CAN LOVE BE COMMANDED?
"And you shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might."
Obedience may be commanded, but love must be freely given. God may command us to be just, or to observe given rituals, but how can love be mandated? Can those who have suffered be blamed for finding God unlovable?
A close look at the grammar of the first paragraph of the Sh'ma can help us understand this paradox. The verb "v'ahavta" is not an imperative, although it is invariably rendered as such by the translators. Rather, it refers to future action. We are not commanded to love God. The statement is, rather, one of prophecy. The time will come when we will love God of our own volition, even if we have difficulty doing so now.
Many of us have anger towards God because of our hurts, and the hurts of others. But there are answers to our questions, and we should not despair of ever learning them. Isaiah teaches us "that the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
-- Rabbi Kenneth L. Cohen