Love as Strong as Death

“For love is as strong as death…” Opening “Love is as strong as death; jealousy is as fierce as the grave.” Stop at this verse for a moment. King Solomon wrote the whole Song of Songs as a parable about the greatest love there is: Hashem’s love for the Jewish people. Yet he chooses to describe love in the language of death. “As strong as death.” And jealousy, which looks like the opposite of love, like its ruin, he calls “as fierce as the grave.” Fierce, heavy, sharp. It is as if jealousy and anger are not the enemies of love, but its children. What did the wisest of all men see, that he joined the two together this way? Understanding It Think about it. Someone cuts you off on the road. You get angry. You “bless” him with words people don’t usually say out loud. Ten seconds later, it’s over. You don’t have the strength to keep going. Anger needs fuel, and that fuel is called caring. For a stranger, you simply don’t have any. But the man you love? The woman you love? There, the fire can burn for hours. Not because they are worse than the driver on the street, but because there you have a bond. And you have pain. And pain, as we all know, is a sign of life. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, writes that a wicked person who feels bad stands higher than a wicked person who feels fine. The wrong that presses on him and troubles him is proof that his divine soul is still fighting. It is still alive. It has not given up. The pain is proof of life. It is the same with peace in the home. Burning anger is not the death of love. It is love showing itself. The strength of the anger mirrors the strength of the bond. As King Solomon wrote: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” The wounds that someone who loves you causes are faithful. In other words, they are real. They come from a place of true connection. What Is Real Death? So what is really dangerous? Not the shouting. Not the argument. Not even great anger. The danger is coldness. Indifference. The “Do whatever you want.” The “Fine.” The “I don’t care.” A silence with nothing behind it: no pain, no expectation, no demand. Once the caring is gone, the fuel for every feeling is gone, even for anger. That is the moment to worry. Not when your spouse is shouting, but when your spouse no longer bothers to shout. Rabbi Schneur Zalman draws this same line in the Tanya, between bitterness and heavy sadness. Bitterness is sharp, burning and painful, and it is a sign of life. Heavy sadness is cold, heavy and still, and it is a sign of death. From the outside the two feelings look alike, but inside they are complete opposites. One is fire. The other is ashes. When a sick person feels pain, he is alive. When he no longer feels anything, that is the real danger. What to Do So what do you actually do when your spouse comes to you in anger? The outer shell of anger tempts us to react in one of two ways. Either we get dragged in and get angry back, or we shut down and pull away. Both miss the point. The inner work is to look past the outside. To see that behind the anger there is a demand. Behind the demand there is an expectation. And behind the expectation there is love. Caring that is crying out to be seen. This is not always easy. But someone who is used to looking for the inside within the outside can do it here too. That is the whole teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement: to see the spark of hidden light inside its outer garment. The Verse in a New Light Now the verse shines in a completely different light. “Love is as strong as death.” Love is so strong that it can dress itself in garments that look like its total opposite. It can look like jealousy, like sharpness, like something “as fierce as the grave.” This does not weaken it. It proves it. Only a living love, a love full of life and strength, can burn like that. The real death is a silence with nothing in it. Coldness. Indifference. Don’t be afraid of the fire. Be afraid of the cold.