42 | AUGUST 3 • 2023
S
omething implicit in the
Torah from the very beginning
becomes explicit in the book
of Devarim. God is the God of love.
More than we love Him, He loves us.
Here, for instance, is the beginning
of this week’s parshah:
“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. He
will love you and bless you and increase
your numbers.” Deut. 7:12-13
Again in the parshah we read: “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
And here is a verse from last week’s:
“Because He loved your ancestors and
chose their descendants after them,
He brought you out of Egypt by His
Presence and His great strength.” Deut.
4:37
The book of Deuteronomy is
saturated with the language of love.
The root a-h-v appears in Shemot
twice, in Vayikra twice (both in Lev.
19), in Bamibar not at all, but in
Sefer Devarim 23 times. Devarim is a
book about societal beatitude and the
transformative power of love.
Nothing could be more misleading
and invidious than the Christian
contrast between Christianity as a
religion of love and forgiveness and
Judaism as a religion of law and
retribution. As I pointed out in my
earlier Covenant & Conversation for
Vayigash, forgiveness is born (as David
Konstan notes in Before Forgiveness)
in Judaism. Interpersonal forgiveness
begins when Joseph forgives his
brothers for selling him into slavery.
Divine forgiveness starts with the
institution of Yom Kippur as the
supreme day of Divine pardon following
the sin of the Golden Calf.
Similarly with love: when the New
Testament speaks of love, it does so by
direct quotation from Leviticus (“You
shall love your neighbor as yourself”)
and Deuteronomy (“You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul and all your might”). As
philosopher Simon May puts it in his
splendid book, Love: A History: “The
widespread belief that the Hebrew Bible
is all about vengeance and ‘an eye for
an eye,’ while the Gospels supposedly
invent love as an unconditional and
universal value, must therefore count
as one of the most extraordinary
misunderstandings in all of Western
history. For the Hebrew Bible is
the source not just of the two love
commandments but of a larger moral
vision inspired by wonder for love’s
power.” His judgment is unequivocal:
“If love in the Western world has a
founding text, that text is Hebrew.”
VISIONS OF THE ETHICAL LIFE
More than this: In Ethical Life: The
Past and Present of Ethical Cultures,
philosopher Harry Redner distinguishes
four basic visions of the ethical life
in the history of civilizations. One he
calls civic ethics, the ethics of ancient
Greece and Rome. Second is the ethic
of duty, which he identifies with
Confucianism, Krishnaism and late
Stoicism. Third is the ethic of honor, a
distinctive combination of courtly and
military decorum to be found among
Persians, Arabs and Turks as well as in
The
Morality
of Love
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH