A Jewish View of Valentine's Day

Excerpted from

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With sore throats raging in the house and sub-teen weather that just won't quit, I've been brewing so many cups of tea I feel like a geisha. One afternoon I realized I'd used up every tea cup and coffee mug in the house save one--a somewhat misshapen white ceramic mug with a red band around its base and the following words imprinted on its side: I LOVE YOU with all your imperfeckshuns.

The mug, originally filled with Red Hots and cinnamon Gummie Bears, was a Valentine's Day gift from my husband a few years ago. (Loved the candy; have real mixed feelings about the cup. Not to mention the mixed feelings I have about Valentine's Day in general; more on that later. But back to the cup.) While the sentiment is a lovely one--my husband loves me even though I forget to wipe away stray strands of hair from the sink or that I still haven't taken his sweater to the reweavers to be repaired, or that I do not always hold my tongue when it would be wiser to clam up, or that after twenty years of marriage I don't always compromise with a lot of grace--the misshapen cup says that, despite all that, my husband still loves me.

But on cranky days I look at that cup, with its creases that remind me of the collapsing of my own once-firm flesh, and I get ticked off. Was this mug really a gift or a passive-aggressive dig that says, "Enough with the messy sink, get organized." Or "Can't you give a little, too?" Does true love mean we don't see our beloved's imperfections? Or does it mean we see them, and then see through them? Or does loving one another mean we are honest about our foibles and celebrate the fact that they don't get in the way of our affection and commitment?

Yes, yes, and yes. Real love--not hearts-and-flowers-infatuation that is passed off as love--is all of these things and more. It is overlooking shortcomings. It is working hard to be a better partner. It is blearily starting the day after having been up with teething toddlers and vomiting preschoolers and smiling at one another in that special way. It's parenting teenagers who overnight have morphed from one's flesh and blood into aliens.

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