Lomed Mkol Adam-
I apologize, I didn’t explain myself properly. My point is that love – the emotion, is as I interpreted MP, emotional obsession. It means to like something or someone to the point of obsession. This emotion does not have to lead to something good, it can lead to something bad too. Therefore I am simply trying to say that you cannot call love something which is by nature, good. It is neutral, like all emotions, and purely self-serving.
There is a love which is selfless as I noted previously, but that is love – the action; the commitment to give selflessly. Although a person’s obsession of another might spark that commitment, the commitment isn’t the obsession, it is one possible natural outgrowth of that obsession.
We started with a disagreement on whether there are inborn feelings in a person which are by nature good. You cited love as something which is by nature good. I have merely been trying to challenge that assertion.
If the Torah dictates in certain circumstances an act which runs contrary to these natural feelings, how does this prove that the Torah delegitimizes these feelings and does not consider them “tov”/good?
It does not show that they are bad, but it shows that they are not absolutely good. The most simple approach to take is that they are neutral, and can be acted upon in healthy and unhealthy ways.
Either way, I have already cited examples where the pesukim explicitly refer to a person’s love in situations that were completely illicit. This should be sufficient proof that the emotion of ???? does not refer to something any more “good” than any other emotion.
MiddlePath-
My pleasure. I enjoy this type of discussion, so thank you for opening the thread!