By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

It’s “Love-Time” again, so get your pen and paper and prepare to take a short, simple quiz.

Here it goes: Finish the following sentence: “Love is ….”

Expand on your answer as you see fit and e-mail your response to me (See email address above). With your permission, I will include it in my next column, or in next year’s LOVE column, depending on how many responses I get.

And, yes, there are all kinds of love, and infinite degrees of intensity that the feeling engenders, and that’s what makes the subject an intriguing study, as well as a great dinner-party go-around at the table.

The big secret is that “real love” needs to begin with self – non narcissistic, “whole- self” – love. If that does not exist, I know some “shrinks” I could recommend. You cannot love someone else if you don’t truly love yourself.

I am always fascinated by the variety of ideas people express on the subject, all of them, no doubt, reflections of their personal experiences. Those of us who are engaged in pursuing self-awareness (or mindfulness, or a high level of consciousness) agree that the experience of “love” – all kinds – is the ultimate goal of human achievement, a concept which is the root thesis of most religions.

Love: Follow it and see the patterns change. It is like a piece of dough that begins with one ingredient and gets added to, reduced, blended, rolled, flattened and shaped. It is wiggling, bouncy, euphoric and constrained. It reaches out and pulls back. It is gentle and it is violent, giving and demanding. It is lustful and phlegmatic. It is the sustenance of the world and yet its chemistry can be venomous. It is a spot of mercury, darting, volatile, fusing and breaking into bits and pieces. It is open and closed, a release and a prison. It is agony and glory, darkness and sunlight, distance and touch … and, mostly, joyous.

As one who has experienced the entire range of love-feelings – and as one who has advanced in chronological years – it is pure happiness to report on “love” in the senior years. Some people call it “cute,” condescending to the belief of youth that those feelings experienced during the teenaged and early 20s and 30s cannot be duplicated many decades hence. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! (I joyously report.) And thus – another celebration of Happy Valentine’s Day.

Here are two of several legends about Valentine’s Day: Valentine, a Roman priest, was killed because he attempted to help Christians escape from a Roman prison as they were being tortured and beaten there. Yet another popular version of the legend states that while in prison Valentine, or Valentinius, fell in love with the jailer’s daughter who visited him during confinement. Before his death, Valentine wrote a farewell letter to his sweetheart from the jail and signed “From your Valentine.” The expression became quite popular amongst the love struck and is still very much in vogue.

So here’s to the good St. Valentine, may his love-aura be spread – and may you live in lovingness all the days up to and beyond the 14th.

Have you ever heard of the term “tough love?” People will say, “I think that person needs some tough love.” There is a new saying that is true that I heard the other day, and I think it’s the opposite of that term “tough love” because “love is tough.” Valentine’s Day is just a few days away, and it is easy to love on special occasions like this. However, there are still many days left out of the year where some days are easy to show love, and some days we have to work hard at showing love to others. How about showing someone love who does not love you back or even someone who may not treat you the way you believe you deserve to be treated? Love should be a big part of our lives. Love is something meant to be expressed, not something to be kept a secret. It seems like people even have a hard time saying “I love you” when we should say it all the time, and we should also show it all the time. It is tough sometimes, but it is not impossible. Why is it that we can say that we love our car, job, dog or even our favorite restaurant, but we cannot say it to each other? We have a hard time saying ‘I love you’ to the ones who really mean the most to us.

We have to understand that we need God’s help to love others in the same way that He loves us. We always want to put conditions on love, but God does not do that to us. We speak with our actions and say ‘I will love you’ if you do this for me, treat me this way, or buy me this, etc. God does not work on the point system and neither should we. God tells us to love others, period. There are no conditions on that love. God does not say love someone if they do something for you or make you feel a certain way. God says love each other, and if God tells us to love, we must be able to do it. Love is so many things, but it is not conditional. Let’s look at what love is.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

NLT

Love gives us the ability to be sensitive to the needs, hurts and desires of others and also to feel with them, and experience the world from their perspective. Love gives us the ability to give with no conditions or expectations. Love builds up and encourages; it is determining what is best for someone and doing it. Pray and ask God to help you love the way He loves and He will help you. Have a Happy Valentine’s Day. I LOVE YOU!

Pastor Tony Guadagnino is the pastor at Christian Love Fellowship church, located at 801 SE 10 St., Deerfield Beach, FL 33441. For more information, visit www.clfministries.org.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

Yep! It happens every year. Hallmark reigns! Candy, flowers, jewelry, Victoria’s Secret(s) – and for those who can actually stick it out for many a decade, like I did, a beautiful brand new shiny — juicer!

The men get cards, kisses and — if they’re lucky, they get to use their Viagra. And all of this is predicated on the existence of “love.”

OK. I’m talking about what is sometimes referred to as “romantic” love, not parental, or filial, love (that’s for another column) , not love for a pet or a football team, or a bauble, or ice cream.

These many years, I have been seeking a universal definition of that word. And in response to my many queries, no two have been identical. It seems there is no real consensus when it comes to a definition of the word. Some people experience love with longevity and manage to sustain “it” despite some of “its” most ruthless challenges. Others experience love as a temporary high, and do not look for sustainability, but satisfy themselves with one day at a time. And still others live out “its” fantasy and find themselves devastated by “its” mercurial nature. They accept the ups of “it” and “give up” at the first sign of “down.” And then there are those who slog along on the tail of disappointment and live in a constant state of hurt, anger and resentment. Woe be to them.

And so, in the interest of serious research, I went to the dictionary.com website for the “scholarly” ( not so ) definition of the word love. Here is the ho-hum result: “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” That’s it? No! It proceeds to give 27 repetitions of the same concept, neglecting, I note, to indicate anything about the waxing and waning complexities, and changing characteristics that exist within a very volatile timeline. In other words, it doesn’t tell you how the very nature of love mutates and grows and changes, or diminishes, with time. THAT is the discovery of “everyman” (generic for “humankind”).

In my further research into the commonalities of a sustainable “love,” I found this most illuminating book which I highly recommend to anyone about to embark on a new “love journey,” as well as to people who are already ensconced in one. It’s called, “Conscious Loving” by Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks, married family therapists.

From the Amazon review: … Through their own marriage and through 20 years’ experience counseling more than 1,000 couples, therapists Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks have developed precise strategies to help you create a vital partnership and enhance the energy, creativity and happiness of each individual. You will learn how to: Let go of power struggles and need for control; balance needs for closeness and separateness; increase intimacy; communicate in a positive way that stops arguments; make agreements you can keep; allow more pleasure into your life. Addressed to individuals as well as to couples, Conscious Loving will heal old hurts and deepen your capacity for enjoyment, security and enduring love …

Go to the library or order it on Amazon (their used books are cheaper). Let me know how it works for you.

Meanwhile, have a Happy Valentine’s Day and give it all your “lovingness.”

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

Every time I flip January off my calendar, I get the urge to write about LOVE.

I sit down at my computer and realize that actually, in one way or another, I’ve “done” Valentine’s Day dozens of times. Is there anything, I ask myself, that I can say about love in all its forms that I haven’t said before – any angle that I haven’t covered?

So I throw my hands up in the air, get out of my chair and go to the movies. And what better to see under the circumstances than “Amour?”

I tell you folks that IMO (in my opinion) this is the most extraordinary piece of artwork I’ve experienced in longer than I can remember. Admittedly, the subject is not for everyone, but to get beyond the content and into the production, direction, acting and overall palette is to witness something rare. It is not giving anything away to state that the film is about the relationship of an old married couple and what happens when one of them becomes helpless. It is in French, by the way, with English captions. If it were merely that, I would not blame anyone for skipping the rest of this column with a capricious “Not For Me,” despite the fact that in some sense, each of us can relate to such a situation, be it personal, possible, or actual with some close family or friends.

What makes this film extraordinary is the way it treats ordinariness, the way it shines as a brilliant display of all that is good in life and is accepting of that which is not good and cannot be changed. There are several tiny bits of what Hollywood would call “shtick,” small examples of life routines, the boring stuff that we barely even notice – washing dishes, drinking coffee, having a most mundane conversation about nothing important, that suction the viewer into the world of the screen in a magical way that defies analysis.

A pigeon flies into an open window and Georges, the

husband finds a way to help it fly back out of the window – until the time, days later, when it flies back into the house. And true to its title, this film is a depiction of what love – without the concomitant joys and compensations of sex – is really all about.

This is no Pollyanna approach to the hardships that Georges experiences in his care for his longtime wife, Anne. Nor does it whitewash the resentments, anguish and inner turmoil that erupt, even as he is able to suppress them. His loving care is merely a reflection of what comes naturally to him, and he doesn’t even entertain the possibility of any kind of alternate response.

Aside from the slim but riveting storyline, which basically depicts Anne’s slow and agonizing descent toward the inevitable, the film glows with its subtle exploration of a variety of feelings in addition to “love” – an incandescent quality that is rare in cinema. Despair, frustration, nostalgia, loss, pride, defeat, doubt, empathy, acceptance – all are portrayed from the gut and depth of two French stars whose performances “blow you away.”

I was once asked for my definition of “love” and quickly changed the subject because I couldn’t come up with the exact response I wanted. This movie says it all.

“Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.” Yes, I know, you might be surprised that this rabbi is writing about Valentine’s Day. After all, many people believe that Valentine’s Day is about a saint.

So, why do I feel so comfortable writing about st. Valentine’s Day? Because I happen to know that the original holiday was a Jewish one. That’s right, it was originally called, “Val and Stein’s Day.”

You are probably not aware of the legend of “Val and Stein’s Day.” This may well be because it is something that I recently created, but many people I have shared it with tell me they love the idea, and isn’t love what this day, and every day for that matter, is all about?

The name Val is a French form of the name, Vail, but it can also be a shortened form of the name, Valentine. The name Valentine has a meaning. It refers to someone who is strong. There are several Hebrew equivalents to this. One is Abir, which means, hero, as in “my hero,” and who among us haven’t heard someone in love refer to their soulmate as their hero.

Another Hebrew equivalent is the name Gavriel, which means, “G-d is my strength.” I guess on “Val and Stein’s Day,” we should remember that it is G-d who gives us the ability, the strength to be loving and kind. It is also G-d who gives us the ability to express our love in so many wondrous ways.

In fact, our tradition goes on to say that there are three partners in a marriage – the husband, the wife and, can you guess who the third one is? That’s right, G-d! And, the tradition says the same in regard to a birth as there is the mother, the father and … you guessed it … G-d!

Another Hebrew equivalent to the name Valentine that might give you a bang (pun intended) is the name Uzi. Most of you are probably familiar with the weapon made famous by the Israel Defense Forces, but you should know that the name Uzi means my strength and who among us who has known the joy of love has not had times when our partner has been our strength and times when we have been theirs.

Now, let’s get to the name Stein. As you are well aware, a stein is a large mug used for holding things. On “Val and Stein’s Day,” let this be a reminder to the verse “May your cup of joy overflow,” and that is exactly what true love can do for you; it can make your joy overflowing.

Sometime, in the distant past, someone came up with turning “Val and Stein’s Day” into “ValandStein’s Day,” which, soon became forever known as Valentine’s Day. But I think the idea of merging the two lovers Val and Stein together as one teaches us a very important lesson about love.

Love is a merging of two halves into one whole. May you all come to know the miracle of meeting your other half and becoming one.

With lots of love, Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and serves in this capacity in a number of Health Care settings in the area including Advocate Home Care Services and L’Chayim Jewish Hospice in Partnership with Catholic Hospice of Broward County.