To feel loved is to feel trust.
To feel loved is to know that you have a safe relationship, one which even your greatest weaknesses can’t destroy.
To feel loved is to feel that someone genuinely wants you to be your best self, because that’s the best for YOU.
To feel loved is to never be alone, even when there’s no one around for miles.
G-d’s profound gift to us is pure love.
Our very existence is an act of G-d’s love.
And our opportunities to develop an ever-greater connection with the Divine, our Mitzvot, are given to us as an act of love.
Years ago, I met with a young lady who professed disenchantment with her Judaism. She told me that she had completed Hebrew School, been “Bat-Mitzvah’d and confirmed”, and majored in Judaic Studies while at University. Yet, she still hadn’t found a single Jewish authority figure willing to tell her that G-d loves her.
How sad.
Our theology is built on our faith in a Divine Parent who creates us and guides us through life.
Judaism SHOUTS G-d’s love for us.
When G-d gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai, He began by giving us Ten Commandments (although there are 613 in total). Those Commandments began with an introduction:
”I am G-d who took you out of Egypt”.
It’s strange. After centuries of history, G-d is finally on the cusp of turning Abraham’s descendants into a people. G-d hasn’t directly communicated with these people (aside from Moses and Aaron), and this will be the first introduction.
Why not say “I am G-d Who created you?”
Isn’t that a greater, more inimitable feat than freeing slaves?
Our Sages explain that G-d was establishing the First Principle, the backbone to Torah and of our relationship with the Divine.
In other words, G-d introduced Himself by saying:
“I am G-d Who CARES about you.
I took you out of Egypt, because I suffer when you suffer. I know that there will be individual “Egypts” in each of your lives and I will be there with you.
Because I love you. And I’m always with you.
Take this Torah, follow it, and keep yourselves open to a relationship with me.
You’ll feel the love”.
Feel the love.
Mendy wrote...
The Torah is more than a constitution; it's a framework for experiencing a spiritually-intimate life.
We can't FEEL the intimacy we're effecting, except for a glimmer of spirituality that we can generate. But the connection is there. When the world's inner reality is exposed, in the times of Moshiach, we will finally experience the true beauty of the Mitzvos we've performed.
Zbigniew Josef Tobiasiewicz wrote...
Zbigniew Josef Tobiasiewicz wrote...