Unconditional Love and Fish Love

The other evening I found myself in a lively conversation with a mother of young children. After discussing many of the difficulties (lack of sleep being one) of being a new parent, I heard myself say that the real benefit of the parent-child relationship is the opportunity for the parent to feel unconditional love by giving unconditional love. And it is an opportunity.

I realized afterwards that I try to feel that way about all of my functional relationships; as a parent, a life partner, a co-worker, a teacher, a friend, and even as a member of a community, though in a community relationship, conditions often apply. It is also the way I feel about sharing music I write, because I like to believe that it will be accepted in the spirit that it is being offered, even when the person who receives it is someone I don't know. It doesn't matter if it is ignored, disliked, or discarded; my giving part of the musical relationship is still gratifying.

I also like to believe that every performing musician who faces an audience experiences a flash of unconditional love, even if it only lasts for an instant. But my concept of unconditional love sometimes feels out-of-step with "institutional" unconditional love.

The other day I came across a video where Rabbi Abraham Twerski discusses something he calls "fish love":

Love is a word that, in our culture, has almost lost its meaning. Let me tell you a story about the Rabbi of Kursk. He came across a young man who was clearly enjoying a dish of fish that he was eating, and he said, "Young man, why are you eating that fish?" And the young man says "Because I love fish!" He says, "Oh you love the fish, that’s why you took it out of the water and killed it and boiled it." He said, "Don’t tell me you love the fish; you love yourself, and because the fish taste good to you, therefore you took it out of the water and killed it and boiled it."

So much of what is love is fish-love.

And so, a young couple falls in love, a young man and a young woman fall in love. What does that mean? That means that he saw in this woman someone who provide him with all that physical emotions and needs, and she saw in this man somebody she feels that she can wed. And that was love. But each one is looking after their own needs. It is not love for the other: the other person becomes a vehicle for their gratification. Too much of what is called love is fish-love.

It is a nice story, but I really wish Rabbi Twerski didn't minimalize what a woman might want in a love relationship. Don't woman also look for someone to fulfill her physical emotions and needs? And how limited it is to reduce a woman's love for a man to someone she can marry!

[Are there still women around who see the institution of marriage as a way to get away from their parents (like in my mother's day and case) or simply an opportunity to have the "elevated status" of a wife in a community?]

I guess if this statement by Rabbi Twerski helps some men think about how poorly they treat the women they are married to, it could serve a purpose. But he offers a view of love from the perspective of someone who doesn't seem to think the emotional needs of women are comparable to the emotional needs of men.

And what is all this "self love" stuff? I often hear this passage from Ephesians when I play weddings:

 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body . . .

I have known many people who feel love for their spouses that would also fall under the "hating their own body" category. And not all of them have been women.