Shoftim - It’s hard to receive love and support sometimes
Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9 | Isaiah 51:12 - 52:12
Summary: It’s not always easy to give love and support. It’s also not always easy to receive love and support. It’s something we have to work on.
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In sickness and in health. Why did they have to say “and in health”? Isn’t it obvious that we’ll be there with and for each other when things are going well? Maybe this phrase is trying to convey that, just as you are there for and with your partner when they are healthy (and it is ostensibly easier to be there for and with them), you need to be there for and with your partner when they are not. But if that were so - and I’m done apologizing for being all Talmudic about such things, so I’m not sorry at all - then it could have said “in sickness” and we would have been able to figure out “and in health” on our own. Or “in sickness as in health.”
But it doesn’t. Those classic wedding vows say both. So let’s assume it’s not all that obvious that’ll be there with and for each other when things are going well, and that each of them is supposed to be there because each of them is its own challenge. Yes, it’s a unique challenge to support and care for your spouse when they are “in sickness.” That’s one set of demands and challenges. But it’s also not automatically easy to fully and joyously share life when you are “in health.” That’s another set of demands and challenges. The sage who wrote this part of the wedding vows - it may have been Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury - is telling us about two different facets of relationship, each with their respective challenges, each requiring unique skills and capacities.
This dual phrase also isn’t only saying that we need to be prepared to do both of those for our partners. It isn’t just about the theoretical “care-giver” having to anticipate giving in both ways ad agreeing to do so in advance. It is also very much about the receiver of these different kinds of love. We are, essentially, taking a vow to agree to be cared for if such a time should come. And we need a vow because it, after all, quite hard to be taken care of. Saying it again: it is not easy to be taken care of and to be loved.
The challenge to receive - to be loved - resonates with that great acronym for the word Elul, which is the name of the month preceding Rosh Hashanah. You can’t see it so clearly when it’s spelled in English, but Elul is said to stand for that beautiful phrase from Song of Songs, Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li.
In the most literal translation, Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li comes out approximately to “I am devoted to my Beloved and my Beloved is devoted to me.” The trick here is that It sounds symmetrical, but it is not. It should not be reduced to a simple statement of reciprocal love, as if to say that Hashem and I love each other. Why not? Because this phrase is supposed to describe some aspect of “the work” for the month of Elul. Couldn’t it simply be an expression of our intention to act in a more devoted way toward our Beloved? Sure. But then, what happens to the second half of the phrase? That second part - “my Beloved is devoted to me” - is also “teshuva work” that we have to do during the month of Elul.
And what is that second kind of work? To allow my Beloved to be “for me”, to love me and care for me. And apparently we need to do teshuva on how that goes.
These are two different modalities into which I need to deepen. One of them is whether and how and to what extent I am devoted, aware, selfless, and attentive to the will of my Beloved. The other - and perhaps more difficult - is to be able to receive love from my Beloved. And that is hard work.
Am I ready to let someone see me? Am I ready to let someone accept me in my imperfectness, warts and all? Am I ready to need someone? Hard questions. And associating them with Elul indicates that these are things we can lean into, work on, and get better at. We can (and must?) do teshuva concerning the times when we were unable to do so. And that’s not at all easy.
When we do this work, we do it for ourselves - perhaps, if can open to the gifts of others we can relax and take care of what is essential for ourselves. But we also do this work for our Beloveds. We provide them with one of the greatest gifts: the opportunity to give. We let people show their own love and appreciation, but also skillfulness, awareness, acceptance, and devotion.
With this in mind, you can ask yourself as you approach someone who loves you: “What is this person trying to give to me? In what way are they trying to love me? And I helping? Am I getting in the way of that happening? Why? What can I do to change that?”