Notions of Divine and Human Love in Jewish Thought: An Interview with Warren Zev Harvey "To say that the paradigm of love is Creation is not merely to say that love is activity, not passivity, an idea already found in Aristotle. It is to say much more. For if the paradigm of love is God's creative activity, then love is an expression of strength, not weakness, and of perfection, not imperfection. Love is power. This contradicts a popular philosophic notion, which goes back to Plato, that love results from weakness, imperfection and privation: one loves what one lacks. According to this notion, found in various forms in different Greek and medieval philosophers, it is always the imperfect who loves the perfect, and the Perfect One does not love at all. ... In opposition to these Platonic and Aristotelian views on love, [Hasdai] Crescas presents in Light II, 6, 1, a concept of love based on power and perfection. He does not deny Aristotle's thesis that God is the ultimate Object of love, but he is much more concerned to establish that God is the ultimate Lover." (Warren Zev Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas,108–109).1 AG: One common feature of the Greek philosophic tradition and the Hebrew Bible is the association of God with love. Yet how they conceive the loving relationship is quite different. Aristotle describes God in the Metaphysics as an unmoved mover who causes the motion of the rest of the cosmos without himself moving. God causes the motion of the cosmos by being the object of love of all other beings, but has no need to love others: "The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved."2 Contrastingly, the Hebrew Bible presents a God who actively loves humanity and expresses that loving relationship through enacting covenants (ex., Deut.7:7–8, Hos. 11). The nature of this relationship is expressed in the famous statement that "the LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people—for ye were the fewest of all peoples—but because the LORD loved you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore unto your fathers" (Deut. 7:7–8). This form of compassionate love at times appears to transcend the deserving or merit of the other partner in the agreement. Throughout your career, you have written and taught extensively on this theme. I am interested to know, according to your research, how have Jewish philosophers in both the medieval and modern period reconciled the 1 Warren Zev Harvey, Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1998), 108–109. 2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W.D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924, repr. 1953), 12.7, 1072a27. two conceptions of the loving relationship? How do they answer why God loves humanity and how humans fulfill their part in the relationship? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of these different paradigms that have formed? WZH: Thank you, Alex, for a thoughtful and challenging question about love in Greek and Hebrew thought. Now, the Greeks had four words for love: agápe (used for "true love" or love of God), philía (used for love among friends or love of wisdom = philosophía), storgē (familial love), and éros (passionate love). The Hebrews had three words for love: ahavah (the general term), hesheq (passionate love), and hesed (love that derives from strength, often translated as "loving-kindness"). Roughly speaking, "ahavah" parallels the first three Greek terms; hesheq parallels éros; and hesed has no parallel. When Jewish philosophers speak about our love for God or God's love for us, it is important to see which Hebrew term they have in mind. Let's begin with Maimonides, the most influential of Jewish philosophers. He discusses the biblical commandment to love God "with all your heart" (Deut. 6:5) in his Guide of the Perplexed, I, 39. He explains that the heart is a metonymy for "all the forces of the body," and the commandment to love God is to be fulfilled by devoting all one's bodily powers to knowing God.3 The knowledge of God, which according to him is attained through the scientific study of God's creation, must be the supreme love of one's life. All the forces of the body must be part of that all- consuming desire. If one attends a physics class, one does so not for the sake of getting a degree, making money, or gaining fame, but in order to discover the wisdom of the Creator in nature. If one goes to the cafeteria to eat lunch, one does so in order that the body be healthy so that one will have strength to devote oneself to the contemplation of God's universe. Similarly, if one sleeps at night in one's bed, goes to the gym in the morning for a work-out, or enjoys sexual intercourse with one's favorite partner—it should be for the sake of making the body healthy so that one will have strength to know God.4 Maimonides thus has no problem with the commandment to love God with all one's heart. It is for him a commandment to channel all one's passions into the one grand passion of knowing God. Love of God, for him, is the passion that includes all passions, the love of loves. The word used for the love of God in the biblical commandment is "ahavah." If Maimonides had no problem speaking of our ahavah (or its Arabic analogue: mahabbah) for God, he had a big problem speaking about God's ahavah (or mahabbah) for us. He rarely does so, and when he does it is 3 Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. R. Joseph Kafih (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1977), 1:39. English translation: Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961). 4 Maimonides, Mishne Torah: De’ot (Jerusalem: Frankel, 1975-2001), 3: 2–3. 2 with reference to a biblical verse).5 For how could God have ahavah for us? Ahavah is a bodily passion and God has no body. In speaking about our love for God and God's love for us, philosophers were often shy about using the Hebrew word "hesheq" (or its Arabic analogue "`ishq"), since it was thought to be too sexual. One philosopher who was not shy about this was the Muslim Avicenna. He spoke boldly about our passionate love (`ishq) for God, and God's passionate love for us. Maimonides followed him in speaking about our passionate love (hesheq or `ishq) for God, but refused to speak about God's passionate love for us. He described our passionate love for God as purely intellectual—a love in which the human intellect frees itself from the body and conjoins with the divine intellectual overflow. This intellectual love was, in his view, the greatest éros conceivable.6 The one kind of love Maimonides allowed himself to attribute to God was hesed. The Rabbis of the Talmud used the word "hesed" to refer to acts of love that are considered imitatio Dei, such as clothing the naked, visiting the sick, or comforting the mourner. In these cases, the strong does an act of love for the weak—with no ulterior motive and not to satisfy a need. The paradigm of this disinterested love was for Maimonides the act of Creation by the omnipotent God who has no ulterior motives and no needs. Maimonides quotes Psalms 89:3: "The world is built on hesed."7 Plato and Aristotle taught that love derives from a need or weakness, and so the inferior loves the superior more than the superior the inferior. Maimonides agreed with them regarding ahavah and hesheq, but not hesed. Hesed is a love that derives not from need or weakness, but from plentitude and power. By the way, Aristotle was not always careful about not attributing passions to God. It is true that in Metaphysics, XII, 7, he describes God as the éromenon, the object of the world's love, not the world's Lover.8 However, in the very same chapter he surprisingly ascribes hēdonē to God.9 If Aristotle's Prime Mover doesn't love, it at least enjoys. The greatest Jewish Aristotelian after Maimonides was Levi Gersonides. He mostly accepted Maimonides' analysis of the different terms for love, but followed Avicenna regarding hesheq. He held that God created the world in passionate erotic love, and this love sustains all existence. In Genesis 2:2, it is said, according to the common translation, that God "concluded [va-yekhal] His work on the seventh day." However, argues Gersonides, this reading is impossible since God concluded His work at the 5 Cf. Maimonides, Mishne Torah: Avodah Zarah, 1:3, referring to Deut. 7:8. 6 Maimonides, Guide, 3:51. 7 Ibid., 3:53. 8 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1072b 3. 9 Ibid., 1072b 16. 3 end of the sixth day (see Gen. 2:1). He explains that the verse can be alternatively translated: God passionately loved His work on the seventh day" (cf. II Sam. 13:39). He uses here the word "hesheq" and explains that the divine éros animates the entire universe.10 Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, arguing against Plato and Aristotle, held that true love derives from strength, not weakness or need. He taught that God's love for human beings is greater than our love for Him, and so the Bible uses the word "ahavah" with regard to our love of God (Deut.