Va-et’channan: What does it mean to “love G-d?”
Rachel is with IfNotNow DC.
Earlier this week, I sat across the breakfast table from a fellow hive member, as we discussed our interpretations of what “G-d” is. Unsurprisingly, we got into a cyclical conversation: Is G-d all-powerful? If so, why do atrocities happen? If those are caused by humans, does that make G-d a bystander? And if G-d is a bystander, is G-d really all-powerful?
Given these questions, it can be challenging to wonder what the word “G-d” means and how we should think about it. This week we read parashah Va’etchannan, which contains the 10 Commandments, the Shema, and the V’ahavta. We are commanded to “love G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” There are instructions about how to do this: teaching these words to your children, reciting them in the morning and the evening, binding them to one’s arm and before one’s eyes, and putting them on one’s doorposts, which are interpreted as wearing tefillin and putting up a mezuzah. But, what does loving G-d really look like, especially in a world where there is a significant amount of pain and suffering?
The first step in unpacking how one expresses love for G-d is unpacking what “G-d” actually is. The word G-d is a turnoff for many, and sometimes suggests the image of an old white man in the sky. I prefer the term, “Source of Life,” which I learned from the English translation of the Brich Rachamana after meal blessing at Eden Village Camp. Source of Life speaks to me because it allows more room for creativity as to what Higher Power can be, and frees Higher Power of having human characteristics. I also believe the Source of Life can be experienced through all forms of life on earth, including people, plants, and animals. This is something I have thought a lot about having just spent a year doing faith-based climate justice work.
Talking about “G-d” can also be weirdly intimate, and not a question everyone is comfortable discussing. I wonder though, if for some people, that discomfort lies more in the inaccessibility of G-d language and the unknownness of what G-d is. It is hard to love something if there is a lack of clarity on what it is or means. To me, loving the Source of Life means to honor and respect all life, to achieve freedom and dignity for all. I see loving the Source of Life as imperative to social justice.
The commandment in the V’ahavta to love G-d reminds me of the value of ahavat yisrael, which is often interpreted as the love of the modern State of Israel in mainstream Jewish communities today. However, this concept existed long before 1948. Yisrael is a name given to Jacob in the Torah, meaning to wrestle with G-d, and the Jewish people are Am Yisrael, those who wrestle with G-d. Just as do not always agree with the people or institutions we love, wrestling with G-d, or even the concept of Higher Power, is an aspect of the love we are commanded feel.
In this parashah, the Israelites are in a period of transition: they leaving the desert and entering the land of Canaan, and Joshua is instructed to be the next leader of the Jewish people as Moses nears his death. We too are in a transitional and reflective point in the Jewish calendar. We leave behind Tisha B’Av, a commemoration of destruction, approach Tu B’Av, a holiday of love, and later the month of Elul; may we and our Jewish communities think about our place in the world in these seven weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah. IfNotNow is moving into its second strategic phase, and we’re thinking about how we can better move our peers and communities to not continue their support for the Occupation. In this time of transition, I encourage my friends in IfNotNow, the larger sphere of Jewish communities, and the world to think about what it means to “love G-d,” and whether and how fighting the Occupation and our communities’ support of it is a way to express that love.
The Torah can be messy and difficult, and not something with which we always find ourselves in agreement or connection. It is my hope that we can find words of Torah to drive us in valuing all life and human dignity, in order to more strongly ground us in our fight against the Occupation.
