THE POWER OF GOD’S LOVE
This Dvar Torah was inspired by words from Rabbi David Wolpe
This week’s Torah text centers on a list of God’s direct instructions to follow lest we suffer very harsh consequences. In 2024, we are not called upon to accept these instructions literally because many of them deal with obsolete circumstances, and because even our Talmudic sages 2000 years ago did not then enforce the harsh punishments indicated. Perhaps the Torah in truth sets us up to intentionally expose human reactions that reflect compassion, mercy, and even righteous indignation.
Let us focus on a few choice phrases that actually redirect us from Fear of the Divine to Divine Love. Of course, the iconic phrase in verse 20 of chapter 16: “Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof” – Justice, justice shall you pursue” stands out among the rest, not just on the wall of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s office, but as the ultimate goal of human society. The reality is somewhat more blurry and underplayed at present, helter skelter and out of control in every corner of our world. Still, the phrase begs us towards the politics of civil society and how God can lift us up and make us feel good and whole. Verse 2 of chapter 17 references God’s brit – God’s covenant, an intractable relationship, unlike a business transaction, rather a mutuality that cannot be broken, especially by God. God is present in both joy and sadness, in contentment and in suffering. Our covenant is built and executed by and with God’s unconditional love for us.
According to the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “the irony is that there is nothing like this in the political discourse of the contemporary state of Israel. The politics of Israel is secular in its language and ideas. Its founders were driven by high ideals, but they owed more to Marx, Tolstoy or Nietzsche than to Moses.”
The late Israeli Professor Daniel Elazar wrote that whenever in the past Jews lost their religious vision, or when religion became a divisive rather than a uniting force, eventually they lost their sovereignty also. In four thousand years of history there has never been, in Israel or outside, a sustained secular Jewish survival.
This is not a conversation about the merits and pitfalls of nationalism, nor about the lack of clarity regarding the appropriate relationship of religion and state in a democracy. Here I refer rather to a vision of redemption for all, driven by human initiative. Yet, left to the hoped for human drive for justice, and respect for all humanity, we have not made much progress. So, looking toward a higher power, an unseen and spiritual scaffolding, the sheltering presence of the Divine, may offer us a way to maintain hope and move forward.
Most Jews do not automatically identify God with love, but Judaism abounds with images of intimacy. Why does God choose Israel in the first place? Deuteronomy 7:7-8 tells us quite clearly that “The Eternal chose you … because of love.” That the expression of God’s love seems capricious is not in the nature of God, but in the nature of love. And, we can temper this declaration by insisting that God loves all people, not only Jews.
God is not a human being, whose love for one seems at times to preclude love for another. Divine love can be real, powerful, passionate, and not exclusive. When the rabbis state, repeatedly, that the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come, they are insisting on the non-exclusivity of Divine love. Equally, they insist that God’s love for Israel is real, palpable, and enduring.
According to Rabbi Wolpe, these declarations strike us as jarring, because English is a largely Christian language. “Faith” and “grace” and “love” have Christological connotations to the Jewish ear. Once they are spoken in Hebrew, however, the affirmation of God’s love feels familiar. It is the deliberate design of the morning and evening service. Preceding the Shema, we are told in the morning ahavah rabbah ahavtanu—”with a great love You have loved us.” In the evening, we declare ahavat olam—”with eternal love You have loved the house of Israel.” In response, right after these avowals, we say v’ahavta et Adonai Elohecha—”you shall love the Eternal your God.” Ours is a love-saturated liturgy. We are often not aware that our tradition is rooted in mutual love between ourselves and the Divine.
Love is not an afterthought of life. It is sewn into the fabric of the universe. Why did God create the world? According to Numbers Rabbah (13:6), God was lonely. Since Creation, God has craved closeness with us. We are told that, once the Mishkan, the tabernacle, is built, God will dwell among us. God’s loneliness in the midrash may be the spur for the first comment that God makes about human nature in the Torah: “It is not good for a person to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God knows absolute aloneness. The response to loneliness is love.
I mentioned at the beginning of tonight’s service the phrase “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” – Ani l’dodi v’dodi li (Song of Songs 6:3) that we often hear at Jewish weddings, we inscribe on wedding rings, and also relate to our focus during the pre High Holiday Hebrew month of Elul. Tradition teaches that this phrase found in the biblical book, Song of Songs, is about the love between Israel and God. Rabbi Akiba spoke of the Song of Songs as the holiest book in the Torah because this lyrical love captures God’s relationship to us. All of the Torah is encircled by the metaphor of marriage: Sinai was a huppah and the Torah is a ketubah, a wedding contract. We read the text as a love letter, musing over each turn of phrase, wondering why this was included and that omitted. The relationship between God and Israel is many things—a struggle, a tragedy, a triumph. But most of all, it is a love story.
We are God’s, and God is ours. Each morning, as the traditionally observant worshipper wraps tefillin around the middle finger, the betrothal verse from Hosea (2:19) is recited: “I betrothe you to me forever.” Prayer is called avodah shebalev, service of the heart. We offer our hearts to God as to a lover each morning.
The rabbis of the Talmud expounded on this theme, counting the number of expressions of love God offered to Israel, including cleaving, longing, and desiring (deveikah, hafitzah, and hashikah).
Even suffering, at first glance the greatest argument against God’s love for us, is at times interpreted by the tradition as the very sign of that love. Yissurin shel ahava—”sufferings of love,” are a rabbinic explanation (one of many) for the variety of pain experienced in this world. In human terms, those whom we love often inflict some of the greatest pain in our lives; to love another is to be vulnerable to them and therefore, inevitably, at times to be hurt. There is no ardor without anguish. For the rabbis, love for God ensures that the pain of life, too, will be experienced as an expression of that relationship. And we certainly recognized that combination of exultation and pain when we lose the ones we love.
To be loved is to be the focus of another’s attention. The beloved is always in the mind of the lover. God is always with us: “You have searched me and know me” says Psalm 139. On the High Holidays, God is called zochair kol haniskachot—”the One who remembers everything forgotten.” Such love does not fade with time or end with death. God’s love is forever.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the times when Jews find themselves once again contemplating their relationship to God. It may be as difficult to see passion in reciting ritual or fixed prayer inside a synagogue as it is to see love in doing laundry inside a marriage. But Jewish law, even the humorless itemization of some very unrealistic bad behaviors in this week’s Torah portion, is the concrete expression of a lasting, ardent love. We attune to law on behalf of those whom we cherish and want to protect. As Jews, that means prayer, ritual, study, support of community, acts of loving kindness – all the ways we open our hearts to God. “When I go forth to seek you,” famously written by medieval poet Yehuda Halevi, “I find you seeking me.” God and Israel are lovers, devotedly reaching toward one another in a dance renewed in each yearning generation.
May we open our hearts and souls to this image of love for the sake of healing, hope, and the sustaining of our souls. Amen, and Shabbat shalom.
