“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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Does unconditional love even exist?

Can someone really, truly and honestly love another person unconditionally—with no ifs and buts, no fundamental assumptions, no essential ingredient that binds one’s affections? An anonymous mishnah in Avot says “yes”. At Avot 5: 19 we learn:

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 depends on something—when that thing ceases, the love also ceases. But a love that does not depend on anything never ceases. What is [an example of] a love that depends on something? The love of Amnon for Tamar. And one that does not depend on anything? The love of David and Jonathan.

Most commentators explain this mishnah simply enough. The Me’iri simply adds that a condition is a sibah, a cause, while R’ Chaim Volozhiner’s Ru’ach Chaim offers no comment at all. In general terms, though, Amnon’s love for Tamar is understood to be conditional upon his urge to possess her. Once he had done so, that condition had been fulfilled and, there being no further basis for it, this love turned to hatred. David and Jonathan however shared a love that did not depend on the fulfilment of any condition.

Maharam Shik challenges the very basis of this mishnah and asks: “Does not every love depend on something?” Even the love of David and Jonathan, he hypothesizes, is firmly pinned on their mutual recognition of the qualities found in the other: they were men of action and their behaviour was in keeping with principles of good conduct. Would their love have persisted, he asks, if it later transpired that either one of them turned out to be evil? Would that not automatically eliminate the basis of their love? It’s a good question.

Maharam Shik does not appear to answer this question. He does however question the validity of the concept of conditional love. He cites the Akedat Yitzchak (R’ Yitzchak Arama) as proposing that everything depends on the factor that motivates the way one acts. If a person’s actions can be attributed a cause or motivation other than love for another person, there is no love. Amnon’s apparent love for Tamar may have felt to him like love for her at the time he desired her, but what he really felt was love for his own desires. This he categorises as desire itself, and not real love. And if it is not love, then it cannot be conditional love either.  In other words, if a feeling is conditional on some external factor, it is disqualified from even being love.

Incidentally, the concept of unconditional love is not only discussed in the context of this mishnah. It is also relevant to one of the very first mishnayot in Avot where (at 1:3) Antigonus Ish Socho teaches that one should serve God like a servant who does so with no expectation of receiving anything in return. On this teaching Rabbenu Yonah observes:

“What is perfect love among people? The desire to serve a loved one only because he has always loved him, even if he knows he will receive nothing in return. It is with this sort of love that man should serve God” [translation by R’ David Sedley].

This might better be termed altruistic love and it is certainly of a high order. Members of Klal Yisrael, the Jewish people, are commanded to love one another just as they love themselves (Vayikra 19:18, וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ, “You shall love your fellow human as you love yourself”) and there is no express stipulation that this love can be made subject to conditions.

Bearing in mind Maharam Shik’s concern about whether unconditional love can exist at all, we can ask why we cite the example of David and Jonathan and not God’s love for His people. We are told that this love is eternal, as we remind ourselves every time we recite the berachah that immediately precedes recitation of the Shema. This love persists even when we disobey God’s instructions and even when He is angry with us and punishes us. But maybe the point our mishnah makes is this: God’s love is divine and we are incapable of comprehending it, never mind emulating it. Our mishnah was however given for mortals. It is in our nature to place conditions on all our relationships—some explicit and some being merely understood. We have to learn that, while we are fully capable of placing conditions on the love we have for others, and of declaring that love to be at an end if those conditions are broken, we should not do so. We should be magnanimous in our relationships and love others the way we would like them to love us.

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