Don't Love Me; Respect Me - By Rabbi YY Jacobson

the yeshiva.net there are marriages in which there's a lot of love but there's no respect there are marriages in which there's a lot of respect there's no love and there are marriages that have both and I don't want to say but there are marriages that lack both what does a marriage that has love that has love but no respect what does it look like it doesn't always look like love even though there's a lot of love love comes very often when people get married they'll always say he's just like me I'm just like him okay come back in 10 years often that's what people say he finishes my sentence and she finishes my sent we understand each other we get each other it's like we grow up together great and you know what it's awesome Oneness but that's not enough and the reason it's not enough is because what's going to happen is when there differences come out that's going to challenge the sense of Oneness suddenly they're going to see we're not one we have some differences we have similarities but we have differences if you could live your whole life Mish as one you always enjoy and like the same things great but generally men and women are opposites and even two men and two women everybody has their own stuff their own personalities going on it's in small things and big things small things could mean do you leave the light open at night in the room I thought that was small things okay it's big fine or does the light have to be off he's like I have to read I can't go to sleep mil restaurants fesa restaurants is that also big okay I don't mean to tread on sensitive ground I don't want to be a bull in a china shop right do the Venetian blinds stay open or must they be closed one perspective is we live in an open world I want to see the world and one is privacy privacy everybody sees what you look like you idiot Clos the venetian blind especially when you come whatever I'm not going to finish all the sentences here I do have a video machine installed in many homes I'm just joking so so you do have the right you're not the same and those are small stuff then you have a lot of other differences there are artists and business people there are am people and FM people you know the difference you still listen to the radio in the car or that's over that's gone yeah you remember there's FM people they're always like on [Music] 106.7 and then there are am people the world is coming to an end within the next 12 minutes As Long As Trump is President it's limbo or savage or the news or 22 minutes or this one one or or NP what are those uh NPR they try to be sweet but their world is also coming to an end it's a different personality some people live on AM radio some people live in FM radio if you live in AM radio it's like oh my God oh my God 10 people coming for shabas there's no food if you live in EFM radio and the two are married to each other it's gav right am looks at FM and says you're out for lunch you're irresponsible you're clueless you're detached and FM looks at am and says will you ever relax which only gets am much more anxious and nervous relax how can I relax when I'm married to a guy like you who's an FM who takes no responsibility for life and if I rely on you they will all be sleeping outside homeless and the kids will be thrown out of school and there won't be food on the table so I should relax when I'm being married to you and fim of course says to himself or herself it's just impossible these people are just impossible okay so they go to therapy and whatever okay so you understand what I'm saying so now what happens when this couple got married there was tremendous love there's still very deep love somewhere they'll probably even die for each other when they fight perhaps was not but maybe but what they lack is they never learn to respect each other as different people they never learned to respect the individuality of the other as a separate person they meshed into one they became deeply emotionally attached and connected they fell in love with each other but they never climbed in love with each other they fell in love they didn't climb in love and it's very different falling and climbing when you fall in love you're just like whoops okay it's gaval you're overwhelmed and overtaken by certain qualities and a certain personality which is deeply attractive to you something speaks to you very deep whether it's the way the person appreciates you or understands you or connects to you or feels about you whether it's physical emotional psychological spiritual or all of them together hopefully but what I didn't learn perhaps was respect covet what does respect mean respect means we're not one we're different people you are you I am I and there are things that fundamentally will never be the same can I respect that in you or will I always be frustrated can I respect the fact that they say they speak today a lot about the five love languages what is that about it means that what may be deeply affectionate for me may not mean much to the other person so you have for example words of affirmation or spending quality time or whatever the other languag is of love for one person words of affirmation means the world if you tell them three times a day I appreciate you I'm so proud of you you're changing the world you're extraordinary you're awesome you're so good-looking you're galic and you mean it it means the world to them you capture their souls but what happens if a man is not aware of how much it means to his wife or the wife is not aware of how much it means to the man she doesn't do it not because she's not nice she may be very nice she doesn't realize how significant it is cuz for her it's not significant or the other way around he may not realize Quality Time or or acts of uh of service or whatever the other ones are a physical touch and Etc how much it means to the person so if I don't know how much it means I'm mean well but I'm not ultimately being sensitive to the fact that the person ticks in a different way than I tick to give a simple example let's talk about vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream okay you love chocolate he loves vanilla after years of marriage he decides he's is going to be nice to his wife every day what does he do he goes and he buys vanilla ice cream the problem is his wife doesn't like vanilla she loves chocolate but he hates chocolate so he buys her vanilla and she's like and this is how you appreciate my love if she would only tell him I hate vanilla I love chocolate and he would tell her I love vanilla I hate choc and they would resp respect the fact that to be married you don't have to have the same taste in ice cream that's true right I think everything would be different it's a simple example but it's a important example so very often let's say you don't know what language speaks to your husband you don't do it cuz you don't know and the other way around what happens you have couples 20 30 40 years together they both kind people both mean well but they could never truly appreciate that the other person needs something else then I need in order to feel my closeness my affection my appreciation my love and the other person remains hungry thirsty frustrated and grouchy and nobody knows why and the reason they don't know why is cuz they never spend time on understanding their differences and appreciating their differences they had no AA they don't know coved but without coved the AA can't last because the AA works when we both like vanilla ice cream but suddenly I like chocolate you like actually I don't like chocolate I like vanilla but if it's the other way around suddenly whoops doesn't work I don't want Chocolat I'm using ice cream but you will understand that's a very superficial metaphor for somewhat deeper layers I know that qualif I would have to make for men not for women but I just wanted to do that whatever the ice cream is in your life whatever the ice cream is in your life and sometimes it's sad sometimes it's sad a couple ones came to me and it was very interesting I saw that there's different needs and when I told the woman I said you know your husband is desperately yearning for recognition from you compliments as they call it words of affirmation but for her it meant nothing for her words of affirmation meant that's not what she wanted so she couldn't give it to him and he couldn't appreciate what her love language was the same is true with her children and it's not only with love languages it's in all areas of life including love languages for this I have to understand that people's values but they're also not one so there are children who love their mothers but don't like their mothers do you know the patterns when do children love their mothers and when do children also like their mother question father you're afraid of your father the word afraid gets me afraid I don't know what you mean by afraid of your father afraid of your father why would you be afraid of your father sometime you Afra from you why would you be afraid I understand the concept of a of respect I don't know what you mean by afraid of your father if you're afraid of your father because he has a bad temper or because he abused whoever it is then I would not encourage that fear you have to deal with that fear because that's obnoxious if you mean fear in the sense of year which means a respect that's a very different type of fear I don't know you say it in English US supposed to they taught you in school that you're supposed to fear your father okay that's wonderful but how did they know it in school they knew it in school from a years no no no no you're not out of school in many year many years cuz whatever they teach you in school usually remains embedded in your personality till your last breath Mark Twain said Mark Twain said I never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education so what's your question okay I don't know what you mean by y again if you mean by y I'm afraid of how you're going to respond because you're temperamental and you're nonpredictable then it's a challenge in the relationship it's a challeng relationship and if it's somebody I feel that fear from I have to work on it and I have to work on the relationship if maybe I can't work on the relationship whatever you have to figure that out if you're talking about year in terms of awe and respect that's a good thing intimidation intimidation so they're intimidating you or you just think they're intimidating you or you're being intimidated by them because of your own insec ities okay so that's what you have to examine that's what you have to examine why is this person intimidating me is it because they are really really aggressive and intimidating and before I finish a sentence they already give me 20 like Google you ever see you start typing in and they already give you a lot of suggestions so they're very very aggressive so you're asking how to deal with very aggressive people you have to figure it out or maybe they're not in intimidating but it's just I hate myself so anybody who likes themselves is intimidating for me or anybody who speaks with force is intimidating because I think it's an attack on me so you have to examine all these things why is your father so intimidating to you he may not be an intimidating person in fact your father may be a teddy bear it's just for some of us if we're insecure we don't like themselves when we see somebody with conviction or sometimes people speak with a louder voice we're like oh oh oh my God so you really have to be able to respect their perspective maybe they're not trying to be intimidating maybe this is just their personality you know you have to figure that out if they're really really intimidating meaning if they don't respect you then it's a whole other story so those are the things you have to figure out that's your homework for today why are you intimidated by these people is it because they're really really aggressive or is it because you just don't like yourself and you're afraid of them yes and yes exactly wonderful Point beautiful point it doesn't say in the T to love your father and mother it says in the T to respect your father and mother you know why cuz that's a Mitzvah that's exactly the point love is part of nature there's no Mitzvah to elephants to love their father and mother they do respect is something I have to work on that's why it's a Mitzvah why do you know that the Mitzvah of having children is on who on men or women does that make sense why that's the point a Mitzvah means something that you have to work on you understand women and children are essentially connected to put it simply the biological makeup of of a woman is already connected to children but men no they want to be on the computer so God says get off the computer you have children you have children a Mitzvah means you have to work on it it's a commandment you don't have to command me to eat potato chips that's why there's no Mitzvah like that you get the point you have to command me to eat lettuce that's why there are Mitzvah to eat lettuce at least that's what my wife told me there's Mitzvah to eat lettuce like Etc there's no Mitzvah to eat cheesecake right if you're a healthy insecure addicted human being you eat cheesecake Etc so the reason you respect your father and mother there's a Mitzvah to respect now the question is what if you can't respect your father and mother what does it mean Cav of and the answer is is you can always respect your father and mother because respect doesn't mean I agree with you respect actually means I disagree with you but I still respect you that's the whole idea of covet covet doesn't mean I agree with every decision my mother made I agree with every decision it's not what covet means covet means I respect the fact that my I came into the world through these people's choices even parents who are very difficult there's still aah I'm not talking about parents who are abusive and dangerous then there's no Mitzvah people sometimes think you have to go back to the lines then to be abused but I'm not talking about that I'm talking about parents sometimes a little more difficult you know there's still a Mitzvah not God forbid to go to abuse I know a a girl who was abused by her father molested by her father and she was so wounded she emailed me she wants to have a hetter and know there's no Mitzvah of kib she feels so guilty to go back and back and back I told her I want to ask a question if her father has a gun and he shoots each one of the children there still a Mitzvah kib it's ridiculous kav means if he's a father not if he's a murderer if he's molesting his kids he's no father he's a murderer got to go to jail so people are sometimes so uh what's the word they're brainwashed or indoctrinated they're so warped they don't they're so they're so victimized and wounded they don't realize the difference between survival and the lack of it and then they call use religion respecting your father to destroy themselves and the Next Generation all in the name of kib if a guy is murdering his kids there's no K Ain the father clear so excellent point Thank you so respect and sometimes respect comes difficult there's always the respect for the fact that these are the people because of whom I'm in the world they made that choice and some of you know it's not so easy to have and raised kids sometimes you want to kill yourself sometimes you want to kill them and therefore the very fact that my parents brought me to the world they raised me and they didn't kill me in the process they deserve some respect for that they deserve some respect for that yes back was very touched by that that we I chose my father and my mother nice you know nice it has a Torah Source yes nice yeah respect excellent that's a Mitzvah with your father and mother the mitvah is to respect not to love because you're biologically connected with a stranger there the Mitzvah is why you see that's the difference very good CU huh she said by your parents it says Respect by a stranger it says doesn't say and what's the reason for like you what's the connection the connection because on some level our souls are one we are really one we are not only different we're also Mish one and because we're one I love myself and if I love my true self I will love another Jew too because myself and his or herself self are really one part of a larger self the finishes we're all rooted our souls are one the souls come into different bodies but the souls remain one so therefore there's two different qualities especially you see it with children and parents very few parents don't love their children but it's harder to respect your children in fact we don't even know do are we supposed to respect our children some people don't think they should respect their children but it's not true love your child that's natural respect your child means understand that your child is not you and you are not your child and your child was not created and I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way your child was not created to give you nas your child was not created to make your family look perfect your family was not created so that Baba and Z should sit and say ah a if you got that great thank God but that's not the raand Dietra of your child's existence and therefore I have to respect my child my child may be a different person than I thought he or she is and my job in the world is not to make them me or not to make them their brother but to make them them to allow their Diamond to be polished in a way that it's glitter and its Brilliance is true to their existence so people love their children they don't always respect their children that's why when he needs a for he doesn't go himself to find a he sends aazar why because a was very wise a knew that needs an opposite wife than he had a would have chosen the wrong wife for he would have chosen a wife that he loved for himself was Sor was gur was G was Mom's boy when she heard that is going to die she died was Mom's boy was like his mother he needed R who was if would have chosen a wife for a took elzar why elzar elzar grew up in the house but he was objective he knew y from the outside he understood what type of woman needs so sometimes people make for their children based on themselves not based on their children it's a disaster I'm not now talking about real abuse which means when you make a for your child not even based on yourself but based on family pictures in other words based on the fact that this family is good for our family in other words CH is more important than 80 years of your child's life that's Mish unforgivable abuse I'm talking about even if you're making a thinking about your children but based on you I would like this person now this doesn't mean this doesn't mean you shouldn't investigate the on the contrary but what you want to be honest is who your child is and what they need most not what you would have liked most in the dreams that you dream about your child this is not a this is covered sometimes a parent will tell me I love my child I want the best best for them no you don't you want the best for yourself if you want the best for your child you wouldn't send your kid to a school that you knew was damaging for him just that people shouldn't say that this family's kid didn't go to that school you weren't thinking about your child you were thinking about yourself don't say you want the best for them you love them yeah parents love their kids they don't respect their kids and I don't mean here respect the kids in some people associate with the idea that you're never allowed to discipline your kids and you're never allow to tell your children what the right thing and the wrong thing is of course not of course you have to discipline respect I don't mean that when your kids walk into the house you're terrified today is a mat that people are scared to tell their children no it's another mishas yes yes yes yes yes yes yes respect your children means if you respect your child you also have to tell them no if you respect people you have to tell them no because you think about their own benefit the weather agrees with me okay so now we come back yeah now we come back by the way oops you have it with your parents you have it with your spouses you have it with your siblings you have it with your children I love you but I don't necessarily like you I love this person I don't necessarily like them like means I appreciate you as somebody else love means I feel that we're the same so how do you get to like the people you love when you teach each other to appreciate differences then you could like the people you love in fact in a beautiful family both Dynamics interplay and they're not easy balance in a nice family in that theoretical family we all want to have everybody loves each other right but they also appreciate the differences and then they can have fun with each other they can enjoy each other they can respect each other that's different than love that's like it's true with our siblings with our parents with our children with our spouses but then there is the opposite you could respect but not love that with couples too there are couples that respect each other they don't love each other they don't find Oneness in each other they don't know how to melt in each other's arms they just know how to respect each other like almost two good business partners who appreciate the other person's qualities that has the opposite challenge it's a very different challenge they're good at boundaries they just don't know how to remove the boundaries and come together in fact the foundation of is if you want how did God make the system two weeks love two weeks respect why why the answer is because love and respect are very different and each one needs time to Blossom in a time of love it's a time of Oneness intimacy time of respect is a time of distance not because you don't like each other because you learn how to like each other not only love each other some people think again this is another mistake it's a sad mistake I'm not going to get into this for obvious reasons that during the time of distance in husbands and wives are supposed to be strangers it's a mishas you don't talk you don't converse you don't have conversation you don't like you're not married it's the exact opposite the time the time when there is physical distance is in order to develop a different type of relationship it's called verbal communication friendship like old friends you talk about things you learn to respect differences you learn to understand that we could like each other in addition to love each other that's the beauty of it if it's appreciated well each of the two weeks has a special model of a relationship it's not two weeks we're married and two weeks go you knowwhere go out drink latte with your friends go to Rabbi y why's classes and don't come home and start preaching to me what he said about me okay go go entertain yourself go with your friends go I'll go skiing and you go this and I don't want to hear about the shum I don't want to hear I don't want to hear about I hear enough from other people right I always say some give lectures on shalomay so there's a couple there right they go out and the husband she'll say to her husband new what do you say and they'll say you know he's pretty funny the jokes weren't bad she's like oh my God he was talking about you the whole thing was about you he's like what no I like the jokes and this is exactly how it's supposed to work and I'm going to tell you one more thing and then I want to bring it back to SP this is true also with Jews between themselves not just family and marriages I said some time ago I think it went pretty viral some some of you may have heard it I was once at a conference and somebody asked me what's the difference between anti-semites and Jews I said what do you mean and they said they both don't like Jews so I said I'll tell you the difference come to an anti-semite a civil one and say What's your opinion of the Jewish people he'll say oh they're the worst people they're Vermin but I don't understand your neurologist is Dr Cohen oh he's the best in the world but your cardiologist is Goldberg oh he's the best your accountant is Mr Weiss oh he's an honest guy your Barber is finklin oh we've been friends for 50 years what's your opinion of the Jewish people the worst of the worst bacteria but some of my best friends are Jews individually now come to a Jew any Jew in the world go over to any Jew say What's your opinion of the Jewish people and every Jew will say ah me you know they have all these articles and all these magazines with the the stories and whatsapps around with pictures with stories and everybody cries and says till them it's galic the CL you the best of the best now tell me what's your opinion of your sister-in-law oh what a low life what about what about your neighbor oh don't even get me going this person you want to stay Afra from what about the person who sits near you and I don't even want to start talking because I'm going to shash classes what about your other neighbor on the other side my godak what's your opinion of this one don't get me going please do me a favor let's talk about somebody else what's your opinion of the Jewish people you see it's easy to love clol what does it take to love CLA people love talking about CLA I ask you who is CLA made up of it's made up of you and you and you and me and him and her that's what it's made up of it's made up of individuals but you see I could love the Jewish people and I do love the Jewish people but it's hard to respect the Jewish people love means we're one and we are one respect means we're not we're different can I appreciate difference or not that sometimes takes much more work can you appreciate that your father is not you your mother is not you and they had to make decisions that you maybe would have you would have made different decisions can you appreciate the fact that your father was born in 1930 not in 1970 yes you have to appreciate that can you appreciate the fact that your father your mother grew up either in Stalin or or by Hitler or by children of survivors or whatever this is respect it's not love this is respect of differences it's appreciating people's different Journeys without judging them and getting upset come back to you know why because they were all about love Oneness says God is one you in the are one it's Oneness that's the beauty of RAB Akiva and who knew it better than RAB Akiva he had a wife who gave her whole life away from him her own father excommunicated her and banned her when he saw that she married a simple Shepherd why because she had a kinship with RAB Akiva a faith in Rab AKA a love to RAB AA a trust to RAB AA that surpassed everything to the point that she was ready to sacrifice her relationship for RAB AA remember these are the days when Roman wanted to destroy every last vestage of Judaism and sometimes a woman can identify the power in her husband in a way that he will never identify it in her and if she doesn't bring it out the world will be deprived from that just like it's the other way around and when a woman sees that in her husband she is the one who could resurrect it she is the the one who could tell him you have to be the man you were chosen as this person ra did that for RAB AKA and he knew it so when he came back with 24,000 students and she came out to greet him and the students you know you always have a few it's like Viber so that's what the gor says in those were the students of Raba RAB AKA said stop what is mine and what is yours all belongs to her this is the woman you respect so he understood what is re AA also understood what unity means Rea believed that when 10 Jews come together there's a new entity created called Aur and even if you have a 100 a thousand 10,000 that's addition of details but the CL Remains the Same and therefore doesn't change the text of Bening do you remember what we started with because the cloud remains one it's a transcendental concept of Oneness where all the details Melt Away into a larger Oneness this was and many more examples according to's life and his teachings and his perspective but this will suffice the challenge of his students was it was an issue not of love it was an issue of respect I could love other Jews but I don't always respect other Jews we all know that we have this great challenge today Jews love each other when there's a crisis but they don't know how to respect each other they don't know how to respect each other some people really feel if it's not my if it's not my if it's not my thing off it's hard for people to cultivate genuine respect for other people superficially yes but not I'm talking about deep inside I'm not talking about what's displayed on the outside I'm talking about inside to really be able to respect differences to be able to really create space that's sometimes harder than love when you are one with your family and therefore what is the Mitzvah a Mitzvah to count days and a Mitzvah to count weeks now you understand why what's the difference between days and weeks what does a week do it encompasses cons consolidates and synthesizes days it takes Sunday through shabas and makes a week so when we count SP we count days and we count weeks weeks represents the CLW we summarize we synthesize we integrate days represents the Pratt the individual Sunday is not Monday day one is not day three they're part of one week but they're not the same a week is like a family that has seven children Sunday Monday Tu it's all one week but Monday ain't Tuesday Friday ain't chabas you know that very well I mean they may all be miserable or they may all be joyous or some may be miserable some may be joyous but it's it's not the same Wednesday and Tuesday have different personalities so a to count weeks the CL but there a mitz to count days to count days is the individual distinction the respect for the individual contribution that's why the med says we say every morning names every Star has a different name you know how many stars there are you remember in high school how many stars there are it takes 28 billion light years you know what a light year is light travels 186,000 miles per second how long does light how much does light travel in a year so take 28 billion light years you'll get from one side of the Stars to the other side of the stars and that's what we know about presently and every Star has a different name but the says that they all have shame they all have one name that's easy Stars what do they say I think it's a legend that the eskimos have 70 names for snow when you live in snow you have 70 names Jews have dozens of names for God whenever you have a relationship with something you develop all the nuances you have many names every Star has its personality on the other hand they have one name both are true there's there counting the days and there counting the weeks there's love and there's respect there's the fact that we are completely one and the same without distinction and that's very true and there are moments when that comes to the four and suddenly everybody is mishan and the difference is Melt Away in a larger truth of Oneness and God is one Shem is not divided so and when the comes in there complete Oneness because wherever hasem is there's Oneness because so if you say Hashem was there it means there was Oneness there that's one component but then there is something else to be able to take that Oneness and translate it into diversity to be able to understand that there is differentiation there is the respect there's the AA and there's the covered have a wonderful week you love your children and you even like your children but you don't always like what they do right in other words they sometimes will do something that's either hurtful or disrespectful or or um even not something that they do just to us but some that they do to somebody else yes or to themselves so then how do you that's not not loving them and not liking them just not liking their actions yeah 100% 100% so how does that how do you separate I have to be able to say that to myself I love them and I like them but I don't and I may disagree with some things I may disagree with some things wrong not disagreement if it's wrong then I have to judge every situation if I'm in a position of influencing them I'll try to influence them if I'm not I don't want to ruin the relationship what if they don't want to take that so then I'm I not ruin the relationship you would let it if I can't influence them what's the point just to get into a fight if it's detrimental but if it's not going to help if it's not going to help you know unless you get involved you have to know your children you have to know your children sometimes you have to fill it feel it out take a sometimes you have to feel out the turf you know that's my opinion thank you very much yes you're welcome welcome home this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at w.the usa.net donate