It is Only with the Heart that One Sees Rightly

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Use your head to narrow down the possibilities, use your heart to recognize your one and only. The Torah recognizes the schism between the logic of the brain and wisdom of the heart which is deemed preeminent.

To illustrate the wisdom of the heart, let’s get to the heart of the matter. Let’s talk in the language of the heart. From the bottom of my heart, I would like to offer some heartfelt advice. In my heart of hearts, I believe that if your heart goes out to somebody, your heart is in the right place, you will love with all your heart to your heart’s content; a love which will warm the cockles of your heart. Don’t go to a date half-heartedly, but whole heartedly. Don’t be quick to have a change of heart. Your heart knows the truth and deeply understands. Talk from your heart. On dates have heart-to-heart talks. Have a heart. Never ever break someone’s heart. With a heart of gold, you will find your heart’s desire. There is the right one at the right time. Follow your heart. When you meet your one and only, your other half, trust your heart. Only your heart can recognize your soul mate. Only your heart compels you to become one with your other half to become whole. Once you find your better half, you can’t live without them. Only your heart can love. Love is the heart’s blood and as long as your heart beats, love makes life worth living. Take this to heart and you will not find love, love will find you.

When you fall in love, you get to experience the magic — a crazy, euphoric ecstasy, a place you can only hope to live in for the rest of your life, because this enchanted moment is ephemeral. When you fall in love, without the critical verdicts of your Judge, you view your beloved as the greatest, most amazing creature that ever graced this planet. Your love grew as your beloved basked in your admiration. When you fall in love, you are crazy about each other and you feel that indubitably your destinies are irrevocably intertwined.

If you are a religious Jew, loving your wife is not a choice, but a religious obligation. A man is obligated to intensely love his wife. (Pela Yoetz) If you are a religious Jew, respecting your wife is not a choice, but a religious obligation. A husband has a religious obligation to love his wife no less than he loves himself, and to respect her more than he respects himself. How? By “positive illusions” which generate “positive emotions” including the feelings of love, hope, joy, forgiveness, compassion, trust, gratitude, and awe. Long-term love hinges upon mutual admiration.

People in love see only the good in each other. Yonasan Eibishitz, as a boy, when asked why Hashem created crooked thinking, answered so that we can judge each other favorably. While Torah Jews characteristically lead their lives using the razor-sharp logic they use when learning Torah or deciding every nuance of Jewish law, they have a Torah obligation to distort reality to sustain “positive illusions” in order to maintain a Jew’s love for a fellow Jew. Love is not just blind, but insane. From a Jewish perspective, loving your wife means you are crazy about her.

Actually, from the Torah perspective, recognizing that ultimately it is Hashem that modulates the relationship throughout life, love is neither blind, insane nor stupid, but is driven by a higher wisdom, the wisdom of the heart.

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