How can we come to true love for G-d?
In this week’s Torah portion we have the portion of Shema Yisrael that we say a few times a day in our prayers. The verse says “You should love your G-d” and the commentators ask: How can you command someone to love someone else? Can you command love? If a child doesn’t like a food you can’t tell him to love it. You may tell him to eat it anyway but you’d never expect him to suddenly love it and you could force him to love it.
But that may not be so…
Rabbi Shmuel of Slonim of blessed memory said over the following story: The town water carrier found a nice young man that was suitable for his daughter. They got married and the water carrier found that his new son-in-law didn’t ever learn how to read, so he patiently taught him how to read starting with the ‘aleph-bet’. The young man progressed and soon started to read whole sentences.
They learned our weekly portion and they came to Shema Yisrael and the father in law explained how G-d was, is and will be and He is the king of the whole universe, he is our G-d, the G-d of Israel and He is one. Then they came to the verse “You shall love your G-d” and the father in law told his son in law that G-d commanded us to love him. And the son in law stopped his father in law and asked him: “How can it be that the king of the entire universe that sustains every creature big and small and is responsible for what happens in every world across the universe and feeds millions of people commanded me to love Him? Does he need me to love him?
The father in law tried explaining that this is what G-d commanded to no avail. The son in law said that it can’t be that G-d who is so great needs little me to love him! So they decided to go to the Admor of Slonim to resolve the issue. The Admor indeed said that this is what G-d commanded and that the father in law was right.
The son in law heard the answer and started thinking and he got really excited and he said: “if it’s true that G-d really wants us to love him it must be because he loves us very much, so he wants us to love him back” The son in law got really excited and raised his voice uncontrollably and said: “If the creator loves me so much so I also love Him truly so much… what a wondrous and uplifting feeling!!” The Admor heard what the son in law said and told them, “This is true level of loving G-d”.
Before saying the Shema in the morning we say a blessing called “A great love G-d loves us” and we elaborate how G-d has compassion on us and gave us the Torah and then we conclude, Blessed is G-d who chose his nation Israel with Love. This is our introduction to the Shema where we are commanded to love G-d. When we internalize the message of this introduction that G-d loves us endlessly then our feelings of love for Him will be aroused very strongly and we can then accept the Rule of his Majesty in the Shema and proceed to fulfill the commandment to love G-d very easily.
But there’s a higher level of loving G-d. That is to love G-d unconditionally even if He didn’t give you anything at all just because he loves you; this helps you mirror your love back to G-d.
We should be misled to think loving G-d is a very high level that is too difficult for us to attain, that it’s the realm of the spiritually exalted. It just isn’t so! Loving G-d is something in the reach of every Jew. The Sefat Emet writes: “In the inner point of every Jew is a spark of the love of G-d. You only need to reveal that point and make it light up through thinking about all the good G-d sends through his endless love for us. So the holy fire will then burst forth naturally with a strong love for G-d the creator of all our souls.
Every Jew can reach true love of G-d. If we just think about his endless love for us and the abundance He showers down on us our love for Him will be aroused.