One can be ordered to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain actions. E.g., one can be commanded to eat matzah, put on tefillin, listen to the shofar, or to avoid eating pork and refrain from working on the Sabbath. But can one be ordered to love? Love is an emotion. Either one has it or one does not have it. One cannot manufacture love. How, then, are we to understand the Torah commandment, “You shall love your G-d with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 5:5), a commandment which is repeated several times?

Several different answers have been provided by Torah commentaries. Rambam says, “How is one to achieve love of G-d? If one sees the grandeur and enormity of G-d’s creations, this brings one to love G-d” (Daius 2:2). The problem with this is that appreciating the wonders of G-d’s creations may indeed result in great admiration of G-d, but it does not necessarily produce love.

The commentary on Rambam resolves this. He says that Rambam is redefining the Hebrew word ahava. One meaning of ahava is indeed love, like the love between a husband and a wife, or a parent and a child. But there is also another meaning of ahava: adoration.

We might understand this better with the phenomenon of hero worship. A child has a sports figure as his hero. In my childhood, kids were enamored of Joe Dimaggio. They would collect pictures of Dimaggio, and if they could get his autograph, they would be thrilled. If they were given a shirt worn by Dimaggio, they would be in seventh heaven. If you told this kid that he could have one wish, he would immediately say, “I want to be with Joe Dimaggio.” The kid did not “love” Dimaggio, but to him, Dimaggio was the pinnacle of greatness, and he wanted to be in his presence more than anything else in the world.

King David says, “One thing I ask of Hashem, that I shall seek—that I dwell in the House of Hashem all the days of my life” (Psalms 27:4). This is the feeling of admiration and adoration which causes one to wish to be in His presence. Whereas one may not be able to generate the emotion of love, one can, as Rambam says, achieve the adoration of Hashem by contemplating His great works.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman in Tanya suggests two ways in which the commandment to love Hashem can be fulfilled. The first is that within every Jew there is a nucleus of love for Hashem in one’s neshama (soul), that was bequeathed by the patriarch Abraham. This nucleus of love (ahava mesuteret=concealed love) is essentially in the subconscious mind and one may, therefore, not be aware of its presence. However, there are times when this ahava mesuteret comes out of concealment. Rabbi Shneur Zalman points out that during the Inquisition, there were Jews who were not observant of Torah, but when told to renounce Hashem at the risk of death, went to the stake rather than renounce Hashem. Although they had not manifested a love for Hashem previously, the demand that they renounce Hashem brought the ahava mesuteret to the fore, and they chose to die rather than to sever their relationship to Hashem.

Rabbi Shneur Zalman suggests a novel, second method, “intellectual ahava.” If a person understands that one should love Hashem, and that Hashem deserves to be loved, that, too, is fulfillment of the mitzvah to love Hashem, even though one does not feel the emotion of love.

An approach similar to ahava mesuteret is based on the Talmudic statement, “The relationship of tzaddikim to Hashem is like that of a candle to a torch” (Pesahim 8a). If one holds a candle near a torch, one will see that the flame of the candle leans toward the greater flame. Indeed, it may even “jump” to the torch, thereby extinguishing the candle. Inasmuch as the source of the neshama is Hashem, there is a natural inclination of the neshama to join its Source.

Why, then, do we not feel this attraction?

The mussar authorities give a parable of a peasant who came to the big city, and passed a store that displayed suits. He entered and asked the salesperson for a suit, and the latter gave him a suit for his size. A few moments later, the peasant said to the sales person, “Why are you mocking me? This suit does not fit me at all.” He had put on the suit atop of his crude garments. The salesperson said, “The suit will fit you well, but you must remove your clothes in order to wear the suit. It will not fit atop your clothes.”

We do have an inherent love for Hashem, but as long as we are preoccupied with loving earthly objects, the love for Hashem “will not fit.” If we indulge in mundane, physical love, we cannot feel the inherent love for Hashem.

At the funeral of his son, the Chafetz Chaim cited the incident of a woman whose two sons were killed in the Inquisition for refusing to embrace Christianity. The distraught mother said, “Dear G-d, when my sons were alive, I loved them. Now that I do not have them to love, that love will go to You.” The Chafetz Chaim said, “The love that I had for my son will now be directed to You.”

Such levels of spirituality may be beyond us, but the principle is there. To the degree that we love earthly objects, to that degree our love for Hashem is diverted. If we curtail our physical indulgences, we may avoid this diversion, and we may experience the emotion of the love for Hashem that is inherent within us.