Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Norman Lamm, the Chancellor of Yeshiva University, expresses an interesting but mystical thought that resonates with Heschel’s insight regarding the nature of Divine love, which Christians commonly refer to as “agape.”

Lamm explains this concept in light of the Shema prayer:

“The LORD is one” implies that God is, as it were, a lonely God. This loneliness and sadness are reflected in the divine image, humans, of whom He said, “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Both God and human beings deserve rachmones, pity—we, for our failure and pain and suffering, and God, for being abandoned by this creature created in God’s very own image and endowed with the gift of free will that we misuse and abuse. And so each waits and longs for the other. The way to bridge the brooding cosmic loneliness, to find our way to each other, is through love.

It is this sense of mutual sympathy that gives rise to love. God reaches out for us with love—as affirmed in the blessing immediately preceding the Shema: “Blessed are You, O LORD, who chooses His people Israel in love”—and we, recognizing that “the LORD is One,” [Deut. 6:4] that the Creator is lonely, yearning for our companionship, respond with love immediately after proclaiming God’s utter oneness: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart . . .” [Deut. 6:5]. Those thinkers whose interpretations of the Love of God we discussed in chapters 10 to 14 all worked on the premise that God is transcendent and perfect: we need God, but God does not need anyone or anything. He is utterly self-sufficient. But here we are speaking of God in a different way. Conceived of in poetic and psychologically human terms, the divine-human relationship takes on a different dimension, best understood through distinction between two types of love usually referred to in theological writings by their Greek names, eros and agape. Agape is the love that a protective parent feels for his or her child. It is a selfless love: the parent asks nothing in return, not even to be loved by the child. Eros, in contrast, is romantic love, such as that felt by husband and wife for each other. Such love is expected to be not only reciprocal, but also mutually pleasurable. The love we feel for and from God is agape, not eros.[1] Continue Reading

Rabbi Zusya of Annapol was one of the most remarkable figures of Hassidic history. R. Zusya was one of the most God-intoxicated mystics of the 19th century.

He lived in a world where God is everywhere; every incident or happening contains a spiritual lesson that can infuse the soul with a message that is eternally relevant.

According to him, “You can learn three things from a child and seven from a thief. ‘From a child you can learn (1) always to be happy; (2) never to sit idle; and (3) to cry for everything one wants.

He argued that even a thief can serve as a spiritual guide-despite himself. Zusya explains:

From a thief you should learn:

(1) to work at night;

(2) if he cannot gain what he wants in one night, he will try again the next night;

(3) to love one’s coworkers just as thieves love each other;

(4) to be willing to risk one’s life even for a little thing;

(5) not to attach too much value to things even though one has risked one’s life for them — just as a thief will resell a stolen article for a fraction of its real value

(6) to withstand all kinds of beatings and tortures but to remain what you are; and

(7) to believe that your work is worthwhile and not be willing to change it.

If we wish to embrace a God-filled life, learning to see the world as a spiritual metaphor may help lead us to discovering higher truths that often escape notice because we tend to live in a mindlessly driven world. Continue Reading