Human love must always express itself in preference—my love for you distinguishes you from people whom I do not love. But 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 nonexclusivity of Divine love. But equally they insist that God’s love for Israel is real, palpable, and enduring.
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 (and that’s the gospel truth). 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 hashem elokecha—you shall love the Lord your God. It is a love-saturated liturgy, and yet most Jews do not know that our tradition is rooted in reciprocal devotion.
Love is not an afterthought or an epiphenomenon 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.
Worshippers, a Love Story: Understanding Jews’ Relationship to God
