Intro
Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together.
Ep. 5-4: Unconditional Love: The Foundation (Family 4/10)
On a Sunday morning several years ago, I was standing in the middle of the supermarket frozen aisle when my phone rang. It was my mother. “Do you have a minute?” She asked. “I have some news to share.”
What she said next didn’t exactly surprise me, because I had seen the signs myself. But it was still heavy to hear. “I have Alzheimer’s,” she said.
It’s one of those moments when you remember exactly where you were. Hence, the frozen aisle at Mariano’s.
But what my Mom said next was probably even more remarkable. “So,” she said, “On Tuesday I start speech therapy—and I’m so excited for what I’m going to learn!”
Now, if you know my mom, this was also not a surprise. At all. Though my mom’s name is technically Sheila, she’s been known as Happy to family and friends since literally before she was born). And as we say in Hebrew, kishmah ken hi—she has always been true to her name.
Even as her Alzheimer’s has progressed, my mom hasn’t exhibited the kind of anger and depression that can overwhelm so many people afflicted by the disease. She’s kept this essential core of good natured curiosity. And what I notice most is that, even as her sense of the world gets smaller and smaller, she ends every conversation with, “I just love you so much.” (And yes, it’s totally fine if you shed a tear at that. So do I.)
I think that’s really important to notice. What my Mom is revealing at this stage of her life journey is that the core, the essence that’s there when everything else gets boiled down, is love. She has always been this source of unconditional love for our family. And even now, in her last chapters, she’s still that. Just a fountain of love.
This is the fourth in our miniseries on family. Last week we talked about family time management—the ways we put family commitments into practice. And two weeks ago we talked about the deep sense of partnership that’s at the heart of family life, and we explored the concept of brit, or covenant, that’s central to Judaism.
Love, ahava, is foundational to all of that. And it’s what I want to explore today.
We know there are different kinds of love. Greek philosophy lists a bunch—the love between friends is different than the love between parents and children, which is different from the love of romantic lovers, for instance.
Maybe the most famous line about love in the Torah is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. That’s not about family—at least, not our nuclear family. Unless something has gone really wrong, the quality of love in family relationships is different—thicker, richer, perhaps—than the love we extend to neighbors and friends.
The very first time the word ahava is used in the Torah is in the story of Jacob and Rachel. You may remember the story: Jacob falls in love with Rachel. Her father, Lavan, tells Jacob he can marry her if he works for Lavan for seven years. Jacob agrees in a heartbeat. And the Torah says, “But the years seemed like just a few days to him, because of his great love for her.”
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, one of the great Hasidic masters, teaches that this shows us that love can alter our sense of time. When we’re animated by love, we’re not counting the minutes, the days, or even the years. In mindfulness terms, we’re fully present—because the love is flowing through us.
Now I’ll tell you, I think this is a huge challenge these days. Our society makes it pretty hard to be fully present for anything. We’re constantly multitasking. We scroll while we’re eating breakfast or sitting on the toilet. We talk to friends and loved ones while we cook dinner. We do work and homework while checking for updates. Heck, you might very well be doing something else as you listen to this podcast!
When we’re scattered like that, we’re in a state that our tradition refers to as pizur hanefesh, a scattered sense of self. And while our basic inherent love for our family members is still there underneath, it definitely doesn’t find its fullest expression.
So I want to offer a short meditation practice to help with this. And I really want you to pause, focus, and dedicate a few minutes for this.
First, enter a good meditation posture. Sit up a little straighter. Communicate through your body that you’re here to pay attention.
If it’s comfortable, close your eyes.
Take a few good deep breaths.
With each exhalation, try to relax your body and settle your mind a little more.
And now see if you can breathe without so much effort. Just try to get quiet and still and really close to the breath.
If thoughts or sensations arise, notice them—but don’t cling to them. See if you can let them float and waft away, almost like a cloud passing through the sky.
Just notice what it’s like not to be distracted for a few moments. Just here, with this breath. Here, in this body. Here, right now.
What does that feel like?
If you keep going with it, it might feel like your self is getting realigned, refocused, getting cleaned out a bit.
And what you might start to feel in that sense of alignment is the latent ahava, or love, that’s there. A sense of ease, of flow. A sense of presence. Allow yourself to sit with it for a moment and feel it.
And now you might bring to mind a loved one you want to direct that ahava towards right now. A parent, a partner, a child, a friend. See what it feels like to just let that sense of love flow toward them.
Love is foundational to our family relationships. And in our super busy world today, I think we really have to make time for practices like this to help us mindfully re-ground ourselves in our capacity for love. I hope it can help a bit.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.
ENDING
Thank you for joining us for Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, a production of Unpacked, a brand of OpenDor Media, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. If you like this show, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Check out our website, unpacked.media for everything Unpacked-related, and subscribe to our other podcasts, and check out the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Most importantly, be in touch–about what you heard today, what you’d like to hear more about, or to dedicate an episode. Write to me at josh@unpacked.media.
This episode was hosted by me, Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Audio was edited by Rob Pera and we’re produced by Rivky Stern. Thanks for joining us.