“Without you I’m half a person – without you I’m actually nothing,” sings Shlomi Shabat.
Sounds amazing. What a wonderful love – to find exactly my other half. My missing soul. I am nothing without you, my dear beloved. Stop! Houston, we have a problem. Beneath this sugar-coating hides a very bad approach to love.
A relationship of dependency is an unhealthy relationship. If I feel that without my beloved I am half a person, that only with her am I whole, something bad is happening here. Because beneath the wrapping of warm words, a dangerous bond begins to form: in the bad case – a bond of dependency; in the worse case – a bond of adulation; in the worst case – a bond of exploitation and blindness.
My dear wife Neta taught me the following: people say that in a couple’s relationship each partner is a half that completes the other. Wrong. A good relationship is a relationship between two whole people who enrich and elevate each other. Not half plus half equaling one, but one plus one that together are worth far more than two.
You love me? Wonderful. Miss me? Great. You help me grow in the world? Incredible. You are my mirror? Fantastic. But I am not dependent on you. I am a whole woman. Not at all perfect – but whole. I have a rich inner world. I can manage without you (in most things). I choose you every day, and I am committed to the wonder we have built together, but I also remind myself every day that “if I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
Sometimes, when two halves come to a relationship from an unfilled place – or even when only one arrives halved – it can become an exhausting energy drain. Drawing love through manipulation, seeking control out of fear.
And not only between partners. In every bond that forms – between teacher and student, between a rabbanit and her student, between coach and athlete – it is worth making sure that I remain who I am. I do not nullify myself before anyone. I can respect, appreciate, receive, listen thirstily – but under no circumstances idolize. The Hebrew word for adulation, ha’aratza, literally means: fear. “Lo ta’arotz mipneihem” – “do not dread them” – was said of the nations of the land, meaning: do not fear them. That is why a tyrannical man who frightens people is called an “aritz” (tyrant), and the insect everyone fears is called a “tzir’ah” (hornet). No idolizing – no fearing.
I am whole (but not perfect), and you too are whole. Each of us a full person. We are not two halves.
But if we are fortunate, then our one plus one can indeed be worth far more than two.
