Ekev and What Love Demands

Shabbat Shalom. It is a constant source of inspiration to me how no matter what is happening in my life, the life of my synagogue and community, or the world, it is always perfectly reflected in the weekly Torah portion. This week is no different, for a short while ago I had the good fortune of reciting a Misheberach for Tracy and Keith, as they approach their wedding. Weddings bring to mind many things, including dress fittings, wedding planners, delicious cakes, a father-daughter dance, and most importantly, love.

And love is where the entire parashah began this morning and continues throughout. The first verse of the portion is "If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love [et ha-brit ve-et ha-chessed] with you, as he swore to your ancestors. – v'ahev'kha uvarach'cha, v'hirbecha - \and He will love you, and He will bless you, and He will multiply you." Later in the portion, actually the very first thing we read as part of the third triennial cycle today, was: "To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today." (Deut. 10: 14-15)

The book of Deuteronomy is suffused with the language of love. As Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks once noted, the root a-h-v appears in Exodus two times, in Leviticus two times, it doesn't appear at all in the book of Numbers, but in the book of Deuteronomy the root appears 23 times. That is amazing.

What is important about all of this talk of love is that it was in the Torah, with our ancestors, at a time when virtually the entire ancient world believed differently, that the idea emerged that the elements weren't hostile or indifferent to humankind. As he wrote: "We are here because Someone wanted us to be, One who cares about us, watches over us and seeks our wellbeing. Second, the love with which God created the universe is not just divine. It is to serve as the model for us in our humanity. We are bidden to love the neighbour and the stranger, to engage in acts of kindness and compassion, and to build a society based on love. Here is how our parsha puts it:

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. So you must love the stranger, for you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deut. 10: 18-19)

In short: God created the world in love and forgiveness and asks us to love and forgive others. I believe that to be the most profound moral idea in human history."

That is a lesson we can all use all the time. But this past week I sent out anniversary cards to every couple at CBE celebrating a wedding anniversary. And today we have a young couple about to embark on the emotional and spiritual journey of their lives. And marriage cannot succeed without love.

But what does our tradition teach us about love itself? Dr. Meshulam Margaliyot of Bar-Ilan University once wrote: What does it mean to love the Lord? This does not refer to platonic or mystic love. "Love" here is a patently contractual term meaning to uphold one's obligations."

Or as Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson once explained:

Jewish love is covenantal. Covenants are not necessarily restricted to equal parties. Kings and vassals are not equal, yet they provide the sociopolitical context for the biblical covenant. God and the Jewish People do not claim to be equal. But they do insist on the ability to bridge the chasm of disparity with relationship, and in relationship one may stand as a partner even with someone who is not your equal. Love [is what]...spans that gulf, and un-equals are able to stand in partnership and in dignity together, despite their differences; perhaps because of their distinctiveness. Our entire tradition is a recurrent outpouring of covenantal love, so that God creates the world, we are told, in order to have an object to love. As if that isn't enough, God rises up against Pharaoh and brings us to freedom, because God so loves our ancestors. And then as if that isn't enough, God brings us to the foot of Mt. Sinai, and there offers us a covenantal contract, which the rabbis tell us is a Ketubah, a wedding contract.

The wedding contract sealing the relationship between the Jewish people and God is the very Sefer Torah, the Torah scrolls, we read from. Ours is an ancient tradition of covenantal love. And strikingly, covenantal love is very different than popular culture's portrayal of love, in which love is the pitter-patter of a heart, but that pitter-patter only lasts as long as it takes to cook a pop tart. Five minutes later, our attention drifts to some other infatuation. So we live in a culture with all these romances, passionate beginnings and frequent flammable finales. We read about the various stars and their love affairs, and we can read about their breakups and their new love affairs. That superficial, provisional appetite is not Covenantal love. Covenantal love, we are told, nurtures understanding and generosity; seeing the best in your lover; seeing the best in your children; in your community; in humanity; in the world; and then with similar generosity, sharing in their struggles; sharing in their efforts.

Such covenantal love is both dynamic and persistent. .....Jewish love is alive, which means always open to change, always in relationship. As the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig reminds us, "Love brings to life whatever is dead around us."

Nobody can be in a relationship without being open to change. [No one stays the same forever.] Ask any parent, and they will [tell you] that what it means to be a child's parent is different now than it was a year ago, and it will be different a year [from now]. When your child presents you with a challenge, it is your love that will sustain the child, providing the strength to overcome.

Our portion this morning begins with talk of God's covenant and hesed for us. Chesed, often translated as loving-kindness, is the integration of values and emotions with deeds. Love alone is not enough if it is not combined with loving-kindness. Our emotions inspire us to act. "I love (ahavat) you, says God, with an everlasting love, therefore I continue my lovingkindness (chesed) to you" (Jeremiah 31:2).

Rabbi Artson says that the loving-kindness which is the result of love is exemplified through tzedek, justice, shalom, peace, and berakah, blessing and well-being.

We will start with tzedek. Judaism understands that love and justice are not conflicting values. Rather, "Judaism affirms that love is the source and the root from which nourishes justice, while justice is the fruit and the flower of determined, abiding love. [Our] tradition reminds us, "You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of a stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). Or [as Philo once said] "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." We know that chesed results in acts of caring and of justice. Covenant love is not weak; it does not tolerate a world in which there are no rules, no consequences. Chesed is resolute, strong, insistent and fair. But it is, above all, love.

Shalom, which is often translated peace means so much more. "Shalom comes from the Hebrew word, shalem, which means wholeness, integrity. The Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza writes, "Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." Love must be grounded in the entirety of who we are -- our memories, character, experiences, body, temperament and aspirations. And our love must be grounded in our integrity -- in the authentic selves we are in private and in public. As the Hasidic master, Rabbi Simcha Bunim told his students, "You cannot find peace anywhere if you do not find it in yourself." The wholeness and integrity of shalom means not making yourself small because others would have you shrink from your own greatness. Shleimut, wholeness, means offering to the world the fullness of who you are at your best: your beauty as you are, your greatness as you are."

Finally, we come to berakhah -- of blessing and well-being. "There is so much bounty manifest in this world, a harvest which we did nothing to deserve. We were simply born into a world that was prepared across the millennia for our arrival. Our task in the world is to savor the bounty, to delight in it, to steward it and to help each other to do the same. We are to make of ourselves a blessing and commit to being grateful for the blessings. That is why the structure of Jewish prayer always starts Baruch Attah." As Rabbi Artson notes, "Baruch, in the blessing formula, does not mean blessed literally. God does not need our blessing. God is the Source of all blessing, the fount of all bounty. So we start our berakhah, our spur to mindfulness by noting: You, God, are bountiful, baruch attah. After that general admission we then specify God's particular lovingkindness of that occasion: You are bountiful for giving us Torah ... You are bountiful for giving us life and bringing us to this season ... You are bountiful for giving us bread to eat. Jewish prayer is a resilient discipline reminding ourselves of the bounty of being alive, and that we are called to embody God's image. We are called to be like God, sources of bounty and blessing for others: "Be a blessing ... and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:2)."

"In a world so afraid that it routinely erupts in hatred, we are commanded to love." And so let us.

Rabbi Michelle "Mina" Goldsmith
July 27, 2013