“And you shall love The Lord your God With all your heart, all your soul and all your might.”
When Moses commanded this to the nation of Israel it must have cracked their human minds right open. And ever since then people have tried to do their best to understand what that love looks like practically. When they were asked to put together a tabernacle for their God, they looked at it as a sort of a perimeter that finally made sense. When they were given all 613 mitzvot (commandments) on how to approach the tabernacle, what to touch and not touch, how to cleanse themselves, how to select what they brought as offerings, etc, things finally made sense. They thought, 'aha! This is how we shall love this God that has brought us out of Egypt!' And so for many centuries they've learned all the little rituals, thought and rethought every rule and even came up with more. Then King David thought to himself, 'I shall build Him a house!' Little did he know that God would say, 'I don't need a house, but if you insist, let your son build me one because you have too much blood on your hands.' (I am paraphrasing of course, so do refrain from writing me messages :) ) They build Him a house. For sure now this complicated God will interpret that as love. Be happy with Your space and rejoice in the blood that we're spilling in Your Name every day, what more do You want? Apparently God still didn't feel loved. He destroys His house and sends them into exile. He forgives them and allows them to come back. Maybe now they got it. They start to repair the house of The Lord. It's not great, but they can't help it. Then Herod comes along and makes it quite majestic. For sure now God is happy. But He wasn't. They were still not getting it. No matter how much He taught them through His messengers, no matter how many Torah scrolls they had, no matter how many rabbis were explaining said scrolls, they still didn't get it. They still didn't know how to love Him. So God sends His beloved Son. Surely now they will understand. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” They should have recognized Him right then and there. But they were blind that it was Him: The God obsessed with being loved. He watched them, the ones that were responsible with His very heart and as a lover telling His beloved a secret, continued, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is how you should love Me, by loving those made in My image.
In Elie Wiesel's book, Day, there is a question that I really like.
'You can love God, but you can't look at Him.' (…)
'Whom do you look at when you love God?', she asked after a moment of silence. 'Yourself?'
'If man could contemplate the face of God, he would stop loving Him. God needs love, He does not need understanding.'”
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” 'Whom do you look at when you love God?'
by Cristina Pop
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