Does God NEED our love?

[Dondi]

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: - Deuteromony 6:4-6 (KJV)

I presented this question on another board and I wanted to get another opinion on this. I'd like a Jewish perspective on this please. If you prefer another translation, please do.

Does God NEED our love?

[dauer]

Can you define what it means to love God? Further, would you distinguish between loving with one's heart, one's soul, and one's might? Unless we have a working definition of what it means to love God, how can we say whether or not God needs our love?

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by dauer

Can you define what it means to love God? Further, would you distinguish between loving with one's heart, one's soul, and one's might? Unless we have a working definition of what it means to love God, how can we say whether or not God needs our love?

Exactly...

[Dondi]

Originally Posted by dauer

Can you define what it means to love God? Further, would you distinguish between loving with one's heart, one's soul, and one's might? Unless we have a working definition of what it means to love God, how can we say whether or not God needs our love?

Maybe I need to ask from the Jewish perspective, is God Love? When I asked the question in the original OP to the Christian forum, it is understood in the NT book, I John 4:8 that God is Love. Is this the understanding in Judiasm?

If so, my premise in the question is that if God is Love, then there has to be an object for that Love. How else will God's love emanate?

As far as our loving God, the commandment to Love God seems to encompass one's whole being (heart, soul, might). I would think that it would be a pure, unselfish love - AGAPE as the Greek term goes. Again, the NT tells us that we love God by obeying His commandments. What is you take on that, from a Jewish perspective?

[bananabrain]

from the jewish perspective, G!D Is Love, but then again G!D Is All - so, technically, G!D Is also Hate, Purple, Art, Breasts, Dinosaurs and Basket-Weaving. in a lot of ways, that's kind of the point of judaism. to restrict G!D to "positive" things like love rather involves giving the "negative" things to someone else. and we don't think that is acceptable.

if it helps, we understand that there are two "inclinations", the "good" inclination or yetzer ha-tov and the "bad" inclination or yetzer ha-ra. these are sometimes personified into angels (rather like the tiny angel/demon duo that sometimes appear over people's shoulders in tom and jerry) whose job it is to prompt you to act in accordance with them. the "good" inclination is in charge of things like obedience, giving charity, looking after people and baking cookies for the grandchildren, whereas the "bad" inclination is in charge of things like competition, sex and work.

if you look at the creation story, you'll see that G!D Says that various things are "good" - except for once, when the phrase used is "very good". the sages say that this "very good" refers to the "evil inclination" - the "yetzer ha-ra" is "very good". there's a story that one time the sages caught the evil inclination and shut it in a box, until they noticed that nobody was going to work any more and that children had stopped being born. similarly, a child is considered to have no "good" inclination - it only has a "bad" inclination, in other words, it considers only its own selfish needs, not those of others. developing consideration for the feelings and needs of others is part of the maturing process. by bar/batmitzvah you are considered to be responsible for acknowledging and acting on your "good" inclination - in other words, acting like a grown-up.

so love is all very well, but it is a human thing. from G!D's perspective, we can't possibly understand what "love" is. G!D Is the only One Who Sees, as it were, the back of the carpet.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Dondi]

Well, since you've lumped everything together in God, would you say God is evil as well?

You say that God is hate, also. I suppose this depends on what displeases Him. And if that's the case, then love is what pleases Him.

I fail to see how "bad" inclinations are related to competition, sex, and work. Aren't these things good? I know sex is good. I know work is good. And in certain instances, competition is healthy.

[dauer]

Dondi,

The evil inclination isn't really evil. And it's certainly not bad. It's more the base drives. If all we had were our base drives, then it would lead to a lot of horrible things going on, but when they're in check they are very good indeed. They help us to get things done.

I for one wouldn't say that God is love or that God is good or that God is evil or that God is breasts or basket-weaving, but instead I would say that God encompasses all of these things. They are all contained within Godself. I think explaining this way dispells some confusion surrounding the association of God with particular elements of duality. However, I would also say that in forming a personal relationship with God we do label Her in one way or another. So we might for our sake relate to God as Love or relate to God as Father or relate to God as Lover or relate to God as Rock or relate to God as an Oblong Blur. But I don't think that relating to God as any of these things really makes Him such.

And because bb and I are the only active Jewish posters on this site I'd also like to point out that another Jewish answer could also just as easily be "No, God is not love. And God does not encompass love. God is the Unmoved Mover, the First Cause, and beyond that there is not much else we can say." It would also be a valid Jewish statement coming from a different direction. Judaism is not monolithic.

Dauer

[Dondi]

Thanks for your replies. Judiasm for a monodeistic faith is certainly complex in their understanding of God. With all the aspects from the different sect of Judiasm, I almost would believe that God is arbitrary in relationships. Maybe I ought to ask what is God's ultimate purpose for Jews and Gentiles. What is his will for man? Is it not to love God and love our neighbor that we live peacifully amongst ourselves?

[dauer]

The simplest answer, from a traditional perspective, is that God wants man to follow His mitzvot: 613 for Jews and 7 for non-Jews. The 613 can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_mitzvot

The 7 are listed here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahide_Laws

Liberal forms of Judaism usually don't favor the idea of the Noahide laws, so they may say that just as there was a revelation to the Jews, there could have been revelations to other people as well, or there are also other theologies concerning this. For liberal Judaism there are also probably going to be varying views regarding the mitzvot, and this is also related to varying views about the nature of the revelation at Sinai.

Dauer

[bananabrain]

what dauer said, including the other possible perspectives. i'd personally say that from my PoV the noahide laws are included in other religions, with one or two exceptions - as to whether G!D has talked to other people besides us i'd not be at all surprised. i don't think their revelation is qualitatively the same process, but that doesn't make it inferior. i don't pretend to understand precisely how this stuff works and anyone who does is making it up.

b'shalom

bananabrain