HEBREW WORD STUDY – AND YOU WILL LOVE  – VA’HAVETH  ואהבת Vav Aleph Hei Beth Taw

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.  A command we should also follow.  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 the Hebrew.  For you see love has many different levels and you recite this according to you own level of love. 

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. There are many levels to ‘ahav love. The only requirement to call it ‘ahav is that this love is the ultimate expression in relationship to your level of maturity, mental, emotional and spiritual.  One’s love for a parent may not be as intense as another’s love for a parent, but then the person with the more intense love is at a different level of maturity and character development. If that love expresses the best that person can offer, we can call it ‘ahav. “Ahav is not a perfect love, that only belongs to God and is called racham. I have recently released a book on racham love which is offered through this website and on Amazon if you wish to pursue this word. 

So, when a Jew is reciting this verse every day, what he is really speaking is the ultimate love that he can express or feel and what he is 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. So, we need to pause, take stock of the depth of love that we feel for God and express it, even if it does not seem adequate. But if it is your best it is what God expects and desires. 

Here is the really problem with all 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 love you have for God. You see the mind tends to rule the heart and 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 express his true love for  God.  The point being 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 point is that God created us to love Him. He embedded that love within us and we will spend a lifetime chipping away at the rock hard entrance to that love. The more we chip away at it the more the light of God’s love shines through. One day when we stand in His presence the rock hard entrance will be completely removed and we will be flooded with the perfection of ‘ahav for God, only it will have a different name, it will be called racham love. 

I recently wrote an article on my blog where I was very candid about my love for God.  I received many responses from people, some expressing a desire to love God the way I do. Frankly, I have the same desire, that is to love God more than I do.  The thing is these people who wish they could love God like I do, really have the same amount of love and the capacity to love God like I do.  I have no greater love for God than anyone of you reading this. If there is any difference, I have been chipping  away at that rock hard entrance to God’s racham for 70 years and I just might have a few more holes in that entrance only because I have been working at it longer.  However, the love I have for God is just as great as yours. 

There is an old rabbinic story I have used many times, but I would like to use it now in a different context, yet just as meaningful.  A king once had a rebellious son who left home to live in another kingdom.  Before long the king, this father sent a messenger to his son saying: “Come home.” The son replied, “I can’t come that far.”  The king, this father then said; “Come as far as you can and I will meet you.”  God commands us to recite every day: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and might.”  We respond that we do to love God that much, we would only be hypocritical.  God responds by saying: “Then love me as much as you can and I will meet you.”

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