Love the Creative Power of the Soul - Chapter 8:
Love As the Power to Connect

The third major characteristic of love mentioned at the beginning of our discussion is its nature, like water's property of adhesion, to cause people to be drawn to and cling to other people, tendencies or situations in life. The power of attraction and connection, so vital to the fulfillment of the soul, is primarily attributed to the driving force of love. The natural inclination to cling to those parts of reality to which one feels the closest affinity is first described in the Creation of woman: "And the man said 'this time it is the bone of my bone [which can also mean: "the essence of my essence"] and flesh from my flesh...' Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they will be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).

Whether connecting to general reality through the desire to uplift and rectify it, relating to other people by attempting to connect to them, or to G-d Himself by desiring to completely unite with Him, love is the driving force which motivates the connection. Love draws us to those sparks of reality we need to uplift, to those souls we need to connect to, and finally to G-d, to whom our souls are intrinsically bound.

An allusion is given as how best to receive the life force and pleasure of love (which Chassidut calls "the spirit of life") in the verse describing the Creation of man: "And G-d formed the man, dust from the earth, and blew into his nostrils a soul of life, and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). Before blowing "the soul of life," which is love, into man, first he was formed from the "dust from the earth," alluding to the property of humbleness. Ego and an exaggerated sense of importance create high and at times impregnable walls between people. Only an inner sense of humbleness and even lowliness can open the possibility of loving others. The fuller we are with ourselves the less room there is in us for others.

Though the existential reality of the soul in the body is by nature limited and finite, the act of loving has the power to lift us above time and space, connecting us to the secret of the essence of the soul, which is in turn connected to the Infinite light of G-d and therefore above time and space. Paradoxically, the more humble and understanding we are in dealing with our own (and especially others') countless shortcomings, the more infinite becomes our capacity to overcome them.