Loss: When fate invites us to an impossible love

Source: An invitation to love the unbearable

"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that a person should not want anything to be different, not forward, not backward, not for all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, and even less to conceal it - all idealism is a lie in the face of what is necessary - but to love it."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 1888

Explanation: Love of fate: A philosophy of total embrace

Amor fati—love of fate. Nietzsche isn't offering some philosophical spin that loss is “actually good,” or that there is a grander plan. He is proposing something far more radical: to love the loss just as it is, as part of life as it is, without hesitation. Not “it’s okay that I suffered this loss,” but “it’s good that I suffered this loss, because it is an inseparable part of who I am.” This is unconditional love—not for God, not for a human being, but for reality as a whole, including the pain, the fear, the loss. Nietzsche links this to the concept of eternal return: imagine living this life over and over again, exactly the same, forever. Could you love even the most terrible moments?

Perspective: Between the superhuman demand and human compassion

Nietzsche is demanding a superhuman feat from us. To love loss and make peace with it—to revere it, embrace it, and say that if I could turn back the clock, this is what I would choose. This is either a philosophy for someone already completely broken, or a romanticization by someone who has never truly been hurt. Can a father who lost a daughter truly love her death? Can a widow truly welcome the fact that her husband is no longer here? In the reality of bereavement, betrayal, or illness, such a belief is not just impossible—it is undesirable. Pain isn't something to love; it is something to endure. In Jewish law, for a joyful occasion one recites Shehecheyanu [the blessing of gratitude for reaching this moment], and over tragedy, one recites Baruch Dayan HaEmet (“Blessed is the true Judge”)—meaning, we accept the verdict, but no one can expect us to see it as good.

Yet there is a kernel of truth in Nietzsche that is hard to ignore. Amor fati is not a love of loss, but surrender in a war that has already ended. You cannot love the death of a daughter, but you can stop obsessing over the question “Why?” and start focusing on “What now?” It is a move from “waging war against loss” to “living despite loss.”

Going Deeper: Rabbi Akiva and Nietzsche: Two perspectives on the inevitable

The Talmudic story about Rabbi Akiva (Berakhot 60b) describes a similar situation. Rabbi Akiva, a disciple of Nahum of Gamzu, used to say: “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for good.” Once, he arrived at a town and found the gates locked; his candle blew out, and his donkey and cat died—and even then, he offers a blessing. In the end, it turns out that each “disaster” saved his life. But this is not truly love of fate—it is the belief that fate is ultimately good. Nietzsche, like Nahum of Gamzu, does not suggest this. He doesn't say “it will work out”; he says “even if it doesn't work out, I love it.”

Culture: Let it be, or ask for change? Two songs, two paths

In 1970, the Beatles released “Let It Be,” a song describing suffering, hardship, and loss, meeting them along two axes: let it be, throw your hands up, and wait for Mary, the mother of the Christian Messiah, to explain it all to you. Naomi Shemer famously set out to translate the song, but turned it into a Jewish story, far removed from the original Beatles track. In Shemer's version, there is no resignation to fate, and no Mother Mary speaking words of wisdom, but rather gratitude for the good and a plea regarding the bad, that we may endure and mend it. The only death in her song is nothing more than: “If your soul yearns to die / from blooming and harvesting”—the soul departing toward goodness and beauty, not the evil and cruel. All that we ask—may it be.