Welcome to the SIMHA Wellness Minute. Yesterday, we spoke about the concept of using our Da’at /to know, to become intimately involved with another person's needs and life in general. The source for this is the first time the term of knowledge (referring to man) appears in the Torah, when it says, in Bereshit, Man knew his wife, Chava, and she became pregnant and had a child.
Obviously, the word to know here is doesn't just mean intellectual knowledge, it's referring to an intimacy that brought about a child. So why is the the term Yada/to know used?
Rashi says in the pasuk (Bereshit perek י״ח pasuk י״ט ) referring to Avraham Avinu, where God says that Avraham's going to become a great nation and therefore He would tell him about Sedom, it says, כִּ֣י יְדַעְתִּ֗יו which simply means because I know, but Rashi says the words to know indicates a term of endearment, as it in Rut, Boaz was מודע לאישה Bias was a friend. So what exactly does that mean? Why does the term knowledge refer to love? Rashi says, “If someone is dear to you, you bring him close to you and you know him and you recognize him.”
Recognize him means you know him well. The Chatam Sofer (in Bereshit 38,25) actually connects these two examples, where God says, I love Avraham, and where Adam loves his wife, and the Emek Davar on the pasuk in Bereshit, (chapter four, pasuk one) says when a husband and wife that are together as two human beings, it’s not just a animalistic urge. It comes from a love, and that love is really about knowledge. That love is not just a love of animalistic desires like, he says, in the animal kingdom, but rather it's who the person is. This is a love for that person, because I know the person.
That's what real love is. Real love is when you really know the person.
When we say that parents love children, it means because who knows the child better than the parents; because they love him. If a husband loves a wife and a wife loves her husband, they know. There is the famous joke, where a man gets married and his friend says, “It's very important to know what your wife's favorite flower is.”
And he says, “I do know my wife's favorite, it’s Heckers flour!”
Haha, but the point is, yes, you have to know your wife's favorite flower, and you have to know if your wife wants to get flowers, and how she wants her birthday celebrated? Why do I have to know these things? Because that's what it means to love somebody. Loving somebody means you put your knowledge on them. Just like, if we love ourselves, we should know ourselves. If we love somebody else, we have to know that person. Now again, when we love ourselves and we know ourselves, that's not so simple. Yes, if I love my physical body, I know that I like to eat ice cream, and I know that chocolate is my favorite flavor (for example, it's not mine), but that doesn't mean I really know myself. The main love, says the Pele Yoetz, for a husband and wife, or the main love for yourself, is love for your soul. That's the real love. So if you love your soul, then you know your soul.
And that's why we don't necessarily love ourselves.
Whatever you love, you know, and it works backwards. How do I know I love my wife? Because I know my wife. How do I know what part of myself I love? It’s the part of myself that I know? Love and knowledge are intertwined. That's what it means to love somebody, to put your Da’at there, to make him close, to make him known. That's the first step of Hessed.
That's why the therapeutic approach needs empathy, and a lot of listening. Why do therapists just listen? They sit there and they just nod and say, Aha, aha…
What are they doing? They're getting to know you, because that's the first step to helping a person. You have to know the person.
And that is our work today- to understand that true love means you're putting your knowledge into the person, you want get to know the person and analyze and understand every little point. To know ourselves, and know other people, all starts from this Da’at.
Have a wonderful day.