We have entered this week into what appears to be a “barren month” – Cheshvan - a month with no holidays or even a fast day for relief. But it can be perceived as a month pregnant with potential and promise if we approach it as demanding us to stand alone in our relationship with God – to stand in the world as descendents of Avraham and Sarah, true lovers of God.
What does it mean to be a true lover of God? Is it different or similar to the love that we have experienced in our own lives? Think of those you love - whether objects, animals or human beings. Recall the feeling of being loved. Do we love God in that way? Do we feel loved by God in that way? Is love an emotion that we naturally connect to the narrative of our relationship with God?
I find it perplexing (pun intended) how the Rambam’s (R’ Moshe ben Maimon, 1135 – 1205) notion of loving God shifts within the first book of The Mishneh Torah – his Code of Law. First in “the Laws of the Foundation of the Torah” and closing with “the Laws of Teshuvah (Repentance)”
He starts us off, in Chapter 2 of “The Laws of the Foundation of the Torah,” noting “Loving God” – Ahavat Ha-Shem - as an imperative – we are obligated to love God! Loving God is paired with fearing God:
1) It is a commandment to love and revere the venerable and feared Almighty, for it is written, "And you shall love the Lord your God", and it is also written, "You shall fear the Lord your God".
2) 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… 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 one will come to know “He Who Spoke The World Into Being”
This love stems from contemplation that leads to an acknowledgement of the greatness of God. My challenge to the Rambam here would be twofold –
A. Is there not a danger that a love that stems from the greatness of one partner can diminish the greatness of the other? Do we, as human beings, risk that this kind of love for God comes at the expense of our own sense of self and that, ultimately, will paralyze us?
B. What kind of love is the Rambam offering us, when the outcome of it is “When one thinks about these matters one will feel a great fear and trepidation…” While he holds on to the notion of passion, one must still question a love that leads to fear.
When sitting with a Torah portion that asks of us to walk, Lech Lecha – “go on your behalf” (Rashi, R. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105) or “go to yourself” (the Ba’al Shem Tov, 1700 – 1760); when walking in the footsteps of Avraham who “walked with God,” we can ask, what does it mean to walk with a God that we’re meant to love in such a way?
It will take the Rambam a full book to come back again to the love of God and the beginning of a way to look at this question.
In the concluding chapter of “the Laws of Repentance” the Rambam offers a description of love that is more familiar (in regard to people) than we might be willing to admit:
3) What is appropriate love? This is an extremely strong and profound love of God, so that one's soul is bound 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. Beyond 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].
Consider the tradition of reading one chapter a day of the Rambam’s “Laws of Repentance” during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (the ten days of repentance beginning on Rosh Ha-Shanah and concluding on Yom Kippur). In embracing this tradition one would read this description of love on Yom Kippur! It may be that the love of God described in the first chapter of “the Laws of the Foundation of the Torah” is the love of Rosh Ha-Shanah, but it is the love of the tenth chapter of “the Laws of Repentance” that finds us on Yom Kippur, offering us a relationship with God that can not only change us but bring us alive in a way unknown to us before.
If the first form of loving God brings us to knowing God, the latter form of loving God enables us to know more of ourselves. While not being blind to the danger of infatuation that is inherent in this form of love, the way to overcome this danger is by asking oneself, “Is there more of me that is alive today because of this love, or less of me?” True love will bring out our true self.
In this week’s parashah, Avraham and Sarah leave Haran on their journey to an unknown destination. They leave “with all their substance that they had gathered and the souls that they had acquired in Haran” (Bereshit/Genesis 12, 5). They leave their country, their kindred, and their father’s family (Bereshit/Genesis 12, 1) to embark on a journey, walking with God and embracing the totality of who they are. This journey continues to inspire their love of God, their everlasting commitment to this partnership, their aspiration to live their lives in light of this desire.
On my office desk I have few precious pictures. Some are reminders of the journey I have embarked on, and who are my partners along the way. One of them is a card honoring Rabbi Dr. David Lieber a few years ago. He is strolling alone through the garden of the University. Underneath his picture the caption reads, “Walking With God.” Rabbi Lieber is a daily reminder of what is being asked of me in my life.
Who are those people in your life whose love of God leads them to walk with God? How does your love of God manifest in Lech Lecha – the walk for you / to you, the next step you take this year?
On this Shabbat - may we merit to walk in the footsteps of Avraham and Sara, true lovers of God.
Shabbat Shalom!