Choose Life! Seforno on Love
“Today I call the heavens and earth as witnesses concerning you, I have placed before you the life and the death, the blessing and the curse. And you shall choose life, in order that you and your progeny after you may live.” (Devarim, 30:19)
The Seforno tells us that the life is everlasting life. And you shall chose life in order to live a life in which you express you love for God. God is telling us, when you choose life you are not doing it in order to get some kind of reward from your good behavior. Rather I ask you to choose it because it is real, true life, as opposed to fleeting, “here today, gone tomorrow,” existence. How do I know that any action expresses eternal life? I know that your actions endure forever when they express your love for God, actions with show an appreciation for God’s goodness and greatness.
This is more or less directly translated from the Seforno. What am I going to do for God? If my father asks me to get him a glass of water, and I do so, it may not be simple obedience, but a way I express my love for my father. If a man does for others purely out of a sense of duty, he will most likely end up hating his actions. But if he does for others out of love, he will come to love his service.
Who wrote the Book of Love? Well, Maimonides, of course. In the Sefer Ahava (the Book of Love), he provides the laws of Tsitsit, Tefillin, Reading the Shema, the Recitation of the Torah in the Synagogue, the Amida prayer. What is love? Love is when I am so connected to another person that I will go out of my way to do things for that person. I will be not just thinking about him or her, but doing things to show how I care. Love is a mode of operation where you say, “If it is important to you, then, my love, it is important to me.” So God tells us to do crazy things. Run out into the desert without shoes. Where will the water come from, where will the food come from? The desert is a dangerous place, better stay by the flesh pots of Egypt! No! We are in love, and that means we will do some crazy things. We will write verses on parchment made from animal skins, and fold them up and put them into boxes and strap the boxes onto our arms and heads while we stand and speak to the Hidden of all Hiddens. We will stand and cry and move our lips like a drunken woman. Why? Because we are in Love! Because if it is important to You, God, it is important to me.
What, then, does it mean that these actions last for ever? When you show your love, the one who you love will remember it, and feel your love. God remembers every tefillin, every Tefillah, every good word and thought, even if it never saw the light of day. And it all increases the love in heaven and earth.
The Seforno tells us that the life is everlasting life. And you shall chose life in order to live a life in which you express you love for God. God is telling us, when you choose life you are not doing it in order to get some kind of reward from your good behavior. Rather I ask you to choose it because it is real, true life, as opposed to fleeting, “here today, gone tomorrow,” existence. How do I know that any action expresses eternal life? I know that your actions endure forever when they express your love for God, actions with show an appreciation for God’s goodness and greatness.
This is more or less directly translated from the Seforno. What am I going to do for God? If my father asks me to get him a glass of water, and I do so, it may not be simple obedience, but a way I express my love for my father. If a man does for others purely out of a sense of duty, he will most likely end up hating his actions. But if he does for others out of love, he will come to love his service.
Who wrote the Book of Love? Well, Maimonides, of course. In the Sefer Ahava (the Book of Love), he provides the laws of Tsitsit, Tefillin, Reading the Shema, the Recitation of the Torah in the Synagogue, the Amida prayer. What is love? Love is when I am so connected to another person that I will go out of my way to do things for that person. I will be not just thinking about him or her, but doing things to show how I care. Love is a mode of operation where you say, “If it is important to you, then, my love, it is important to me.” So God tells us to do crazy things. Run out into the desert without shoes. Where will the water come from, where will the food come from? The desert is a dangerous place, better stay by the flesh pots of Egypt! No! We are in love, and that means we will do some crazy things. We will write verses on parchment made from animal skins, and fold them up and put them into boxes and strap the boxes onto our arms and heads while we stand and speak to the Hidden of all Hiddens. We will stand and cry and move our lips like a drunken woman. Why? Because we are in Love! Because if it is important to You, God, it is important to me.
What, then, does it mean that these actions last for ever? When you show your love, the one who you love will remember it, and feel your love. God remembers every tefillin, every Tefillah, every good word and thought, even if it never saw the light of day. And it all increases the love in heaven and earth.
posted by Betzalel Philip Edwards @ 2:07 AM
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