Do I Have to Love My Family?

The woman who came to see me was deeply hurt. She had received a letter from her son which he had written at the urging of a therapist. The letter listed a litany of wounds allegedly caused by this mother. It ended with the words, "Mom, I have decided that I do not love you anymore. Therefore I wish to discontinue all further contact." I gave her some advice on how to respond to the letter. I told her to write back to her son and keep open the channels of communication. Perhaps most important, the Torah does not say "love your father and your mother." It says we must honor our father and mother. That requirement to honor is irrespective of one's inner feelings of love; it is even irrespective of whether the parent did a good job raising the child. This law is so vital to Judaism that it is at the center of the Ten Commandments. I also recently spoke to a man deeply depressed because his wife had left him with two small children. She left behind a note saying she no longer loved him, and she needed her freedom to pursue true love. I wanted to invite his wife to my office and tell her that a marriage is built on so much more than romantic love, values like trust, fidelity, and commitment.

There is a profound insight in the Torah. Nowhere does the Torah obligate us to love our families. Three times the Torah commands us to love. We are obligated to love God (Deuteronomy 6:5), love our neighbor (Leviticus 19:18), and love the stranger (Leviticus 19:34). There is no parallel obligation to love our parents, our siblings, our children, or even our spouse. God never said we have to love our family.

Although we are not commanded to love our family, we are given certain duties towards them. We must honor our parents, respecting their position, title, and authority. We must be the keeper of our siblings, helping to sustain them when they are in trouble. We must protect, provide for, and most important, educate our children. And when the Torah teaches that "a man shall leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife" (Genesis 2:24) it means he must make his wife the number one priority in his life. Similarly, a wife must respect and make a commitment to her husband.

It is intriguing that there is no law in the Torah to love our families. Perhaps love as an inner emotional feeling is too vague, too fleeting, too imprecise, to be the subject of a commandment. When God gave the Torah, He realized that it is possible to command an action, not an inner feeling. Families are too important to leave to the vicissitudes of love. Love may wax and wane over time, but stable family life is the foundation of a just society.

Obviously, love between family members is a religious ideal. Such love grows out of duties towards those family members. It is difficult to speak about duties in this contemporary age of happiness and self-fulfillment. Yet, ultimately not only happiness but love grows first out of a sense of duty and commitment.

Here is one area where the Biblical outlook is at variance with contemporary values. In our contemporary world, the inner feeling comes before the behavior. One feels love in one's heart, and then one acts in accordance with that love. I hear so often, "I don't love them, it would be hypocritical to act as if I do." In the Bible it is the other way around. We act or behave in a certain way, and the inner feelings of the heart come afterwards. When the Israelites received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, their immortal words were "We shall do and we shall understand." (Exodus 24:7) First came the action, then the inner feeling.

I use this insight frequently in my rabbinic counseling. I remember meeting with a mother and a son who were estranged and trying to rebuild a relationship. The mother complained that when the son saw her he refused to hug and kiss her as a son should do for a mother. The son said that he was angry at his mother and could not bring himself to kiss her. I told him to do it anyway, even if he did not feel like it.

In a similar situation, I recently sought the advice of a professional marriage counselor. "How do you rebuilt affection between a husband and wife when they do not feel affectionate." His answer: "Tell them to act as if they feel affectionate. Hold hands even when they feel estranged. Kiss each other. The action may feel unnatural at first, but eventually the feeling will flow from it." The correct action itself will eventually lead to the correct inner feeling.

As a society, we place great value on inner feelings. Nonetheless, ultimately love is manifested in action. Even the commandment "you shall love the Lord your God" is followed by a whole series of actions from teaching them to your children to binding them on your hands. (See Deuteronomy 6:5-9) A bride and groom once came to see me to plan their wedding. I was surprised that the bride was not wearing a ring. The groom replied, "we feel our love in our heart. We do not need such artificial symbols to show our love." Later in a private moment, the bride confided in me, "I do love her, but I wish he had bought me a ring." The inner feeling is insufficient; action is the touchstone of Judaism.

The Torah uses a beautiful phrase to speak of the profound love possible between two family members, in Hebrew nafsho keshura benafsho (their souls were bound together. See Genesis 44:30). These words describe the ideal, often unattainable, love that ought to exist between family members. The Torah does not demand anything quite so lofty. We ought to behave towards our family in a certain way out of a sense of duty. If we are fortunate, love will grow out of duty which will connect our very soul to those of our family members.

© Rabbi Michael Gold