Unconditional Love
Isn't all love conditional? Whom do we love unconditionally? Our kids. OK, but we love them because they're ours. And we're invested in them. And they're a reflection of us.
Is love blind? Does unconditional love mean being blind to someone's faults?
This week I found myself in the unenviable position of defending my child to someone. Except I didn't really believe my own defense. I believed my child was wrong. So why was I defending him/her??
The expression "mama bear" exists for a reason. We all have a visceral instinct to protect our young, even when they're no longer that young... and may even be taller than us. It doesn't matter, because the mama bear will come out in a rage, protecting these beings fiercely, blindly, totally.
Methinks this instinct sometimes serves us well - and sometimes not. But either way, it teaches us something. It teaches us that it's possible to love someone who is riddled with faults. Because aren't we all, somehow? Riddled with faults? Yet each and every one of us is worthy of love. At the very same time that we love our children unconditionally and would fight for them with our dying breath, we are utterly cognizant of their faults.
Maybe there's something here that can be imported. The book Ethics of the Fathers states that G-d loves us unconditionally, and has gone the extra "love mile" to let us know how much he loves us. So here's the paradigm for true unconditional love. Who if not for G-d Almighty Himself knows our flaws?? He sees all and knows all (yikes). Yet... he loves us, warts and all.
And maybe we already have this instinctively with our kids, but couldn't we perhaps apply a little more unconditional love to those we're not related to? Could we perhaps learn to love people despite their faults, and not let their faults and flaws define them, just as we don't let our children's faults and flaws define them (at least I hope not)?
So the next time you find yourself super irritated with someone, ask yourself where Mama Bear has gone. And if she's somehow gone into hibernation, try and wake her up. We need her!
Shabbat shalom!
Ruchi Koval
