Each Person and His Own Battle: What Love Can and Cannot Do

The Torah says: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, and children shall not be put to death because of their fathers; each person shall be put to death for his own sin.” Where It Begins There is a common belief. It is simple and deep at the same time: love heals everything. If there is real love, there is redemption. But then the hard moment comes. Someone you love is sinking. It might be your husband or wife, your brother, your friend. Maybe it is an illness of the inner self, an addiction, or a flaw that keeps coming back again and again. And you stand there loving with all your strength and giving with all your heart. And then… nothing. The situation does not move. The question rises on its own: Maybe I didn’t love enough? Maybe if I had been more patient, stronger, more devoted, maybe then? This question is also a pain. And it has an answer. The Foundation: “Each Person for His Own Sin” The Torah says it plainly: “Each person shall be put to death for his own sin.” In Jewish law this is a rule for cases of life and death: we do not punish one person for another person’s sin. But beyond the law, there is a deep truth here about the inner self. The “death” that sin brings is not only an outside punishment sent from Heaven. It is a direct, inner result. Sin damages the soul, and only inner repair brings it back to life. Maimonides, the great medieval sage and codifier, writes that the choice is given to every person. He can turn himself to the good path and be righteous, or to the bad path and be wicked. Free choice is not a side issue. It is the whole battlefield. And on a battlefield, you cannot send someone else to fight in your place. Defining the Roles: What Is “a Helper Opposite Him”? When the Torah describes the role of the wife, it calls her “a helper opposite him.” Two things come together here. “A helper” means support, strength and standing by his side. “Opposite him” means facing him, not taking his place. True help does not cancel the “opposite him.” Just the reverse. The right kind of help is the kind that brings a person back to himself, back to his own strengths and back to his own choice. Addiction is an illness of the inner self. It sinks deep, and its roots are inside. To love someone who is struggling with it is a great and holy thing. But love is not the medicine. Love is the setting in which a person can choose to heal. That is a huge difference. Love says: “I am here. I believe in you. I am standing beside you.” But love cannot say: “Because I am here, you are healed.” The battle is his. The victory has to be his. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, wrote that the soul holds hidden powers. He wrote that even the “in-between person,” the one who is neither fully righteous nor wicked, faces the evil in his own heart by himself. No outside force can decide this inner battle. Only he can. The Danger: Mixing Up Support and Healing Here is the most painful point. Suppose the wife, or anyone else who loves him, believes that her love is the redemption and that her devotion is the cure. Then she is stepping into a role that is not hers. Not only will it not help. It will hurt her. When the situation does not change, she will ask: “What did I do wrong?” And guilt will begin to eat away at her. This is exactly the heavy sadness that Rabbi Schneur Zalman warns against. It is a sadness that does not come from a real sin. It comes from a mistaken understanding of her role. Her love is not a “sacrifice” that atones for his flaw. Her love is a light that shows him the way. But the nights, those he has to walk through himself. The Right Kind of Love So what is the right way? What is her role? To love with effort, not with self-sacrifice. To be there: strong, present, believing. And to do this without taking on a responsibility that is not hers. To tell him, “I am with you in your battle.” Not, “I will fight your battle for you.” This is her true strength. And this is also her freedom.