And You Shall Love

וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔

Veh-ah-have-tah.

And You Shall Love.

This magnificent word begins BOTH of the greatest commandments. 

In Matthew 22:35-40, it reads

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The Teacher is here quoting from Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:5.  In the Hebrew, both of these statements begin with that one beautiful word.

וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔

This is what separates Judeo-Christianity from other faiths.  The Rabbis tell the story of the destruction of the second temple.  Every year, on the 9^th day of the Hebrew month of Av (called Tisha b’Av), the Jews weep and mourn for the loss of the temple.  Every year, for the last 2000 years, they cry.  I join with them in their weeping.  Why was the temple destroyed?  One answer is that the Romans wanted to crush the Jewish rebellions and burned it, then dismantled it to get the gold that had melted between the stones.  But that’s the “how” of it, not the “why.”  Why would God allow His House to be destroyed?

וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔

The Rabbis tell us that the Jewish people had forgotten to love their fellow as themselves.  Think about it.  The Jewish people had forgotten to love the Romans in the same way they loved themselves. 

Let that sink in. 

Because the Romans were an oppressive government.  Their taxes were harsh, their punishments were brutal.  To crucify a criminal is not just to execute him, it’s to hang him on public display, so the whole world can watch his final moments of humiliation and agony.  And those “final moments” can be eight or ten or twelve hours, depending on when the sun set that day (Jews couldn’t leave anyone hanging on a “tree” after sundown, according to Deuteronomy 21:23). 

These were the Romans.  These horrible oppressors, these violent dictators, these wicked men, it is these the Jews failed to love. 

It is because of THAT failure that the Temple was destroyed. 

Who is God calling you to love?

Are they worse than the Romans?

If you fail in this calling, what horrible thing might result?

If you succeed in this calling, what good thing may happen?

Remember the 9^th of Av. 

וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔