With All Your Might
Giving your life for a cause is not necessarily the highest level of devotion. It might actually be an expression of one’s ego.
Where is “With All Your Might?”
Sometimes we learn lessons from what the Torah does not say. Such is the case with regard to a glaring omission in this week’s Torah portion, Ekev.
Almost everyone is familiar with the Biblical exhortation to love G-d “with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.” This verse, contained within the Shema, appears in last week’s Torah portion, Vo’eschanan, and is addressed to every Jew as an individual.
In this week’s Torah portion of Ekev, we find several of the exhortations mentioned in last week’s Torah portion. One of the salient differences between them is that in this week’s Torah selection, the commandments are addressed to the nation as a whole.
The problem arises when we compare the way the commandment to love G-d is mentioned in these two portions. In last week’s portion, the Torah speaks of three levels of love: “[with all your] heart, soul and might.” In this week’s Parsha, by contrast, the Torah only speaks of loving G-d “with all your heart and soul.” No mention is made of loving G-d with all your might. Why this difference?
Giving More than Your Heart and Soul
To answer this question it would serve us well to clarify the difference between loving G-d with all your heart and soul and loving Him with all your might. What more can you give G-d than your heart and soul?
In truth, love, even when it is of a passionate nature is always limited. Love is an expression of the feeling of an inner void without the person or thing that is loved. No matter how much we are prepared to do for the one we love, there is always a trace of selfishness. I love G-d because He is good to me. I love G- d because He is great. Whatever the cause of love, there is always the sense that it is measured by what there is in it for the “I.”
Even when the passionate love – expressed in the words “With all your heart” – moves to a higher rung, whereby one is prepared to give one’s life for the other – as expressed in the words “With all your soul” — there still is a feeling of, “I cannot live without you.” When applied to the love of G-d it means that one’s love for G-d is so powerful that the soul cannot stand to be in a world which will force it to compromise its devotion to G-d. This too is a subtle extension of the ego of one’s G-dly soul.
The ultimate level of love is, “with all your might.” When one is so overwhelmed by G- d’s presence, to the point that the ego is totally suppressed, one cannot help but to express G-d in everything s/he does. No matter what one’s natural impulses dictate, the individual who is consumed with the selfless and self-abnegating love of “with all your might,” will comply with G-d’s will. No matter what seemingly insurmountable obstacles seem to exist, the “with all your might,” individual overcomes them.
[See, however, the next essay where it is explained that the highest level of yirah transcends even the highest level of love because it is the ultimate in self-abnegation.] For the one whose love is selfless, there are no barriers. It is unlimited and infinite, because on this level of love, one is in touch with the infinite and limitless energies of G-d.
The Love of the Future
We can now understand why in this week’s Torah portion the expression “with all your might” does not appear. A close look at the context of loving G-d which appears in this week’s Torah portion, will show us – as the Talmud notes – that it is addressed to a materialistic generation, whose focus is on worldly pursuits.
In the words of the Talmud, “They are [therefore] not fulfilling the will of the Creator.” Even when they express their love for G-d, thus, it is considered as if they are not really fulfilling His will, but their own will. On this level, one can still love G-d with all their heart and soul.
The ultimate goal, which we will realize in the Era of Redemption, is to love G-d “with all your might,” which, when translated into everyday behavior, motivates us to do everything in harmony with G-d’s will.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Ekev by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
