Ahavah Rabah 9: On a Higher Level

את כל דברי תלמוד תורתך באהבה. והאר עינינו בתורתך...…

…all the words of Your Torah’s teaching with love.  Enlighten our eyes in Your Torah…

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We now conclude the first set of requests asking Hashem to help us to internalize, clarify, accept, learn, teach, guard, perform, and uphold – ALL of Torah.

The word “talmud” here specifically refers to תורה שבעל פה–Torah she’b’al peh, the Torah that was originally transmitted through oral transmission.

The last word is “b’ahavah.”  We are asking Hashem to help us to desire and to achieve all of our requests up to this point and to help us serve Him with love and enthusiasm, and to develop a powerful thirst to come closer to Him through learning, teaching, and observing the Torah.

We now begin a second set of requests that superficially appears to be a repetition of our earlier requests.  Rav Miller zt”l explains “והאר–v’ha’eir...” to mean an elevated level of serving Hashem, called “chasidus.”  Chasidus, simply stated, means always seeking a deeper understanding and fulfillment of the r’tzon Hashem.  A chasid is always seeking to act in a way that finds favor with His Creator.  He is not just looking to fulfill His commandments.  Of course, one must first be at the level of fulfilling the commandments before he can begin the level of true chasidus.

I once heard a mashal from HaRav Noach Isaac Oelbaum shlita that described the difference between serving Hashem as a son versus as a servant.  If the father or master asks for a pale of water and a mop, the servant will bring a pale of water and a mop.  The son will also clean up the spill, because he understands the underlying desire of his father.  A chasid serves Hashem in the way of a son, always trying to attain true insight into what His Father wants from him.

We therefore ask that Hashem enlighten us “the way a light shining into a dark room would,” in order that we see and understand in greater depth Hashem’s ratzon, as expressed through Torah.  Rav Wolbe zt”l states that in every amud of the Gemara, regardless of the topic being discussed, one can and must extract the r’tzon Hashem.

Integrating Mitzvos into Our Daily Lives

The Sefer Chareidim, when writing about the mitzvah of Ahavas Hashem (Loving Hashem), lists a number of different aspects of the mitzvah.  It is well beyond our scope to come close to describing this mitzvah.  But one aspect can be understood by comparing our relationship with Hashem to a relationship with a woman we have an intense love for – perhaps to a couple who have just recently become engaged.  Just as the man will want to develop a greater understanding of what his fiancée desires and to fulfill all of her desires, so too we should have that same level of yearning to develop a greater understanding and to fulfill all that Hashem wants of us.

Perhaps we can begin by asking ourselves the following question when weighing factors in order to make a decision: “What do I think Hashem wants me to do in this situation?”  Ultimately, after we have thought through the various factors and the pros and cons, this question should drive our decision.  If we begin to think in this manner, we will be fulfilling a number of mitzvos – including Ahavas Hashem.