The Love Sandwich

Newsletter August 4, 2025 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

I’ve got a question for you: if I asked you “how does God show love to you, and how do you show Love to God?”— What would you answer? 

And when I say God, I don’t mean an old man in the sky with a beard. I mean God the Divine Energy, Author of Life, the Creator of Time and Space, or however you describe the Life Force in the world. The Indescribable One Without End. How do you express love to That and how do you recognize love from It? 

The rabbis asked the same question, and they answered as any nerd would (and we love nerds!): they said that God showed us love by giving us the best book ever (Torah!), and we show God love back by studying it faithfully. 

Sounds funny right? But it’s true. In fact, every prayer service is structured around this reciprocal kind of love. In the liturgy, this idea shows up in the two prayers around the Shema.

The first is the prayer showing that God has a great love for us known as the Ahavah Rabah or Ahavat Olam (two iterations of the same prayer with the same theme). In these prayers, which you can see HERE  and HERE, it shows that God loves us by giving us the most amazing gift ever: the Torah. It’s a gift that is meant to guide us and console us and challenge us and appeal to our hearts, minds, and soul.

And then after the Shema, comes the Ve’ahavta, which is a prayer that instructs us on how we show gratitude for this amazing gift of Torah; how we show love to God. And that is by living the commandments: speaking of them when we rise up and lie down, putting them on the doorposts of our homes, et cetera. Living, using, engaging in, and immersing ourselves in the Torah. 

Liturgy professors call this section of prayer the “love sandwich.” (Like the lox sandwich in the picture above). And why is it a sandwich? Because in this section, we learn of the shame "sandwiched" between two statements about love between God and the people. Before the Shema, God‘s love for us by giving us the Torah, and after the Shema declaration, us showing God how we reciprocate that love by studying and living the Torah. 

Jewish tradition is one of continued exploration of questions, and so we return to the question: how do you see God showing love for you in the world, and how do you show God love back?

These questions are particularly meaningful this week as we come to observe to Tu B’Av, the holiday known as Jewish Valentine’s Day. It’s a day of celebrating love in all of its forms. The Talmud tells of couples coupling off on this date. But, the rabbis always question and recognize that anytime romantic love appears, it also just as easily can be understood as love of the Divine. 

This even applies to the Song of Songs- which is almost entirely love-focused poetry. They assert that it should not be understood as love poetry between two lovers, but rather love poetry composed by the Israelites directed at God, thanking God for the great love of abundance around. 

So this week is a great week to ponder the various ways that Divine Love shows up for you, and the way that you reciprocate expressing love back. 

Personally, I feel God’s love in the timeless tradition of Torah, in the abundance of the natural world, in the depths of community relationships, and in hope for the future. And I try to reciprocate my love to God by striving always to do right by the people around me, by living as intentionally as possible, and by making amends when I miss the mark. Perhaps this is why this holiday precedes the High Holy Day season which is fast approaching; because pondering our love for and from God is meant to inspire our best efforts in a relationship with One we love. (AND stay tuned for more information about our High Holy Day services in an upcoming newsletter!).

In these ways and many other others, this is how we are keeping it sacred.

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred.

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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The above is an excerpt from a Keeping It Sacred newsletter. If you want to read the entire newsletter or any from our archives, please head over to: keepingitsacred.com/news 

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 Thanks for your interest, and thanks for #keepingitsacred...