This is going to be a short one, as I am totally exhausted right now! Less than two weeks until the concert. Whoa!
With physical possessions, once you give something away, it’s not in your possession anymore. If you start off with two apples, and you give one apple to your husband, you only have one apple left.
However, with spiritual possessions, once you give something away, you still have it. Come again? Take a smile. If you have a smile, and you smile at someone else, that person smiles back, and you’re still smiling. Get it? You gave them a smile, but you still have yours, so no one is losing anything.
That’s how I view giving in my marriage. The more nice things I do for my husband, the more I’m contributing to my marriage, and the more likely he is to do something nice for me (even though he’s already very likely to do nice things, since he’s a nice guy).
As Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler used to point out, love (ahavah) is from the root ‘to give’ (hav) – love must be expressed by giving. So through giving my husband a nice dinner, or a little note, or the benefit of the doubt, or a break, I’m expressing my love for him. And through the positive feelings that creates, we’re both winning.
Rivki Silver ~ thoughts & music 
Absolutely! You expressed it perfectly.
gee, thanks!
This is so true. A yoga teacher of mine once said “if you want more love, give more love.” It can be easy to forget this!
It’s definite something worth remembering – I have to remind myself all. the. time.
Two comparisons come to mind:
A bank account – the more you invest, the more you’ll get to take out of it.
But better than that a candle – the more you light up someone’s life, the more light there will be in the room…and it doesn’t take away from the original flame!
P.S. I don’t know why the comments form is so out of sorts but the place to enter my name, email and site are covering the comments box which makes it harder to see what I’m typing…can you try to fix it? (It can wait until after the concert!)
I love the candle analogy. Especially since a candle is like our neshama, right? Let me know if the comment form is still giving you trouble.
I just tried and it is the same – can’t comment properly.
Yikes. If anyone else is having that problem, please let me know.