Let My People Know

"The love of God"

 

How is it possible to command a person to love? 

As it has been said more than once, "Thou shalt love" is actually not a command or a precept to do something, but a conclusion to the preceding declaration: "The Lord is our God, the Lord is One." 

For once this declaration penetrates to one's consciousness, then the love of God follows naturally.

It does not even have to be commanded. 

Indeed, this has been the subject of much discussion in Chasidism—the conviction that, intrinsically, love is that powerful fullness of emotion that comes of itself, that cannot help itself. 

The love of God is not something to be commanded or insisted upon.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
 
From The Sustaining Utterance by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz