‘love’ or not?  Perhaps not. For Rabbi Shlomo P. Toperoff (Lev Avot) we should focus on the message of the mishnah as a whole and not on the inexcusable behaviour of Amnon. He writes:

“The reader of the mishnah is struck by an obvious omission. The act of Amnon and Tamar is not characterised as shameful, nor is the friendship of David and Jonathan hailed as extraordinary. The mishnah neither castigates the one nor praises the other. The failure of the one and the success of the other rests on our approach to God and man. Do we love God? Do we love our fellow man? This is the burden of our mishnah”.

He continues at length by citing Devarim 6:5 (“You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”) and implying that this is the yardstick against which we humans should ideally measure our feelings towards one another. In this context he cites the love we owe to the stranger, the violent and even the criminal. It may be a tough challenge, but we should ask what is expected of us and what is needed by others in any relationship we may have with them.

I doubt that this is precisely the message that the author of our mishnah intended to convey, but it is a powerful one. The yardstick of our love for God is an uncomfortable one to measure ourselves against, since it is axiomatic that God is unchanging and represents the highest quality of truth and justice while we humans are, well, human—and we all know in our heart of hearts that there are times when it less easy for others to love us. Thoughts, anyone?

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What applies to love applies equally to hate -- and maybe also to fear

The mishnah at Avot 5:19 begins with the words:

Any love that depends on a specific thing, if that thing is lost, to too is that love; and if it doesn’t depend on anything, it is never lost.

In “Hate: Curable and Incurable”, Covenant and Conversation: Deuteronomy, Renewal of the Sinai Covenant, 2019) Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks opens the possibilities contained in these few words by arguing persuasively that this proposition does not apply to love alone. It also applies to hate. In doing so, it explains an apparent anomaly in the Torah’s commands. This anomaly relates to how the Children of Israel should view the Egyptians, who had enslaved, oppressed and exploited them for centuries, even attempting genocide, and the Amalekites, who attacked them just once in the desert. 

The Torah commands that we are not to hate the Egyptians (Deuteronomy 23:8). We are however obliged to maintain perpetual hostility against the Amalekites (Exodus 17:16), even though we suffered far more at the hands of the Egyptians. Why should this be? 

An explanation is offered that, while both the Egyptians and the Amalekites hated the Children of Israel, the Egyptians had some reason for doing so: they saw this strong and increasingly populous alien tribe within their borders as a threat to their security (Exodus 1:19-20).  This reason might have been irrational and unfounded, but it was genuinely held. Once this alien tribe had departed, the reason for the Egyptians’ hatred departed too and, with it, the hatred itself. The hatred of Amalek however had no cause. A hatred that has no cause is a hatred that has no end.

It is worth considering whether this argument can be applied not only to hatred but to another word that is regularly contrasted with love: fear. Prima facie, the answer is yes, or at least it should be. If there is a reason why a person is afraid of anything—be it a dog, the dark, an unwelcome event, or another person—it is possible to address the cause of that fear. But where a fear is not conditioned upon anything it all and is quite irrational, it may never be possible to eradicate it.