This Shabbat coincides with the 15th of Av, of which the
Mishna states: “There were no happier days for Israel
than the 15th of Av and the Day of Atonement, for on
them the daughters of Jerusalem would go forth in white
raiments…to dance in the vineyards. And what did they
say? Young man, lift up your eyes and see what you
would choose for yourself…”(Taanit 4:8). In modern
Israel, the 15th of Av has become popularly known as the
Holiday of Love. In this week’s parasha, Va-ethannan, we
are commanded to love:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)
What does this commandment mean? What is love? How can we be commanded to love? According to Maimonides, love is achieved through study and knowledge:
You know the emphasis that the Torah places upon love “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” The two objects, love and fear of God, are acquired by two different means. Love is the result of the truths taught in the Torah, including the true knowledge of the Existence of God; while fear of God is produced by the practices prescribed in the Torah. (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, III:52)
As opposed to this approach, which views love as an objective achieved by the intellect, and fear as an objective achieved through action, Rabbi Hisdai Crescas (Spain, ca. 1340-1412) viewed love as the human response to Divine love, which is the ultimate love. Love – as an emotion rather than an intellectual achievement – is the basis of our relationship with God, and is the purpose of life. Professor Eliezer Schweid explains:
…According to Crescas’ approach, God is not apprehended as pure “intellect” whose joy is the perfection of His knowledge. God is abounding in love and compassion. He is inherently good, and delights in His acts – in Creation. Man, His creation, the product of His compassion and the receiver of His goodness, owes Him absolute thanks, and man’s thanks are expressed in actions... Just as Creation articulates God’s intention, and is, in that sense, the expression of His love, so actions articulate man’s intention, and if he responds to God in recognition of his debt, then it is the expression of his love. (Eliezer Schweid, Ha-Filosofim Ha-Gedolim Shelanu: Ha-Filosofia Ha-Yehudit Biymei Ha-Benayyim [Our Great Philosophers: Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages], 418.
Love also played a central role in the philosophical thinking of Franz Rosenzweig, who proposed another approach to its realization:
In the framework of his conception that identifies revelation as a love relationship between the I and Thou, Rosenzweig decides that there is a need to distinguish between mitzvah and law as concepts signifying two different types of obligatory norm…mitzvah…reflects an emotional state that may be defined as the desire to act. This is the state that, according to Rosenzweig, is aroused when the I senses that God’s call to it, in a moment of its fleeting existence, fills its soul to “overflowing” with infinite compassion. As in every relationship of true love, it is not a moment of discretion, but rather the soul hears the mitzvah depart the lips of the lover, and immediately desires – or more accurately, is compelled – to obey. (Joseph Turner, Faith and Humanism: A Study in Franz Rosenzweig’s Religious Philosphy, 128 (in Hebrew).
- Do the Bible and the Jewish philosophers use the concept of “love” in the same way that we do? How are they similar and how are they different?
- Can a person be commanded to love? Do the philosophers present approaches for overcoming that difficulty?
- Professor Yochanan Muffs wrote:
In rabbinic literature, we often find the cliché be’ahava u-verason, which in many places can only mean “given freely and willingly.” This cliché is most common in the liturgy. In the Qiddush we read, Be’ahava u-verason hinhaltanu,” “You have given us [the Sabbath] as a gift of love given willingly”…In all these contexts, ‘ahava, “love,” seems clearly to have the same semantic range as rason, “will” (Yochanan Muffs, Love & Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel, 186-187).
Do the examples brought by Professor Muffs help us understand what loving God might mean?
