Vayeitze

‎Our parsha details how Yaakov made a deal with Lavan that he would work for his daughter, Rachel, for seven years & then he would get to marry her ‎. After Yaakov worked seven years, the posuk tells us regarding those years ויהיו בעיניו כימים אחדים באהבתו אתה, and they seemed like a few days because of his love for her.

How do we understand that?  We all know that when we want something & have to wait for it,‎ each day seems to take forever; so how did seven years seem like a few days? Just  the opposite would make sense. 

Harav Eliyahu Lopian explained as follows , a person sits down to a meal & the chef asks what do you want to eat? The man answers, “I really love fish”, so the chef goes to the kitchen to prepare the fish for him.

There was a simple fellow sitting nearby who heard this exchange. He thought that this man who loved fish was waiting for someone to bring him a tank of water with fish inside so he could watch them,  feed them & enjoy being with his "loved ones ". How shocked was this simple fellow when he saw that they brought a big fish on a plate & this man who claims to love fish, sticks his knife & fork in it, starts cutting up the fish, puts it into his mouth & chews & eats the fish! The  simple man turns to the other man & says " is this what you do to the ones you love?? It can't be that you really love fish, for if you did you would never treat them this way!” 

In reality, he's correct.  If the man really loved fish, then he would never have them served to him as food. So, what does he love? He loves himself & enjoys the taste of fish. Since he loves himself, he treats himself to the fish.  

Continued Rav Lopian, most people make a mistake in what the word love means. ‏ Most people think ‎that love is a pleasant feeling that fills a person when he finds a person who ‎ defines himself as your friend. However that's not true. True love is wanting to do for a friend; one wants to keep giving & doing all good for him. Rav Dessler explained that when two people have a good connection, it's when they reach the level of giving, when each one just wants to give to the other. If one is just looking out for himself & says, “hey, I did this for you, now you have to do this for me”. That is love that won't last. 

‎The only time that it feels like forever when one is waiting for something, is if it's something one wants for his own enjoyment. Then a person can't wait to get it. However, the love Yaakov had for Rochel was true love that he wanted to give to her. He wasn’t looking to take.  Since this was a pure love, the years seemed to fly by like just a few days . 

‎There are three different forms of love taught in the Torah. This story is the first, teaching us the way a husband & wife should love each other. The second is ואהבת לרעך כמוך,  where it says to love your friend like yourself & the third is teaching us a love for Hashem ‏, ואהבת את ה אלקיך

This, says הרב עמיאל, is like a ‏threefold thread that's not easily broken. If one is missing, the other two won't stand. He says that they go in order; first a person has to have love for his wife & family & only after that he could come to love everybody else. Only after a person has the love for his wife & then for all other people can he begin to come to loving Hashem ‎. We have to learn from here how to treat our spouse, to always be the one to give. After we master that, we can go on to help out other people & then finally come to the ultimate love - the love for Hashem!