Ahavat Olam The Streicker Center: Maariv Class 4

Everlasting/world/universal love, house of Israel Your people, You love.

Torah and mitzvot, laws (supra-rational) and precepts (logical) to us you taught.
Therefore, Adonai our God,
when we lie down and when we rise up,
we will engage discussions on Your laws.
We will rejoice in the words of Your Torah and your commandments for ever.

for they are our life, the length of our days, and they will be pronounced/enunciated/customs of our day and night.

And Your love, do not remove from us for eternity.
Praise to You, Adonai, who loves Your people Israel.

[With] a great love have You loved us, Lord, our God;

[with] a great and superabundant compassion/mercy have You had compassion upon us.

Our Father, our King -

for the sake of our fathers who trusted/relied/depended in You

and You taught them the laws/statutes of life; so [too] grace us and teach us.

Our Father, the merciful Father, the merciful One - have mercy upon us,and put into our hearts to understand and to comprehend

and to listen to study and to teach.

To keep, to do and to preserve

all of the words of the study of Your Torah with love.

And enlighten our eyes in Your Torah,

and make our heart cling to Your commandments,

and unite our hearts to love and fear Your name; and may we never be embarrassed ever.

For we have trusted in Your great and awesome holy Name,

let us rejoice and be gladdened by Your salvation.

And bring us in peace/wholeness from the four corners of the Earth,

and lead us proudly/independently/with soverignty to our Land;

as You are the God who performs/achieves salvations.

And You have chosen us from among all nations and languages,

and have brought us close to Your great name forever in truth,

to praise You and unify You with love.

Blessed are You, Lord, who chooses His people, Israel, with love.

...in my childhood it was difficult for me since it is known that Ahavat Olam is a blessing for a mitzvah for the reading of the Shema. All the mitzvot, all of them, require a blessing while one does them, and so we find in the Halel, and Megilah, and reading of the Torah, and all the more so in the reading of the Shema.

The Gemara asks: And what is the formula of the other blessing recited before Shema? Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel: An abounding love [ahava rabba]. And Rabbi Elazar instructed his son, Rabbi Pedat, to also say: An abounding love.

That was also taught in a baraita: One does not recite: An eternal love [ahavat olam]; rather, one recites: An abounding love. And the Rabbis say that one recites: An eternal love, and so it says: “And an eternal love I have loved you, therefore I have drawn you with kindness” (Jeremiah 31:2).

Since we have a baraiita that says eternal love the law has been established as Shacharit Ahavah Rabbah and Arvit Ahavat Olam...