In an op-ed in the NYTs by columnist Frank Bruni “Flattery paves the road to the president’s heart” (June 29, 2026), he wrote this definition of what Donald Trump means by “love”:

“It’s love as a transaction. A contract. A pact. I’ll stroke your back — lightly — if you give a deep-tissue massage to mine. We’ll call that love.”

Nothing about what Trump considers “love” suggests what most of us understand about that most important value.

We live in an era of chaos, ugliness and brutality, fear, ignorance, bigotry, and hate, all of which polarize large segments of our population in North America, Israel, and around the world. Such animus and negativity shut people down and close them off from one another, leaving us mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually depleted and feeling alone. Yet, even as we acknowledge the mess in the world, it is important to remember the virtue that drives, sustains, unites, and enables us to cope and find greater meaning – love (Hebrew – ahavah-אהבה).

There are all kinds of love: the foundational bond that anchors parents and children, the romantic and erotic passion that elevates lovers, the sibling intimacy that strengthens sisters and brothers, and the love and trust that deepens intimacy and understanding between the closest friends. There is the mentor–mentee love that enriches teachers and students. Our love of work motivates us to be productive and affirm our meaning and purpose in the world. Our love of the arts and ideas breathes new life into our spirits. There is the ineffable soul-love that draws us closer as spiritual beings to intuit the unity of all things. There is also that pure, sweet, angelic, and continually requited love we feel in the eyes, the wagging tail, the excited bark, and the vibrating purr of our four-legged “best friends.”

Of all these kinds of love, a love upon which religion most focuses our attention is spiritual love, our awareness of the soul’s interconnectedness with all of being. It is our purpose as human beings, and it is fundamental in Judaism (and all the great religions) to understand, demonstrate, and express heart-soul love.

The spiritual teacher David Steindl-Rast (Essential Writings, p. 73) wrote that the one common thing at the core of all loves is the yearning to belong, to feel connected to something greater than ourselves. This yearning is foundational to the human species; to bond heart to heart not just with the people we know and about whom we care, but with every other human being, with all creatures and living things on the planet, with every astro-body in the cosmos, and with the transcendent God.

Jewish mysticism taught the interconnectedness of all things, and today scientists and meta-physicists understand that our bodies and souls are part of a great expansive and infinite Oneness. It is an axiom of many faith traditions, including Judaism, that every human being shares a common origin and destiny, and because we are so interconnected with each other, we “belong” to each other as if we are, all of us, part of a greater human family. Like families, we are responsible to and accountable for each other.

Steindl-Rast taught that “loving one’s fellow as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) is not meant to be understood in a limited way. Thinking about the “self” includes our consideration of the dignity of our neighbors, following the idea that the Hebrew word for life is a plural form – chayim-חיים – and that we exist together and belong with and to one another. This understanding of an expansive “self” in relationship to all others widens the heart, thereby enabling each of us, however difficult it may be, to feel at one with all people and all living things everywhere.

The 12^th century Spanish mystical Jewish sage Nachmanides (aka Rabbi Nachman ben Maimon) taught that “loving one’s fellow as oneself” means that what we wish for ourselves materially, emotionally, and spiritually, we must wish also for others, not only those we know and love but also those unlike us, strangers, other peoples of faith, cultures, and tribes, living here and everywhere on the planet. This kind of expansive love is liberating because we come to understand that we are a part of something very great.

There are, of course, people who are easy to love. But what about those who are hard to love – our enemies, perpetrators of cruelty, pathological liars, and serial murderers? Must we love them too?

As a Jew, I say, “No!” There are some people we cannot wish well because their deeds are too heinous to tolerate or forgive. That said, I cannot forget what Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin said as he signed the Camp David Peace Accords on the White House lawn with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in 1978. PM Begin remarked that the Jewish people consider it among the greatest of commandments to transform a “ra-רע” (an “evil” person – an enemy) into a “re’a-ריע” (a fellow – a friend). Although Egypt and Israel are hardly “friends” as we understand friendship between nations, it is a fact that since that day in 1978, there has not been one day of war between the State of Israel and Egypt.

Judaism does not ask us to “love” our enemies, only to act ethically toward them leaving open the possibility of a transformation of the relationship should circumstances change (see Exodus 23:4).

There is nothing, in my understanding, about Donald Trump’s relationship with others that suggests the true meaning of “love”, and for him to use that word in describing his transactional relationships is a corruption of the idea of love itself.  

Note: The above is taken from my book Finding Your Moral Compass – Jewish Values for the 21^st Century (Toronto: University of Toronto New Jewish Press, 2026) pps. 137-145. Available on Amazon