THE FIRST LAW OF LOVE
One day a seeker approached Rabbi Hillel, one of Judaism’s greatest teachers. “If you can teach me
your whole religion standing on one leg,” the seeker said, “I will become your disciple.” And Rabbi Hillel
answered him, “You shall love your God with your whole mind and your whole heart and your soul.
Everything else is commentary.”
Jesus, too, answered those who asked him what was the greatest commandment. “The greatest
commandment is this: You shall love your God with your whole heart and with your whole mind and
your whole soul.”
To study the commandments and miss this lesson is to miss the commandments entirely. The
commandments do not measure our love of God; they only give it substance. They only ground it. They
only demonstrate a desire to make it real.
We are accustomed, legalist that we are, however, to define a manual of sins for ourselves, a checklist
of behaviors by which we measure our sanctity against the sanctity of those around us. The list is a
comforting one. It allows us to feel holy without ever really having to be holy. It enables us to consider
ourselves righteous without living rightly. It teases us into doing all the right things for the wrong
reason.
It is more than possible to defer to authority, to go to church, to profess faith in God, to live a rigidly
pure and loveless life, never to steal a penny, never to tell a lie, never to give in to greed, never to
succumb to lust—and not really love God at all. “The worst treason,” the poet T.S. Eliot says, “is to do
the right thing for the wrong reason.”
It’s only when all the dimensions of our lives are lived in accordance with a consciousness of God—
when we make nothing but God, god; when we put our hope, not in money or things or people in
power, but in God alone; when we bow our souls before the omnipresent presence of God in our lives—
that the rest of the commandments take on any real meaning in life at all. Otherwise, why not cheat
and steal and lie and rape and plunder and horde? Why not make myself God?
We are inclined to forget that the commandments as we know them are simply guidelines meant to
show us how to keep the greatest commandment of all—the love of God—when the truth is that when
we really love God, we don’t need any of the other commandments at all. A sense of the presence of
God is more than enough to guide us.
--from The Ten Commandments: Laws of the Heart by Joan Chittister (Orbis).
CLICK ON BOOK COVER TO ORDER
One day a seeker approached Rabbi Hillel, one of Judaism’s greatest teachers. “If you can teach me
your whole religion standing on one leg,” the seeker said, “I will become your disciple.” And Rabbi Hillel
answered him, “You shall love your God with your whole mind and your whole heart and your soul.
Everything else is commentary.”
Jesus, too, answered those who asked him what was the greatest commandment. “The greatest
commandment is this: You shall love your God with your whole heart and with your whole mind and
your whole soul.”
To study the commandments and miss this lesson is to miss the commandments entirely. The
commandments do not measure our love of God; they only give it substance. They only ground it. They
only demonstrate a desire to make it real.
We are accustomed, legalist that we are, however, to define a manual of sins for ourselves, a checklist
of behaviors by which we measure our sanctity against the sanctity of those around us. The list is a
comforting one. It allows us to feel holy without ever really having to be holy. It enables us to consider
ourselves righteous without living rightly. It teases us into doing all the right things for the wrong
reason.
It is more than possible to defer to authority, to go to church, to profess faith in God, to live a rigidly
pure and loveless life, never to steal a penny, never to tell a lie, never to give in to greed, never to
succumb to lust—and not really love God at all. “The worst treason,” the poet T.S. Eliot says, “is to do
the right thing for the wrong reason.”
It’s only when all the dimensions of our lives are lived in accordance with a consciousness of God—
when we make nothing but God, god; when we put our hope, not in money or things or people in
power, but in God alone; when we bow our souls before the omnipresent presence of God in our lives—
that the rest of the commandments take on any real meaning in life at all. Otherwise, why not cheat
and steal and lie and rape and plunder and horde? Why not make myself God?
We are inclined to forget that the commandments as we know them are simply guidelines meant to
show us how to keep the greatest commandment of all—the love of God—when the truth is that when
we really love God, we don’t need any of the other commandments at all. A sense of the presence of
God is more than enough to guide us.
--from The Ten Commandments: Laws of the Heart by Joan Chittister (Orbis).
CLICK ON BOOK COVER TO ORDER
| DO WE NEED THE COMMANDMENTS? |
 |  |  |  |  |
| Home||Benedictine Sisters of Erie||Catalogue||Joan in the News||Contact Benetvision Fund for Prisoners||Retreats||About Benetvision||Ideas in Passing Benetvision • 355 East Ninth Street • Erie, PA 16503-1107 • Phone 814-459-5994 benetvision@benetvision.org • Fax 814-459-8066 Copyrighted © 2007 Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA |