Shabbat Replay: Love Languages

What is God's love language? Here's a hint: it isn't receiving gifts — at least, not according to  Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Deena explores how God's clear instructions for building the sanctuary can inspire us to ask for the love we need.

This episode is a drash given at Mishkan's Saturday morning  service on February 5th. For full recordings of Friday services, click here. For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Learn more about Mishkan Chicago. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

[00:08] Producer:
Welcome to Shabbat Replay, your weekday dose of shabbos rest. You’re listening to Mishkan’s Saturday Morning service on February 5th, our first in-person Shabbat of the New Year. This also marked our return to JCYS, as well as the first Shabbat of Jewish Disability Awareness & Inclusion Month. Follow the link in our show notes for our Accessibility and Inclusion page with information on all of our venues, like parking, elevator access, and ADA compliance. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy this touching drash from Rabbi Deena on asking for the love we need.

[01:03] Rabbi Deena Cowans:
A few years ago, a friend of mine got really into the book “The Five Love Languages”, and convinced me to read it. The book’s premise is that there are 5 main “love languages”, ways in which we give and receive love, and each of us has some languages that we primarily or naturally speak in, and some that we primarily or naturally receive affection in. The languages are:

1. Quality time
2. Acts of service
3. Gifts
4. Physical touch
5. Words of affirmation

Now, to be clear, the love languages book was originally written by a Christian minister who has no formal training in psychology, so I want to be a little careful assigning it real psychological weight. And, the book has been a consistent best seller for a reason: most of us can easily recognize what might be our primary love languages, and probably can guess at the languages of people we have loving relationships with, which gives us concrete ways to give and receive love. I, for example, really thrive on words of affirmation, especially written. I save almost all of the notes and cards my friends and family give me, and read them when I need a little emotional boost. But I tend to give love most through acts of service and gifts, picking up my partner’s favorite snack just because I want him to feel special, or offering to proofread cover letters for a friend who is applying for jobs as a way of supporting her in a stressful process. Many people speak and receive in different languages, so some of the work we do in relationships is communicating how we want to feel loved, and then figuring out how the other person most feels loved. 

This is, I think, the central emotional tension in a part of the Torah that can start to feel like an Ikea manual. As we have read/will read, this week’s parsha is called, literally, “Gift.” It’s an early chapter in the evolving relationship between God and the Israelites, with Moses playing the role of beleaguered relationship therapist trying to mediate between the two when conflict arises or they have trouble communicating directly. 

This idea of a relationship between God and the Israelites has been brewing for a while, but this week, things get serious: God wants to move in together. “V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti be’tocham”: have them make me a sanctuary, God says to Moses, and I will live among them. It’s pretty early in the relationship, so God offers a check in, a “hey, let’s think about how to make this work. Let’s check in with what makes you feel loved and appreciated, and let’s talk about what makes me feel loved and appreciated.”

Up until this parsha, it mostly seems like the Israelites have been receiving and receiving: they received God’s care and power in the redemption from Egypt and crossing the red sea, when they need food God gives them manna, when they need water God provides a well or a gushing rock, and recently, God gave them God’s most precious gift, the Torah… So it makes sense that at the beginning of this week’s parsha, God says, “I would be happy if you would like to give me some gifts in return.”

How? God says to Moshe: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves him.” The Hebrew says “asher yedivenu libo” as their heart feels generous, maybe, or, as Rashi says, “as they feel the goodwill”

But what happens next is not about generosity, or goodwill. It’s a shopping list, and a very specific one at that. “Do nice things for me in the form of giving me gifts”, God starts with, and then “But make the gifts exactly these specific things in these exact ways.” 

If you’ve read the Torah, you might guess that God’s primary love language is probably acts of service (but, like, literally… the word for sacrificial worship, Avodah, directly translates to “service”). Or perhaps, nowadays, we might think of God as primarily receiving words of affirmation (like the nearly two hours of them we’re offering this morning) or quality time, such as the gift of our presence, taking time out of our lives to show up for Shabbat and honor the holiness of resting from creation. 

So what’s the story with the gifts in the parsha? Is God asking for gifts because this is God’s love language? It seems like probably, not. As R’ Lord Jonathan Sacks points out, God asking for gifts seems more like an act of giving love than asking to receive love. The Israelites have spent so much time receiving from God, that God is opening the door to let them reciprocate a little bit. Once the Israelites are engaged in giving love, THEN God says, “actually, here’s what makes me feel most loved and appreciated.” Which, it turns out, involves a lot of burning animals and grains in a complex full of red, blue and purple fabrics. 

The long-term relationship between God and the Israelites in the Torah, and in fact in much of tanach, is a troubled and troubling one. But this parsha does, I think, model a good relationship behavior. God first asks for love in the ways God thinks the Israelites are most comfortable giving it, and then God shares the ways GOD will most feel loved. This, R’ Sacks says, is an act of giving dignity. Receiving the love of others makes them feel worthy, important, like they are a valued participant in the relationship, and not a burden. God’s gifts made the Israelites feel special after so many years of slavery: so special that when Moses offered them the Torah a few weeks ago, they said, “na’aseh v’nishma” and accepted it without even knowing exactly what it would entail. So now God creates this experience of dignity, of feeling valuable and generous, for the Israelites so they will feel loving in the ways they seem to like best. 

When we give others the chance to care for us however they feel moved, we actually make them feel loved. And when we let them know how we want to be cared for, we ensure that we feel the love they are giving. Try it out: think about a relationship you value. When was the last time you remember that person seeming to feel very warm and loving towards you? What prompted their swell of affection? Ok, now think of how you can do something similar again, whether it’s picking up a coffee for them when you know they have a long day, or giving them an extra long hug, and pick a time this week when you will do that for them. Now, let’s do the same for you: think of a time you felt extra loving towards someone important to you. What did they do that made you feel that way? Now, here’s your homework: Go ask them to do something similar again. Tell them, specifically, what you want, and why you want it. Ask for the love you need, because you deserve it, and because telling others how to love you is itself an act of love.