This morning, as I was half asleep and half awake I realized something

 

Value – you see, another way to describe love is what you value

Of course, as our sages describe it, there are two kinds of values – there is the value of what you or something can do for me – this is described in Rabbi Shneur Zlaman’s magnum-opus the Tanya, as a body based love – in other words, my body receives pleasure from certain things – no better description (though somewhat crude but used by our sages themselves to describe body based love) is the desire for sex.

Then there is another love, it has nothing to do with what kind of pleasure my body receives, rather it is simply that I value the object itself – I wish to call this, cherishing.

So for example, the love I have for another human being can be unconditional love, for I identify with him or her.

This is the kind of love found in families – the reason I love my wife is not (ideally) what she can do for me.

Certainly the reason I love my children is never in what they can do for me.

Rather it is what is called identification love – we are all born with an innate self-love, as my wife is MY wife, as my children are MY CHILRDEN, I automatically extend the self-love to them.

The ramifications of this simple idea of valuing vs. cherishing, of selfish need/desire, versus selfless, is all-encompassing.

We find this in a number of areas – the most important I believe in the fundamental raison-detr’e of game-theory.

Now nowhere is the contrast between love based on cherishing and love based on need, more evident, than in the western democratic ideal, versus the Arabs ideal.

For in the former, the reason I love you is because we are all equal – hence as I love myself, I love you – I seek what is good for you! – the proof of this is, in the western world, many of our billionaires have pledged to give half their wealth to charity! – Furthermore the worlds richest people, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have already given the majority of their wealth, with Bill Gates dedicating his life – a life in which he could have easily increased his wealth, to helping people the world over.

In the Arab case, they live by the Arab motto “I against my brother, my brother and I, against my cousin, my cousin and I, against the world!” – the only time Arabs find common cause, is in common hate – their entire charity is only selfish, meant to induce an agenda – most notable, Antisemitism, which has sickly infected our campuses, they support many of the humanities and the average humanity professor is simply a neo-nazi – this is because they have no real love – their only connection to another human being, is like a dog, if it feeds some kind of instinctive pleasure.