Deuteronomy 6:5 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.”
“Love is a canvass furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.” – Voltaire
Every day every orthodox Jew will recite this verse, in Hebrew. Why Hebrew and not their own native language, like English? There are ceremonial reasons to be sure, but one fundamental reason is that you cannot recite this in another language, particularly in English and recite it exactly as it means in the Hebrew. With something as fundamental as this you want to be sure you are reciting it with its exact intent.
In Deuteronomy 6:5 the word “love” is “ahav.” The Septuagint uses the Greek word “agapos.” We all know what “agape” love is. What is really interesting is that this word is preceded by a “vav” and forms a vav construct state and thus is in a preterite form. Now a preterite in Semitic languages is not like the preterite in our Western languages which indicates a past tense. The preterite in Semitic languages is much like the aorist tense in the Greek which shows an action without any indication of its completion. Thus, you could say it is indicative of the past, when the action started and continues into the present and with no completion will continue into the future.
When God said “I am” to Moses, this was in a preterite form and thus when he called Himself Jehovah, “I am” or YHWH for you purists, He was saying: “I am, I was, and I will always be.” That was a good way to identify the God that was sending Moses out for only God could make such a claim.
So when a Jew is reciting this verse every day, what he is really saying is I have loved, and do love and will continue to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind. Not a bad promise to make. I think we all have made that promise to God that we would love Him unconditionally past, present and future.
So what happens if I lose my job, face bankruptcy, foreclosure, and/or health issues and God does not come riding up on His white horse with a rescue plan? In fact He does not seem to have any plan at all, and we feel sort of abandoned. For many the response is: “Well, God if that is your idea of loving me then you can just take this salvation/born again/relationship and shove it.”
But when I think back to the day I accepted Jesus as my savior, I remember promising to love Him with all my heart, soul and mind. There were no strings attached. There was no “so long as you keep pulling me out of trouble, or even keep loving me.” My promise was a commitment to Him to love Him, even if he gave me nothing in return, even if I felt he broke His promises to me, or abandoned me, even if I could find no reason to love Him in return, I would still love Him because I made a commitment to love Him.
Some people may look at your present circumstances and say: “Well, where is your God now?” Could you respond by saying that loving God does not depend upon where He is at or how He is responding to your circumstances? Loving God is a promise you made and by George, you are going to keep that promise which was made in a Hebrew preterite form. You have loved Him, still loved Him and will continue to love Him no matter what happens.
The Talmud tells the story that when God turned to the angels and said; “Let us make man in our image.” The angles asked: “Why do you want to create man in our image if you have us.” God then said, “I am going to give them problems with their health, with their families, and with their struggle to survive. These are things you as angels do not experience. When I give them these issues, I want to see if they will still love me.”
This verse states we will love (ahav, agapos) the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls and mind. Sound a little like God has furnished the love and it is our hearts, souls and minds that will embroider it.
