Love is in the air. And while Valentine’s Day has its roots in Catholic tradition, and even earlier in pagan mythology, today we are going to talk about love and healthy relationships.

This has been an odd Valentine’s Day week. Three Jewish organizations have wanted me to do programming for Valentine’s Day. And perhaps that is an interesting commentary on assimilation, but that is a discussion for another day.

Yet is a far different cry from the year I worked for a synagogue that was renting space to a parachoical day school and the rabbi went through the building tearing child-made Valentine’s off the school bulletin boards.

American Jewish World Service, where I am a Global Justice Fellow asked me to ask my congregation to make Valentine’s for Senator Kirk. Why? Because he has been instrumental for his sponsorship of the International Violence Against Women Act. Tuesday night the women who gathered for our own sisterhood program on Love Poetry, did precisely that and the Valentines from throughout the Illinois will be hand-delivered on Thursday to his Chicago office.

There are many kinds of love. The Bible itself actually shows us some.

One story reads like a Hollywood script. Isaac is meditating in the field. He lifts up his eyes. He sees Rebecca. She alights from her camel. OK—she falls off her camel. Isaac took Rebecca to his mother’s tent and he loved her. The first time the word, ahava, love is used in the Torah. He was comforted by her after his mother, Sarah, had died.

We are told to honor our father and mother. To love our neighbor as ourselves. To love G-d with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our might. Each of these tells us about a different kind of love. Love of parents. Love of neighbor. Love of G-d.

But we have other examples of love gone awry. Abraham threw away Ishmael and then tried to sacrifice Isaac. He died alone, not able to reconcile with his two sons.

Cain killed Abel because he thought that G-d couldn’t love both of them. He was afraid there wasn’t enough love to go around. We have similar issues of sibling rivalry with Jacob and Esau. We have Issac loving Esau and Rebecca loving Jacob. They are playing favorites. Again, there seems to not be enough love to go around. This continues with Jacob favoring Joseph with that famous Technicolor dream coat. So much that Joseph’s brothers want to kill him. They leave him in a well for dead and then sell him into slavery.

We are not able to legislate a feeling. You can’t make someone love someone else, but this morning’s portion, called Mishpatim, laws and many of the subsequent ones are about how set up a society based on trust. It tells us to take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the most marginalized among us.

Taken together, the laws in the Torah teach us how to live in a relationship.Taken together, they teach us that there is enough love to go around.  Every day we thank G-d for G-d’s love of us, for giving us Torah, for setting those limits, like a parent does for a child. Then we pledge to love G-d with all our heart, soul and might. And teach those very words diligently to our own children.

Jewish Women International declared that this Shabbat is Shabbat L’Amour, the Sabbath of Love. We at Congregation Kneseth Israel are participating as part of this approach. What does our Jewish tradition teach us about healthy relationships? How can we prevent violence in our own lives.

We began this conversation last night. One woman correctly said that it begins with finding inner peace. We talked about Shalom Aleichem, the song to welcome Shabbat, greeting the angels of Shabbat and each other.

Rabbi Susan Shankman teaches the classic midrash about this song: every Friday night, Jews are accompanied home from synagogue by two angels. When the angels arrive, if everything is prepared, the table is set, the house is clean, and the family dressed for Shabbat, the good angel says, “So may it be next Shabbat,” and the evil angel is obligated to say, “Amen.” If, however, the home is in disarray, the food burnt, and the family not ready to greet the Sabbath – or, even worse, engaged in arguments – the evil angel says, “So may it be next Shabbat,” and the good angel is obligated to say, “Amen.”

But she adds an important piece: It is worth noting that neither angel says, “May it always be so.” The phrase, “So may it be next Shabbat” reminds us that the possibility of real change exists at all times. Indeed each and every Shabbat gives us the opportunity to be inspired to make a distinction between the ordinary and the sacred. Each week we are given the chance to devote new energy toward creating peace.

Then using JWI’s conversation guide we talked about what Shalom Bayit looks like in our own home. We asked how we can ensure our relationships, our romantic ones and non-romantic ones can be blessed from week to week. And we talked about what we want to bless our children with—peace, love, happiness, a good night’s sleep, the gift of a good name and living up to that good name.

Shabbat can help us create those blessings, including Shalom Bayit. It is the pause that refreshes. It is, as we sing in V’shamru, the sign of the covenant between G-d and the children of Israel for all time. It is a sign of G-d’s love for us. We are told to keep the Sabbath, to guard it, to make it holy. We used to observe the Sabbath by offering special sacrifices in the Holy Temple. We no longer have the Temple today but we still make the time and space of Shabbat holy. Part of how we do that is by making our own homes a mikdash me’at, a little Temple, a sanctuary, by creating festive meals and gathering around the table. By setting aside the time. By lighting candles and making Kiddush.

Rabbi Seth Winberg points out that we are good at guarding our houses. We are attentive to fixing leaks and cracks, cleaning the kitchen. But guarding our homes is about more than the physical integrity. It is about that shalom bayit. The Haftarah this morning also talked about this. People would give money to the priests to make the repairs needed to the Temple. They were not necessarily doing them. They violated the people’s trust. The king had to step in and restore that trust, that shalom bayit. He needed to heal a relationship that was broken. That is never easy.

Many of us have a mezuzah on the door to our homes. Some kiss it on the way in; some on the way out. This visible sign serves as a reminder to speak about the words of Torah at home and on the way, when we lie down and when we rise up. Recently we added one to the door to the garage. Why? Because that is the way we usually go in and out. It is a physical sign to leave the outside world with all of its busy-ness, hurriedness, petty arguments, heavy baggage outside and to concentrate on creating that sanctuary inside our home. We are also trying to put our electronic devices down through meals—again trying to concentrate on each other and create that holy space, that mikdash me’at.

In some families, at that festive Shabbat table, they read Eshet Chayil, from Proverbs 31:10-31. It begins, “A Woman of Valor, who can find, for her price is far above rubies.” In our house we use it as a check list. Yes, I gave food to my workers. Yes, I rose while it was still night. Yes, I reached out my hands to the needy. No, despite its beauty, I still fear when it snows (and yes, I am worried about the blizzard affecting Boston this weekend). No I don’t always open my mouth with kindness. That is the one that is the hardest for me to work on. And if I could consistently, that mikdash me’at would be much more holy.

My mother, the feminist, hated this reading. She felt it objectified women. So we did not use it at her funeral, although it is used at many and is midrashically linked as Abraham’s eulogy for Sarah. I disagreed with my mother.

The woman portrayed in Eshet Chayil, is a accomplished, active, modern woman. She buys property, invests her money, manages the home and takes care of the children and her husband who rise up and call her blessed. They show their love and devotion to her.

It is an opportunity as well for the man of the house to express publically that he cherishes his wife. To appreciate her. In our house we also read part of Psalm One, praising the man of the house, so that there is a parallel opportunity to express appreciation.

Jewish Women International asked some important questions about Eshet Chayil in their guide for Shabbat L’Amour. Do you feel valued and appreciated? For what would you like to be acknowledged? How can you convey that to your partner, colleagues and friends? Is it difficult to receive a compliment? Do you say thank you or it was nothing? How does your response affect the person giving the compliment? What is so hard about receiving praise?

The guide contains several useful tools from our tradition for creating this sense of peace. Baking challah. Preparing a meal and even doing the dishes together so no one is unduly burdened. It is centered around peace, gratitude and renewal. I remember fondly the rabbi at Tufts saying, “Eat s l o w l y. It’s Shabbes.”

Today was also Shabbat Shekelim, one of the special Sabbaths with an extra reading. Essentially a census taking and a half-shekel tax, it tells the Israelites that they need to stand up and be counted.

Later in the day, I stood up and was counted. At the Gail Borden Library, I stood and I danced and I prayed as part of The Long Red Line. We wove a long red line of scarves. We marched through the rotunda of the library to say never again. We were over 100 strong. We were a coalition of the Community Crisis Center, Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders, the Elgin Police Department, the Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice, Elgin Community College and the YWCA to name some of us. It is part of a wider international movement, One Billion Rising. One in three women experience violence against them. That is one billion women worldwide. I am one of those women. I am a survivor. I am lucky. I had people all along the way teach me how to survive. I have become a success story and so I speak out and tell others that they too can survive. And I pray that it does not happen to any other women, even as I know it does and it will. So I act.

So I  rise to say NO MORE. Violence is never OK.

This is the prayer that I wrote and I read:

We rise.
We rise and we pray.
We pray and we march.
Our feet are praying.

We pray and we rise.

For the victims of violence everywhere.
For the women and the girls,
The men and the boys.
For the survivors of violence.
We pray for the survivors.

For the courage.
For the courage we need.
To put one foot in front of another
Just to survive
For the courage to rise
To stand up and be counted
To speak up
To say that violence is not the answer
Violence is not OK
Violence is never OK.

We rise and we pray.

But rising and praying is not enough.
It is the first step.
It is only the first step.

We rise and we pray that we act.

We pledge to act:
To end child abuse.
To end child marriage
To end the dehumanization of women
To end rape
To end domestic violence.
To end violence

We pray and we rise.

Please join with me as we take that first step. We rise, with one billion other people, all over the world. We join our feet, our hands with them as we put our fingers in the air. We are one billion rising. Amen.

Then we stood, with our single fingers in the air. It felt like all the pieces of my life were coming together as one. It was a very powerful moment. And we took the first step forward. What are the steps you can take?

• You can begin at home, by creating a holy space, a mikdash me’at, filled with shalom bayit, peace of the house.
• You can create holy time, celebrating Shabbat.
• You can appreciate the people around you and remember to say thank you.
• You can create an attitude of gratitude.
• You can model how be in healthy relationships, with parents, with children, with partners, with communities, with congregations and with G-d.
• You can tell people that you love them.
• You can know that you are lovable. That you are loved.
• You can join others in coalitions such as One Billion Rising, Jewish Women International, American Jewish World Service, the Community Crisis Center.
• You can sign the petition asking Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act. https://secure.ajws.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=661
• If you are a victim or survivor, reach out for help. Contact the Community Crisis Center’s 24 hour a day hotline. http://www.crisiscenter.org at 847 697 4088. They have amongst the most talented crisis counselors I have ever worked with.

What a good way to celebrate Valentine’s Day from within a Jewish context. Love. It is in the air. Now off to enjoy dinner and a movie with my husband, snuggled by the fire. A rare evening at home. Grateful for heat, and light and warmth, good food and a loving husband.