Va'etchanan: Loving God in today's world

Everybody knows that the heilige Rav Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev and Rav Baruch of Medzhibozh were the very opposites of each other. Reb Baruch was very civilized. When he davened, he barely moved. When he sat with his family at the Shabbes table, he was so regal he was the king of the world.
But when Rav Levi Yitzhak prayed, he jumped from one end of the room to another. He would dance, turn around, fall to the ground. At his table, one had to be very careful. You never knew what to expect. In the middle of kiddush, he could go absolutely wild, take the wine bottle, pour it up, pour it down, throw the cup into the air.
Reb Levi Yitzhak wanted so much to spend a Shabbes with Rav Baruch, the Baal Shem Tov's grandson, that he finally invited himself.
Rav Baruch said: "You can come, but you have to behave my way. Especially at the table, with my family, you must be very proper."
Reb Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev thought about it. "The only way I can behave is if I don't open my mouth. I won't even pray, except to say 'Amen,' because the minute I daven, I'm no longer myself."
So he said to Reb Baruch: "When we're making kiddush, don't ask me to say a blessing. Let me be absolutely silent, because it's the only way I can control myself."
The two rebbes agreed. Reb Levi Yitzhak came for Shabbes. They davened and he only answered "Amen." The praying went beautifully. Everybody was sure that by kiddush, Reb Levi Yitzhak would start jumping on the table. But, no, Reb Baruch made kiddush and Rav Levi Yitzhak only said "Amen."
Everybody knows that it's a minhag, a custom on Friday night, to eat sweet fish and sour fish. The deepest question in the world, and a big controversy among the rebbes, was which fish to eat first. Some said sweet fish, because then you have the strength to bear the sour. Others said: "Let's get the sour fish out of the way, so that the end will be sweet."
But both ways are holy.
Rav Baruch was civilized. He had a little hasid, like a waiter, bring the fish on a platter and ask each person which he preferred to eat first - sour fish or sweet. So the waiter came, sadly enough, to Reb Levi Yitzhak and asked, "Do you like sweet fish? Hostu lieb zisseh fisch"
That's all the poor hasid had to ask. Rav Levi Yitzhak said: "Hob ich lieb fisch? Do I love sweet fish? Ich hob lieb nor hashem! I love only God!"
And he took the whole platter of fish and threw it up to the ceiling. And the fish began to drip onto Rav Baruch's tallit, because in those days the big rebbes always wore their prayer shawls for the feast on Friday night.
Everyone was aghast. Everyone, that is, except Rav Baruch who, for all his civilized behavior, would never wash his tallit after that feast because, he said, the stains were very holy. "These stains are caused by a Jew who really loves God. How can I wash them out?"
After Rav Baruch's death, the tallit was passed from one rebbe to another to wear on Shabbes, but never washed. During this century it became so precious that the rebbes only wore it for Yom Kippur. The holy Munkatcher Rebbe, the last to possess it, wore it only for Neilah, the final prayer of Yom Kippur. He must have foreseen the destruction that would be coming into the world with the Holocaust. For the holy Munkatcher's last will was to be buried in Rav Baruch's tallit, covered with the stains caused by one who loved only God. (as told by R Shlomo Carlebach)

What does love of god look like for us?
Are we really commanded “veahafta et adonai,” to love god, to have a particular emotion?
What is we don’t feel it?
Do we even want to feel it?

“loving god” as an ideal is very challenging
In a world where fanatics claim to be focused on divine
But use this as an excuse for killing and hatred

So Many of us don’t think of God as a person we would be in love with
And if god is a person, we think of god as a parent or ruler

One way many people tone it down: “love” as service
If I love you, do nice things for you
Veahafta leads into “vehaya im shamoa”—leads to action
Useless to love god is we don’t serve god

If I love someone, always thinking about making them happy
Most important value in my life

This is very dry
Is this really loving god?

But what can loving god be for us in today’s world?

One aspect: yearning to experience divine, spiritual core of everything
we can yearn to see the divine,
to taste god,
to bring god’s presence into our life in a palpable way


Story: blessing over apple
Once a man brought his ten year old son to visit R' Aharon HaGadol of Karlin. As they were sitting and talking, Reb Aharon asked for a bowl of apples to be brought in. Reb Aharon and his guests each took an apple, with great intention recited the blessing, ". . .Borei Pri HaEtz. . ", and began to eat.
The boy thought to himself, "What is the difference between me and the Rebbe. He eats apples and also I eat apples. He makes a blessing and so do I. Even I could be the Rebbe someday."
Reb Aharon, attuned as he was to the thoughts of others, felt what the youngster was thinking. "Oh, there is a real difference between us my friend", divulged Reb Aharon. "When you wake up in the morning and look out the window, you see that there is a beautiful apple tree in your yard. You see the juicy, red apples growing on it and right away you can think of nothing else but those apples. You run to wash your hands, get dressed as quickly as possible, bolt out the door and scamper up the tree. You quickly decide which apple is to be your breakfast and open your mouth for the first delicious bite. You almost take that bite until you remember, just in time, that you must make a blessing before eating an apple. So you make the blessing in order to eat."
"When I wake up in the morning", continued Reb Aharon, "it is a different story." "When I wake up and look out the window I see a beautiful apple tree. I think about the wonder of Hashem's creation. I contemplate how this apple tree began as a small seed in the ground, and how it slowly grew year by year until one year it flowered and then apples appeared. I remember to wash my hands before I run outside to take a closer look at this amazing creation. In awe of Hashem and His Creation I want to make a blessing on the apple tree and its fruits. I begin to say the blessing, but then I remember, in order to make a blessing, I need an apple. . .!" (retold at Nishmas.org)


Loving god, yearning for god, is to yearn to experience divine energy
What the kabbalists call sheaf, divine abundance which flows through every molecule of the universe

Also: yearn for a world where that divine energy is palpable
Mishnah: ever since shekhinah exiled, sky changed color, fruit lost its flavor
We can no longer simply taste the divine
We have to look for it, yearn for it

Love of God also comes from appreciating the way god loves us love in our lives
The blessings of food, water, shelter
The love from our family, their presence in our life
The love from our critics, the way they help us grow
All of these are expressions of divine love

And of course loving god is an action as well, of pouring our energy into taking care of each other & of the world
Mother Theresa: In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love

May we discover divine love in our lives
May we become fountains of divine love

Bamidbar 5773: What's in a name?

This parsha is the census of the Jews in the desert, a count which is not only by number, but also by names, and also reports each of these tribes having a flag. The midrash says that the jews saw that the angels had flags, and they were jealous, so God gave them flags too. So this census is not just about one large number—it’s about appreciating every single individual, about calling their name lovingly, just as God lovingly says the name of each star as he puts them in the heaven, as psalms mythically depicts the process.
What’s in a name? Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would still smell so sweet. Claude Levi Strauss said much the same thing but much less poetically when he said that signifiers and signifieds—i.e. names and what they refer to—have an arbitrary relationship. In other words, the name is not the essence, the name is just a placeholder by which I refer to a particular thing. Flowers could have been called anything else.
But there is a sense, in Judaism, that the name goes to the essence of a thing. Isaiah 43:1 says “thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” In other words, the name is unique, core to who I am, and it is how God relates to me—it gives me an unbreakable relationship with God. There’s no relationship without a name.
Martin Buber, in I and Thou, says we can relate to people as an it or a thou. In an I-thou relationship we open our whole being to the other. He describes an experience sitting on a park bench, and opening up to someone I don’t know, without even speaking. It has always been a troubling example: can I really have a deep relationship with someone I don’t know? Can I truly love you if I don’t know your name, what is important to you, what hurts you and what gives you joy? What kind of a relationship do I have with you if we both sit in shul for hours, go to Kiddush, eat, but never get to know each other? I need to learn your name.
Someone this week asked me, “rabbi, what can I do to help,” a question I always LOVE being asked. My answer was: sit at a different table at Kiddush. Get to know someone else, find out about them, how their week was, what’s on their mind. The truth is, I don’t like it if talking in shul gets disruptive, but I am in favor of jews talking, getting to know each other. That’s real community.
To know someone’s name is to have a relationship, to see them as a person.
The name also goes deeper, to something essential about what I am. In that quote from Isaiah, God knows our name because he formed us—it is at the core of who we are. What is essential about what I am? What about me can’t be boiled down to just a number, a telephone number, or an IP address? Is it just what I like, my hobbies and tastes? What could have been known about me the moment my soul was placed in my body?
The slonimer says that my name refers to my unique mission. Each of us has a unique mission in the world, and this is what makes us unique and also creates this inseparable relationship with god. The mission is some particular mitzvah that we are put on earth to do. He says we can discover this mission by seeing whatever mitzvah meets the most resistance from our own negative inclinations—when do I get lazy, say I’m not going to bother, or it’s too much trouble, or “I’ll leave that one for the more ‘observant’ Jews to worry about.” Another approach I have seen is the opposite—what mitzvah do I do really well, what is my signature mitzvah? This is my true name, by which God knows me, and forms an unbreakable relationship with God.
The flags, too, don’t just identify me, they also identify my relationship with God. The midrash says, that god said to Moses, make the flags for my name, because they are my children and my hosts, so I want flags in my name. The flags had God’s name on them. So the name is how God sees us, what is unique about us, and the flags refer back to God, make the circle complete. And ultimately, this is our name, the fact that we can live as God’s children is our truest name, what can make us most unique and most human.