How to Love God and Ourselves at the Same Time?

Shabbat Shuva, 5769

Shmuel Herzfeld

Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzatto writes in the introduction to his classic work Mesillat Yesharim: “Ha-ahavah kemo keyn. Im lo nishtadel likboa otah bilvaveinu be-koach k o l ha-emtzaim ha-megeim otanu lazeh, eikh nimtzah vanu? And likewise, love of God. If we do not make an effort to anchor it within our hearts, with the power of all those means that lead us toward it, then how will it exist within us?”

His point is very simple, yet very profound. If we do not work at teaching ourselves how to love then how will we can expect to attain and sustain love in our hearts?

I was recently talking with a friend of mine named, Alford McMichael. Or, I should say it more correctly, Sergeant Major Alford McMichael. Alford had risen from being an impoverished boy in a home without a father to become the first ever African-American Sergeant Major. In his career he had often filled the role as drill Sergeant to the new Marines.

I said to Alford, “The Marines are known for being the toughest men in town. What do you say to your new recruits when you line them up for the very first time? Do you get right up in their faces and scream at them and break them down?” “Just the opposite,” he said. I tell them, “Before you can love others adequately, you must love yourself completely.”

I really liked that a lot. So I kept repeating it to myself. Finally, I asked him if he made that up or if he read that somewhere. He said, “I got it from a book by a rabbi which I read many years ago.”

The commandment to love another is perhaps the most important and basic commandment of the entire Torah. On one level there is a commandment to love another person. Rabbi Akiva said, “Veahavtah le-reaikhah kamokhah z e h klal gadol ba-torah, loving your friend like you love yourself is a great principle of the Torah.” And on another level there is the commandment to love God. This is a basic commandment which we repeat four times a day in our prayers.

Veahavtah et Hashem Elokechah Bechol Levavkhah uve-khol bafshekhah u-ve-khol meodekhah, and you shall love Hashem your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:6)

The commandment to love Hashem is axiomatic to our religion. The commandment is the central commandment of the Shema prayer which has become the most known paragraph of all of our prayers. Every night as we put our children to sleep, we chant this prayer with them. In doing so, we tell them that we love them and we remind them that they are required to love Hashem.

In return, we are reminded over and over again that God loves us. In Psalm 27, which we recite morning and evening during the days of awe we declare, “Even though my father and mother will forsake me, God will draw me in.” So too, we declare in our liturgy that God blesses us “with love.”

But we wonder about this mitzvah. There is a well known question about this mitzvah: How can God command us to love? Love is an emotion and how can an emotion be commanded. A deed can be commanded, that is something you do. But an emotion, that is a feeling and how can someone be caused to feel something?

I feel that the answer to this question will enable us to focus our actions and our prayers in preparation for Yom Kippur.

This question directly relates to the High Holidays for the requirement to improve how one loves God is a responsibility that is part and parcel of the idea of repentance (teshuvah).

We will address this issue as it has been discussed by our rabbinic commentators over the centuries.

I.

Maimonides directly links the obligation to love God with the mitzvah of teshuvah. He does this in his last chapter of Hilchot Teshuvah (chapter 10):

Here is the relevant chapter:

1) One should not think to oneself that one will fulfill the commandments of the Torah and occupy oneself in its wisdom in order to receive the blessings mentioned therein, or to merit life in the World To Come, and to avoid the transgressions against which the Torah warns in order to be saved from the curses mentioned therein, or in order not to be cut off from life in the World To Come, for it is not fitting to serve God in this manner. Anyone who does serve in this manner is doing so out of fear. This was not the [spiritual] level of the Prophets and Sages. Only ignoramuses, women and children serve in this manner, for they are educated to do so until their knowledge has increased sufficiently so that they will serve out of love.

2) Anyone who serves out of love and occupies himself with Torah and mitzvot and follows the ways of wisdom should not do so for any earthly reason[s] or out of fear of the curses or to receive the blessings, but should fulfill the truth because it is the truth. Out of this he will receive goodness. This level is a very high one, and not every wise person attains it. This is the level of Abraham the Patriarch, whom God called His `friend', for the reason that he served God solely out of love. This is a level which God commanded, via Moses, us [to attain], as it is written, "And you shall love the Lord your God". Once a person loves God appropriately, he will fulfill the commandments out of love.

3) What is appropriate love? This is an extremely strong and profound love of God, so that one's soul is committed to the love of God and that one will be so preoccupied with it that one will appear to be lovesick, in which one's mind is perpetually occupied at all times with a particular woman. Apart from this, one's love of God has to be absolute and continuous, as we have been commanded: "...with all your heart and with all your soul". Solomon said by way of example, "For I am sick with love". The entire Song of Songs is exemplary of this concept [of the love of God].

4) The first Sages said that to prevent us from [falling into the trap of] learning Torah in order to become rich or to be called a Rabbi or to be rewarded in the World To Come, the Torah says, "...to love the Lord your God", i.e. all that one does should be done purely out of love. The Sages said further that the verse, "Happy is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments" refers to the commandments, and not to the reward. In this vein, the greater Sages commanded just their wiser students and told them not to be like a servant who serves his master solely for payment, but to be like a servant whose attitude is that because his master is the master it is fitting to serve him, i.e. to serve purely out of love.

5) Anyone who occupies himself with Torah in order to receive reward or to prevent any troubles is not doing so for the sake of it, whereas anyone who does so out of love for the Master of this world, and not with any ulterior motives, is doing so for the sake of it. The Sages said that one should always occupy oneself with Torah even if not for the sake of it, for out of doing so not for the sake of it one will come to doing so for the sake of it. Therefore, when one is teaching children, women and ignoramuses one should teach them to serve God out of fear and inn order to be rewarded. As their knowledge increases and they become more wise, we reveal this `secret' to them bit by bit and accustom them to this concept in repose until they totally understand it, and will serve out of love.

6) It is a known matter that the love of God is not permanent in a man's heart until he attunes himself to it appropriately, as we have been commanded, "...and with all your heart and with all your soul". One loves God only as one thinks fit, and one's love should be according to one's temperament, i.e. the extent of one's love should be as one sees fit. Therefore, one has to discipline oneself to understand the wisdom and reasonings (bechachmot vetuvuot) to the full extent of one's abilities to do so, as explained in the Laws of The Basic Principles of The Torah.

By choosing to end the laws of Repentance with this chapter which focuses on love of God, Maimonides is clearly signaling to us that the goal of repentance is acquire a deep love of God.

At first glance, we might question what does love of God have to do with repentance, but on further reflection it makes perfect sense. The biggest problem of a sin is not the threat of a possible punishment but the gap it causes us in our relationship with God. The more we sin, the more distant we grow from Hashem. So once we repent, we are able to grow closer to Hashem and feel His love.

According to Maimonides, when one loves God, one has achieved the highest level of serving God. His description of what such love will feel like is a romantic description and it sets for us a goal of what we should try to attain over the yamim noraim.

But how does he recommend that we acquire such a love for God? Implicitly, by the contextual placement of this chapter, we can understand that he is arguing that when one truly repents they will acquire a proper love of Hashem. But it is surely noteworthy that he never mentions that explicitly in this chapter. Instead, he offers a different approach.

In law 6, Maimonides says that one acquires love of Hashem through study of the “wisdoms and reasonings as explained in the laws of yesodei ha-torah.”

There (Laws of Yesodei Hatorah 2:2), Maimonides is more explicit in what exactly is required:

What is the way to love and fear God? Whenever one contemplates the great wonders of God's works and creations, and one sees that they are a product of a wisdom that has no bounds or limits, one will immediately love, laud and glorify [God] with an immense passion to know the Great Name, like David has said, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God". When one thinks about these matters one will feel a great fear and trepidation, and one will know that one is a low and insignificant creation, with hardly an iota of intelligence compared to that of God, like David has said, "When I observe Your heavens, the work of Your fingers...what is man, that You are heedful of him?". Bearing these things in mind, I shall explain important concepts of the Creator's work, as a guide to understanding and loving God. Concerning this love the Sages said that from it you will come to know God.

Following this approach of Maimonides, one achieves the greatest love of God by contemplating the nature of the world and understanding the cosmos. This is a Universalist approach and allows the love of God to be shared equally by Jew and Gentile.

We then see that Maimonides is arguing for the following stages of repentance. One should confess his sins and repent. Once one does that one should feel a desire to achieve closeness with God. The closeness that one should aim for is a deep love of Hashem. The love of Hashem can most fully be realized through contemplation of the wonders of the world.

Practically speaking, for our purposes those of us who want to increase our love of God in these days should spend time on contemplating the wonders of the world. That might mean reading books of general science or philosophy or visiting zoos and museums. The goal is to increase our awareness of how God’s world works so that we can declare, “Mah rabu maasekhah Hashem, how great are your works O God.” God you are so great. We love you so much.

II.

A more particularistic approach to the question of how one can acquire a love for God is offered by the Sefer HaChinuch, (anonymous, 13th c. Spain). Sefer Hachinuch is a collection of all of the mitzvoth of the Torah clearly explained.

Here is how he writes about the mitzvah of ahavat Hashem, loving Hashem. He quotes the following rabbinic teaching (mitzvah, 418):

In the language of the Midrash Sifre: While it is stated, and you shall love, I do not know how a man is to love the omnipresent God; hence Scripture states, And these words which I command you this day shall be on your heart: for as a result of this you will “recognize” the One who spoke and the world came into existence. In other words, with reflection-understanding in the Torah, the love of God settles perforce in his heart.

In other words, the more one delves into Torah study, the more knowledge one gains about God. The more one immerses in the sea of Torah, the more appreciation of the world and of God. Thus, the study of Torah directly leads to greater love of God.

According to the Chinuch our direction for these days of teshuvah is very clear. We should increase our Torah study. If we were studying once a week, we should try for twice. We should increase both the quality and the quantity of our Torah study. In doing so, we will acquire more love for God.

One reason why Torah study increases love of God is because it gives us more knowledge of Him and the more knowledge we have of Him, the more we love Him. But on another level, Torah study increases our love for God even if we do not directly gain any more concrete knowledge of Hashem.

Just the fact that we are immersed in God’s mitzvoth will increase our love for God. The more we do for another, the more we love the other. Ben Franklin was reported to have said, “If you want someone to love you, then don’t do a favor for them, but rather, ask them to do a favor for you.” So too, in our case, the more we do what God wants us to do, which is to study Torah, the more our love for God will grow as a consequence of our actions.

III.

A unique approach to the question of how one must love Hashem is that of Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague (1512-1609), also known as Maharal of Prague. Maharal is one of our most innovative thinkers whose thought and theology influenced Hassidic thought and well as late Kabbalistic thought.