Love is a Journey
The Hebrew word
for “love” is AHABAH (אַהֲבָה), from the verb
AHEB (אָהַב).
For an observant Jew, such as Jesus the Messiah, this word might have
been the most important one in the lexicon.
It formed the cornerstone of His daily identity mark in the recitation of
the SHEMA:
“Hear, O Yisrael,
the LORD is our G-d, the LORD alone. AND
YOU SHALL LOVE (וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔) the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
strength.”
Deut 6:4-5
When Jesus was
asked what the Greatest Commandment was, He replied with the SHEMA. And He then added a passage from Leviticus 19:
“…AND YOU SHALL LOVE (וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥) your neighbor as yourself…”
Jesus told His listeners that these two commands summed up all of the Law and the Prophets.
His linking of these two passages from the TORAH in this way is known among rabbinic teachers as “stringing pearls”. They would strong together disparate passages that shared common key words. The verse from Deuteronomy and the verse from Leviticus share the verb phrase, “and you shall love” (וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥), transliterated as “WA-AHAB-THA”. These are the only two places in the Text where this verb phrase occurs, which is why the Sages connected them.
These two pearls, given their prominence in the Sage of Galilee's thinking, might be considered "Pearls of great price". The knowledge of them, the embrace of them, and the keeping of them are like a "treasure hidden in a field", in this case the the Scriptures of the Hebrew Bible. They lie waiting there, not buried, but neither easily found, to be discovered by the seeker who looks diligently for them.
Two observations about Jesus’ words and this practice of “stringing pearls” are interesting to note.
Jesus is neither the first nor the only rabbinic teacher to link
these two passages in this way and to call them the “greatest commandments”. Rabbi Akiva, a
contemporary of Jesus, said, “This is a (perhaps 'the') major principle
of the Torah”
(parashah (Sifra, 2).
And Hillel the Elder, another contemporary of
Jesus and the founder of the dominant rabbinic school in Judaism, citing the centrality of loving one’s neighbor, said, “That
which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is its commentary. Now go and study.” (And doesn't Hillel’s teaching have echoes of the Golden
Rule?)
The second observation is about the word “love” itself. We read about loving God, but I think we modern, Western readers are inclined to take from that word an interpretation that would be utterly foreign to Jesus and His rabbinic contemporaries. We live in a culture saturated with ideas that love is a feeling (pace DC Talk). So a modern, Western reader encounters a command to "love your neighbor" and may think it means they are supposed to feel loving emotions toward them.
This is an idea that would never occur to ancient Jewish reader. To them -- and to Jesus who lived and read the Text with them -- love is not a feeling or emotion. Love is an action. It represents something we do for someone else (in this case, our neighbor).
The genesis
of Hebraic thinking on the true meaning of “love” comes from its relationship
to a related word in the language: HAB (הַב) or YAHAB
(יָהַב), which means “to give”. In the views of the rabbinic sages, among whom
Jesus is preeminent, “to love” means “to give”.
In other words, love is other-centric.
Whereas
in modern Western thinking about romantic love, it is focused on my feelings –
how the other makes me feel, or what they can give to me – in Hebraic thinking,
it is about what I can GIVE to the other, what I can DO for the other. My feelings do not enter into the equation.
All of this Bible-Geek-Word-Nerding has been prompted by the ever-brilliant Orthodox Priest, Father Stephen Freeman, whose post here concludes with this about the treasure of the Kingdom:
“The treasure of the Kingdom of God is buried in the life of my brother, my sister.”
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2023/07/25/the-path-of-the-good-the-true-the-real/
