People who have had near death experiences report that they learned they we were sent to this world in order to learn certain things and in order to love. Viktor Frankl wrote that salvation is in and through love. In the words of rabbi Akiva, love is the ‘great principle’ of Torah (i.e the written and oral Jewish tradition). Another Torah giant, Hillel the elder commented that ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ sums up the entire Torah. The rest of the Bible is commentary that comes to explain this one verse.

Why does love require so many detailed instructions? For love to be manifest it has to be real. It has to be demonstrated through concrete actions and it has to be genuinely felt. Does the understanding of how love is expressed come from within or without? Divine commandments come from beyond the person; the intuitive knowing (called conscience in logotherapy) comes from within. This seemingly poses a contradiction.

There is no contradiction. There is only a misunderstanding of Jewish tradition and a misunderstanding of logotherapy.

Why do we need commandments teaching us how to love? Envy, animosity, conceit and more get in the way. There are laws that assure protection of people’s property, prevent slander and build the framework for a just society.

More than this, the laws themselves refine those who abide by them. Take for example the commandment to first help the person you don’t have such a relationship with before helping your friend. While you are busy giving him a jump to his car you will get to talking and decide he’s not such a bad guy after all.

At the same time, you have to be on a basic level of refinement as a human being in order to be receptive to these kinds of laws.

At the time of the exodus, the nation of Israel was not on a very high spiritual level. Although they had physically left Egypt, they had a slave mentality. They were missing what Frankl refers to as ‘inner freedom’. Spiritual refinement is a precondition to receiving God’s laws of love.

Had they received God’s laws of love prior to personal preparation, it would not yet have been the love of a free person. It would have been robotic obedience. So they were given time. For seven weeks they developed their inner freedom. With each passing day they became a little bit more free inside.

The same is true today. The seven weeks between the holiday of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot there is a commandment to count the days, each day representing another aspect of spiritual growth. One must develop the inner freedom to give of oneself without feeling deprived, to wish the best for others without being envious and to give the benefit of the doubt knowing that you yourself are far from perfect. It is only through inner refinement that universal laws of love will make sense.

Thus, we have two parallel processes that move in two directions: It is necessary to be an ethical person in order to receive Torah and at the same time the Torah turns one into an ethical person.

Similarly we can explain a two-directional process according to Frankl: Universal values must be adjusted to each particular situation. But it would not be possible to adjust the value to the situation if there were not values ‘radiating’ from the ‘value world’ to begin with!

Thus, while universal values point the way and conscience grasps the implications of the situation, it is particularly the interweaving of both of these together that sets us free to love.