The source for this is a passage of the Torah we all know by heart, it’s in the first paragraph of the Shema, which we read in Parshat Vaetchanan.
‘Veahavta et Hashem, Elohekha, bekhol levavkha, ouvkhol nafshekha, ouvkhol meodekha’ – You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.
How is it possible for the Torah to command us to love anyone or anything?
I can’t just decide to love, surely love is the culmination of my knowledge and my experience, either it’s there or it’s not there.
The Rambam in his list of the 613 commandments of the Torah tells us that the commandment of ‘veahavta’ is ‘ahaveihu al Habriot’ – not you must love the Lord your God, but rather, you must cause the Lord your God to be loved by everybody.
It’s in the causative! And as a result, the Torah here is encouraging us to guarantee that through our actions and deeds, Hashem will always be loved.
So, let’s never forget, what I do doesn’t just have a bearing on my reputation, on the reputation of family, community and nation – it has the bearing on the reputation of Hashem and let’s always be the finest ambassadors of the Almighty.
Shabbat Shalom.