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True Love

We love our lovers, we love our friends, we love to eat, we love our pets, and we love our hobbies. But actually, we love ourselves. Therefore, we love anything and anyone that makes us feel good.

In truth, the only love that can ever be in our world is the natural love we feel for our children. Yet, even that love is an instinct, instilled in us by nature to ensure the continuation of our species. Can an instinct qualify as love?

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, love is a genuinely altruistic act. It occurs when we do something good for someone we love simply because we want to do good to the object of our love. If we do not think of our own emotions before, during or after the fact, if our love object does not know that we are their benefactors, and if we do not know whether or not we actually benefited, this is true love. Why? Because there is no shred of egoistic benefit that can come from such an act. This is pure altruism, done for the sake of doing good. And altruism is synonymous with love.