Is love something you find or something you build?

Rabbi Landau teaches that “most people think love is something you find,” but King Solomon says love is something you build. “What you get for free, you will eventually destroy.”

The couples who stayed together, he explains, “didn’t love more, they invested more.” They gave up sleep, they gave up comfort, “and sometimes they even gave up to be right.” After a while the marriage wasn’t just something they had; it became part of them. “Ownership doesn’t mean your name is on it. Ownership means your years are inside it.”

He reads this in the verse “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li,” I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. The order matters: “I go first, I invest, sacrifice, I show up, and then v’dodi li. Now it becomes mine.” And he insists, “That’s not just marriage principle, that’s the only principle.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Love is not found; it is built through what you put into it.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

What comes for free is eventually destroyed. Ownership is not a name on a document but the years you have put inside something.

Underlying need or longing

Rabbi Landau teaches that the lasting couples gave up sleep, comfort, and sometimes being right, until the marriage became part of who they are.

Deepest human truth

Whatever you give yourself to eventually becomes part of you. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau calls this not only a principle for marriage but “the only principle.”

More questions from this teaching

• Why do we spend the whole month of Elul preparing for Rosh Hashanah?