Love. Like Fire, Like Water

Love is the desire to connect. When you love, you want to connect to your beloved in every possible way.

There are two general categories of love. One is the "Love like water". You feel yourself, you feel that you want to connect. That is a love likened to water. Water connects, when you pour water onto flour you get one piece of dough, the water connects all of the individual "pieces" of flour and creates one entity.

Rabbi Elazar Hakalir, the great first century sage and poet, authored many of the most beautiful and poetic prayers that we say until this day. In a beautiful prayer he asks Hashem to "remember the father drawn to you like water" referring to Avraham's great love.

There is another category of love. A love where you don't feel yourself, You don't exist. The beloved is all you can feel, there is a fire burning in your heart, you and your needs are out of the picture.

Fire takes things apart. Mimondies teaches that every physical object is composed of four elements, fire water air and earth. When fire consumes something it decomposes the four elements that make up the object. The elements of fire water and air go up in the smoke, while the element of earth becomes ashes.

When there is a fire burning in your heart you can’t feel yourself. It burns you up. You “decompose” of your selfishness. The flame surges upward, you are drawn to your beloved with a selfless love.

Awaken your heart every day during prayer, ignite the fire in your soul, lose yourself in the words of prayer, but remember that fire can’t burn indefinitely, a human can’t go on forever without feeling himself and his own needs and desires.

The love like water on the other hand can last. You could love Hashem while feeling yourself. You sense that you will only be able to be happy when you are with him. You feel a yearning and a desire to be close to him.

Likutei Torah Parshas Behar