(4) Hear, O Israel! The Eternal is our God, the Eternal alone. (5) You shall love the Eternal your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (6) Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. (7) Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. (8) Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; (9) inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
ואהבת, you will then enjoy doing things which are pleasing to Him when you understand that there is nothing in this world which is more worth doing. [the word ואהבת is not perceived a commandment by the author; in fact it is questionable if loving someone could be the subject of a commandment altogether. Ed.]
Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd God
BY JOHN DONNE
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
חַיָּב אָדָם לְבָרֵךְ עַל הָרָעָה כְּשֵׁם שֶׁהוּא מְבָרֵךְ עַל הַטּוֹבָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (דברים ו) וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יְיָ אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ. בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ, בִּשְׁנֵי יְצָרֶיךָ, בְּיֵצֶר טוֹב וּבְיֵצֶר רָע. וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ, אֲפִלּוּ הוּא נוֹטֵל אֶת נַפְשֶׁךָ. וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ, בְּכָל מָמוֹנֶךָ. דָּבָר אַחֵר בְּכָל מְאֹדֶךָ, בְּכָל מִדָּה וּמִדָּה שֶׁהוּא מוֹדֵד לְךָ הֱוֵי מוֹדֶה לוֹ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד...
One is obligated to recite a blessing for the bad just as one recites a blessing for the good, as it is stated: “And you shall love the Eternal your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). “With all your heart” means with your two inclinations, with your good inclination and your evil inclination. “With all your soul” means even if God takes your soul. “And with all your might” means with all your money. Alternatively, “with all your might” means be grateful with every measure that God metes out to you. ...
Another interpretation: "And you shall love the Eternal your God": Cause God to be beloved by all people, as our patriarch Abraham (did), viz. (Bereshith 12:5) "and the souls that they (Abraham and Sarah) had made in Charan." Now if all of humanity were gathered together to make a mosquito, they could not do so. How, then, is the above to be understood? Abraham converted them (from idol worship) and brought them under the wings of the Divine Presence.
It is a clearly known matter, that Love of the Holy Blessed One is not bound up in a person’s heart until one engages it constantly as is appropriate, and abandons everything else in the world but this, as God commanded and said: with all your heart and with all your soul (Deut. 6:5). Love will be according to understanding: if [understanding] is slight, [love] will be slight, and if [understanding] is great, [love] will be great. Therefore a person must set aside [time] for themselves to understand and grasp the wisdom and understanding that their Creator provides them according to each person’s ability to understand and grasp, as we have explained in Laws of the Foundations of Torah.
Parshat Va’etchanan - Shabbat Nachamu How to Love God: Shema as a User’s Manual
by Rabbanit Lisa Schlaff
Interestingly, this is the first time the notion of loving God appears in the Torah. To the desert Jew who knew of God through the splitting of the sea, the thunder and lightning of matan Torah, mass plague, and bread falling from the sky, this was a shocking statement. “You must fear God” — yes. “You must be in awe of God” — certainly. “You must love God” would have been an incomprehensible command...
Returning to the Jews in the desert, the command to love God is no longer amorphous or jarring; it is grounded in very concrete action items. We express love to our children not only by saying “I love you” but by sitting on the floor and playing puzzles with them. We express love to our parents not only by saying “I love you” but by doing the food shopping when needed. And to God, we might not say “I love you” at all, but we fill our lives with daily ritual — everywhere and all the time — that is a powerful expression of love. On this Shabbat Nachamu, may we find comfort in our own constant and repetitive expression of this love.