How to Excavate
Now there are various ways of fueling that fire and drawing forth that love from the subconscious into your heart. The Chofetz Chaim, in his Mishna Berura (25:14), suggests a good idea. He writes there that when you say the words וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ, you should try to love Hashem. Isn't that a poshute eitzah?! While you’re saying these words, love Him for one second. Don’t just say the words and think, “When I’ll be seventy years old, I’ll have a white beard and I’ll be an old tzaddik...” Start right now! An eitzah pshutah! Every day, while you’re saying these words, love Hashem.
You don’t feel it? Well, the more you do this, the more you’ll feel it. Let’s say you start tomorrow morning and you do it for fifty years; suppose you’re a boy of eighteen now, so by the time you reach sixty-eight, so it could be you’ll have some love in your heart for Hashem.
Motivation Required
It’s not so easy however. Because what do you love Him for? You can’t just say “v’ahavta, v’ahavta” and say you love, when actually you have nothing that you love Him for. It requires thinking; it requires some sort of motivation. And that’s why the Chovos Halevavos says that he put his Shaar Ahavas Hashem, his chapter on loving Hashem, all the way at the end of his sefer. Because there are rungs on the ladder of loving Hashem that have to be climbed. Don’t expect that one day you’ll grow wings and just fly up.
And the first chapter, the first and most important motivation is Shaar Habechina. Because Shaar Habechina is a long chapter that trains the reader to study and appreciate all the benefits that we get in life from Hakadosh Baruch Hu; and the Chovos Halevavos says that one of the most important motivations for ahavas Hashem is hakaras hatov, gratitude to Hashem. Now, he’s an expert in this subject and it pays therefore to listen to what he says.
Hands on Love
He starts from the benefits of having hands – יָדַיִם לָךְ וְחָפְשִׁית לָךְ. It’s fun to have a hand. Oh yes. There’s a man on the street, I see him frequently. He has an empty sleeve. Baruch Hashem your sleeves are full!
And out of your sleeve comes a jointed derrick with little derricks attached to it. You can bend it anyway you want. Ah! A pleasure! A taanug! A jointed derrick is very expensive, you know. A simple derrick is just one long beam; you lower it and you attach a bucket to it and then it rises up. But suppose it’s a jointed derrick; sometimes it’s even joined in two places – that’s very expensive. It needs different controls because this part rises up and this part has to bend. And here right under your sleeves Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave you a jointed derrick that works perfectly.
Shake It! Twist It!
Shake it! It’s fun. Bend it! Do you hear any noise, any creaking as the bones rub against each other? No. It’s lubricated beautifully. It doesn’t hurt even. That’s a wonderful arrangement. So already you have something to love Hashem for. Try that once a day. Even if you gain a little bit of ahavas Hashem it’s not a waste; it’s a very great achievement. When we’re talking about the highest mitzvah, even a little bit is tremendously big.
You have to understand what the Chovos Halevavos is saying here. He’s telling us to utilize all the motivations that are possible to find, even the most ‘mundane’ things. Unfortunately, even good people are not aware that motivations are necessary — they imagine that they’ll love Hashem for no reason, without even thinking. And so the Chovos Halevavos says no; you have to utilize the matanos that Hashem gives you as a catalyst to stir your mind to ahavas Hashem.
And I’ll tell you something; in addition to the mitzvah, life will become more fun! Many of us are missing the fun of life. We don’t really enjoy life. It’s only when you appreciate what you’re getting, and you’re grateful to Hashem, that’s when you have enjoyment from it. If a man learns to enjoy his hand, he’ll have simcha all his life. If you came here just for that, it’s not wasted. It’s fun to have a hand. Life becomes happy when you study it in that way.
Loving Hashem One Step at a Time
So when you’re walking outside with your shoes, that's also a good opportunity. Not in the morning when you mumble the brachos, muh, muh, muh. No; then you’re not thinking too much. But while you’re walking! Baruch Hashem every day He lends you a pair of shoes. He doesn’t have to give it to you; He lends it to you. He made the leather for you. He made the wool lining for you. The cotton stitching He made for you. So as you’re walking on the avenue, you’re thinking, “How could I not love my Benefactor? He made everything grow so that I can walk comfortably.”
Suppose you had no shoes, chalilah, and a man came along and said, “Here. Here’s a pair of shoes for the day.” You’d love him! No question you’d love him!
Now, I want to tell you something now — you’ll laugh, but I’ll say it anyhow. You should learn to love Hashem because of your shoelaces. Don’t laugh at that, don’t laugh at that. You don’t realize what it means to be without shoelaces. Let’s say, suppose you walk out into the street one bright morning, and as you are on your way to the subway, you discover that one shoelace is broken. As you walk in the streets, your shoes are flopping off your feet every second. So you have to walk very slowly because if you run across the street you will leave your shoe in the street. So you’re limping and you’re thinking, “If only I had a shoelace.”
Baruch Hashem, He gives you shoelaces every day. He makes the flax or the cotton for your laces. “Thank You Hashem. I love You for my shoelaces.”
Laugh and Love
Now, I understand that other people who never think about these things might ridicule this. They’ll laugh at it. But who cares? Let them laugh. They’ll laugh, and we’ll love.
Imagine a man is walking and is loving Hashem because he has shoes. Everyone else on the street, they’re gloomy, they’re thinking other thoughts, but he’s walking on air, he’s so happy, so filled with gratitude. A man like that, eventually will erupt with ahavas Hashem.
And so, when a man starts thinking about what he possesses, everything becomes a motivation to love Hashem. His eyes are a reason to love Hashem. Two color cameras! His feet are a motivation. A Rolls Royce! His heart is a motivation. A perfect pumping machine!
Everyday Motivations
Now, what do we see from all these examples? We begin to understand that ahavas Hashem can’t be a detached emotion. It has to be connected with your everyday life. If it’s merely mouthing words, then it’s worth almost nothing. If someone is going to unleash the fire, the volcano of ahavas Hashem that he has within himself, he has to make use of this-worldly things, the ‘mundane’ gashmiyus things of this world.
The Way to the Heart...
And that brings us back to the subject of eating that we started with. Because that’s why Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us in our everyday lives the function of eating. It’s because the Creator, He knows that food is the most persuasive method available.
The Gemara (Chullin 4b) tells that there was a king in the days of the bayis rishon who wanted to persuade another king to go with him into battle. Now to go to battle, nobody is in a hurry, and so he had a job of salesmanship to accomplish. And the Gemara explains how he did it. He made a banquet, and the friends were all sitting together and eating and drinking, and that’s how he convinced him.
And on this, the Gemara says the following statement, a very important statement. It’ll come in handy even to us many times: אֵין הַסָּעָה אֶלָּא בַּאֲכִילָה וּבִשְׁתִיָּה – There is no persuasion unless by eating or drinking. If you want to persuade somebody, the most effective way is by means of eating and drinking.
That’s the famous saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” And so you wives, if you want to ask your husband that he should buy you something that your heart is set on, don’t do it before supper. It’s a very serious error to jump the gun. Even worse is before breakfast — that’s a flop. Because to persuade, you need eating and drinking. That’s the way to persuade people.
Great Men and Food
And nobody should think that he’s bigger than that, that eating doesn’t affect him that way. Even the biggest tzaddik in the world, the way to his heart is by means of good food. I’ll prove it to you. You remember when Yitzchak Avinu had to give a bracha to his son Eisav, so he said עֲשֵׂה לִי מַטְעַמִּים – “Prepare for me a meat dish and make it tasty, כַּאֲשֶׁר אָהַבְתִּי – Prepare it like the way you know that I love, and I will eat it, בַּעֲבוּר תְּבָרֶכְךָ נַפְשִׁי – in order I should give you a bracha (Bereishis 27:4). Yitzchak, in order to give his son Eisav a better bracha, he wanted to first enjoy the venison that Eisav would roast for him.
Yitzchak was thinking, “My son will hunt for me a deer — venison tastes better than ordinary meat, you know — and he'll broil it for me and make it taste good, and I'm going to love him even more for that. My emotions will be entirely different after I eat from his catch and my bracha to him will be different too. It won’t be a result only of thinking that he's my son, my future, my future generations, but it will have the added push of ‘Look what he did for me! He went and brought me something that is tasty to eat ka’asher ahavti. And I love him more because of that.’”
Powering the Love
Now, some people, they read those pessukim and they become disillusioned. Yitzchak Avinu, our great father, wants tasty food in order to bestir his mind? Isn't that remarkable? Yitzchak needed to enjoy the food?
The answer is yes. Because no matter how great your mental idealism is, when it's supported by physical motivations that brings along the body, the whole person, all of his emotions, and makes it more powerful, much more powerful.
Now, suppose the piece of meat that Yitzchok was eating now wasn't fully broiled. Let’s say Eisav prepared it na, half broiled, and it was hard to eat. Or מְבֻשָּׁל בַּמָּיִם, cooked in water, and not as tasty as fire-skewered. It's still good; Yitzchok would appreciate it, but it's better if it was roasted. “The more it's enjoyable to eat,” Yitzchok said, “the more I’ll feel gratitude and love.”
