In the Hebrew Bible we are often told “to love” God, such as
“Love (AHB) the Lord, all you faithful? (Ps. 31: 24), or “You shall love (AHB) the
Lord your God” (Deut. 6: 5).
Here we can raise two issues: 1. Can you command love? , and
2. Even though some people easily understand that one can “love” a spouse, a
child, even a country, many have a hard time conceptualizing what it means to
“love” God.
Historically speaking, the concept of “loving” God comes
from the treaty terminology of the Ancient Near East, and simply means “to be
loyal to.” Especially in ancient Anatolia,
many Hittite rulers signed treaties with their vassals requiring them to “love”
their overlord. Similarly, in the Amarna letters we find that Rib-Abdi of Byblos
stating that the city is divided into two: “half of it loves the sons of
Abdi-Ashirta, and the other half (loves) my lord” (EA 138:71-73), or in the Vassal
Treaties of Esarhaddon we read: “If you do not love the crown prince designate,
Ashurbanipal,….”(here some curses follow; See ANET, 537). We have a reflection
of this meaning in the Hebrew Bible, when it states that “Hiram [King of Tyre] loved
(AHB) David always” (I K 5: 15). The Latin-Vulgate translation uses here the
term “amicus” [friendly]. In the Canaanite Akkadian of Amarna, the verb ramu,
the functional equivalent of AHB, meant “to favor.” So, in the past, “to love” primarily
meant “to be loyal.” It had nothing to do with the emotional content that the
verb “love” implies today.
What about in Jewish sources? In the early ones, such the
Talmud, to “love” God simply meant to study rabbinic texts, minister to
scholars, and generally do God’s will by carrying out the Mitzvot (See, for ex.
Yoma 86a). During the medieval times, the mystics (like Bahya ibn Pakuda)
stressed that to “love” God is to have an intense longing for the nearness of
God and a desire for communion with God, whereas many rationalists argued that
“loving God” simply means to have a knowledge of God. Maimonides puts it this
way: “According to the knowledge so the love” (Mishne Torah, Repentance 10: 6).
What about us today? I maintain that, even though love
cannot be commanded, actions leading to love can be ordered. As W.G. Plaut’s Torah
Commentary puts it, “Each Mitzvah [commandment] done in the right spirit is an
act of loving God” (p. 1211). Thus, our practice of Judaism must be done in the
highest spirit of loyalty to our Jewish tradition, a tradition that should be
maintained, strengthened and, at times, adapted to the needs of our times. Our
prayers must be offered with devotion, our holidays observed with appropriate
joy, and our rituals carried out with a sense of reality and necessary
re-interpretation to make them relevant to our needs today.
As to the second issue, I am more comfortable with the
Maimonidean rationalistic approach that states that thinking and studying about
God is to love God. In my non-theistic view, to love God is to find out what
God stands for. This is manifested in the commitment we make to discover of the
mysteries the universe, and the realization that we stand in awe before the awesome
energy, namely God, that keeps it going.
How do we get there? Hassidic masters have taught us that
the Torah commands us three times to love; twice our neighbors (Lev. 19: 18,
34) and then God (Deut. 6: 5). We love humans first and then we love God. Not
the other way around. Only after we have learned how to love people can we come
to the “love”-namely, the understanding and appreciation of God.
Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
Nov. 2016
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Books by Rifat Sonsino:
FINDING GOD (URJ; Behrman House)
THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman
House)
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE? (URJ; Behrman
House)
DID MOSES REALLY HAVE HORNS? (URJ;
Behrman House)
SIX JEWISH SPIRITUAL PATHS (Jewish
Lights; Turner)
THE MANY FACES OF GOD (URJ; Behrman
House)
AND GOD SPOKE THESE WORDS (Commentary
on the Decalogue; URJ; Behrman House)
VIVIR COMO JUDIO (Palibrio)
MODERN JUDAISM (Cognella)
MOTIVE CLAUSES IN HEBREW LAW (Scholars
Press)
