The balance between simply being unconditionally present, and being responsible.
A child needs to learn responsibility. His roles, his obligations. He must earn, and deserve, but the child in a different way critically and crucially needs a love and acceptance that is infinite.
We prepare for shabbat, but once it is shabbat it no longer matters.
Great people hold large powerful roles of responsibility in God’s world, but their inner strength taps from a subterranean flow of pure unconditional love.
The truth is that the level of unconditional love is really more true, a parent has loved their child from before the baby was born, and will continue through any mistake to harbor that love. This relating quality is the one we long for, but it paradoxically can only be appreciated by accepting our roles and duties.
Only by hard work does the marriage reach golden maturity, but the love will have been unconditional and unchanging in its deepest nature from the first day.
The same by a parent, and the same by God.
HERE IS THE LESSON
You need to cultivate a strong bond of infinite unconditional love as your baseline. In all your relationships the foundation needs to be ‘the pure being in me is one with the pure being in you’. When we get too involved in roles, and needs, and deserving we lose the spirit of life.
There is so much to learn more in this idea, perhaps we will learn the teaching together soon.
Warmly,
Rabbi Dovid Baars
Rabbi Dovid Baars 