HEBREW WORD STUDY – THOU SHALT LOVE – VA’HAVETH ואהבת

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one. (5) Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.”

“Love is a canvass furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.” – Voltaire

Every day every orthodox Jew will recite Deuteronomy 6:4-5 in Hebrew. Why Hebrew and not their own native language, like English? There are ceremonial reasons to be sure, but one fundamental reason is that you cannot recite this in another language, particularly in English and recite it exactly as it means in Hebrew. With something as fundamental as this you want to be sure you are reciting it with its exact intent.

In Deuteronomy 6:5 the word love is “ahav.” The Septuagint uses the Greek word agapos. Agape, as you are probably aware, is an unconditional love. What is really interesting in the Hebrew is that this word ahav is preceded by a Vav and forms a Vav construct state and thus converts the Imperfect value to the perfect value which denotes a completed action in the past, present or future.

So when a Jew is reciting this verse every day, what he is really saying is I have loved, and do love and will continue to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind. Not a bad promise to make. I think we all have made that promise to God that we would love Him unconditionally past, present and future.

Here’s the thought that comes from this. When we hear “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God…” It sounds like a command. Rabbi Dov Baer Ben Abraham of Mezertich an eighteenth-century Hebrew scholar and linguist asked: “How can there be a command to love? Love is a feeling of the heart; one who has the feeling, loves.” In other words, love for God is embedded in the heart of man.

The Maggid of Mezeritch continues by pointing out that the commandment to love the Lord lies in the previous verse “Hear O Israel…” The word shema, hear, also means to comprehend. Thus the Torah is commanding a person to study, comprehend and reflect on the nature of God because it is the nature of the mind to rule the heart. You see such contemplation will inevitably lead from one’s mind to one’s heart and reveal the love of God that is embedded in one’s heart. His study of God and His Word will refine and purify oneself of the things that stifle his capacity to sense and relate to God. The point is that once your meditation on God shifts from the mind to the heart, the love you have for God will not be blocked and the more you worship God with your heart the more your love for God will be revealed.

The last ten years I have been searching for the Heart of God. I have spent a minimum of three to four hours a day studying the Word of God in the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic and spending countless hours just meditating on the nature of God. I have come to realize the truth of a statement I read in Jewish literature. A student came to his rabbi to complain about another student. His complaint was that the student was always bragging about his knowledge of Torah and how one day he would become a well known and respected teacher. The student went on to say that the only reason this other student studies Torah is so he can gain fame and respectability. The rabbi simply replied: “It is ok, for the Torah will purify his motives.” I realize now that I began my journey to discover the heart of God so I could gain deep insights into the Word of God and to impress people with my knowledge and write books. This I have accomplished but in its accomplishment, I discover I found no joy or sense of fulfillment in compliments about my knowledge of the Word of God. What I have found that brings me great joy and a sense of fulfillment is when someone writes to me and says; “I have grown to love God more and more through your books and teachings.”

Those years of studying God’s Word has moved me away from my mind to my heart and in doing so I have found a deeper and richer love for God which has always been there since the day at 12 years of age I accepted Jesus as my Savior. The moment I accepted Jesus all my sins were removed and revealed my love for God. To this day I still reflect on the joy and love I felt for God. But as the years go by motives and personal agendas began to cover that love for God. But as I began my daily studies of the Word of God in the original languages and now through the past ten years of searching for God’s heart I have reclaimed that joy and love I felt for God when I accepted Jesus as my Savior at the age of twelve.

So upon completion of one decade of searching for the heart of God, I am embarking on the next decade, if God so chooses to keep breath in me, to encourage others to uncover that love for God that is buried in their hearts, to encourage others to study and worship God with their hearts and not their minds.

To accomplish this True Potential Media has agreed to republish and market my book Learning God’s Love Language and its companion manual to teach others to study the Word of God in the original Hebrew. Once the upgrades to our website are completed, I will have classes put up on our website both live and recorded. I will begin holding live classes on FaceBook and/or our website which will permit class interaction. I will also offer audio versions of my word studies designed to help others also discover the heart of God and will reintroduce the longer versions of my studies.

The Talmud teaches that one is to never accept any money for personal use from teaching Torah. I hope to follow this teaching and live just off of my retirement income. Once personal obligations incurred from starting this work is met then all income received from my books, speaking conferences and my website will go to keep the ministry running. What is left will go to an organization that is battling the sex trafficking of children, both girls and boys, in the Midwest area and to help build a home to minister to these young people in the Rockford, Illinois area.

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