Reb Akiva Eiger asks, since it's not possible to force someone to love, how can there be a commandment to love Hashem?
He answers that we end the bracha right before Shema with the words הבוחר בעמו ישראל באהבה , who chose the nation of Israel with love, because love is reciprocal & when we see & feel that Hashem loves us we will in turn love Him back.
How do we really get this feeling of love for Hashem? Ben Yaer Hakohen explains that the mitzva to love one’s fellow man is stated in Vayikra whereas the mitzva to love Hashem is only brought later in Devarim. The fact that the Torah commands one to love one’s friend before it commands to love Hashem teaches us that it's impossible to come to love Hashem unless you first have love for your fellow Jew.
When one trains himself to love his fellow Jew, he will be training himself to love Hashem too.
I heard a fascinating story from Rabbi Frand about Reb Zelig Epstein who had befriended a couple that survived the war. However, after all the atrocities that they lived through, it was just too much for the man & he ended his own life. The widow had no one & Reb Zelig became her figurative shoulder to cry on.
Unfortunately, this woman's troubles didn't end with her husband’s death. Her son became sick & again Reb Zelig was there helping her to take care of the son, taking him to treatments etc. However, he could not recover and passed away on Erev Yom Kippur.
As Reb Zelig was walking to Kol Nidre, it dawned on him that maybe this tragedy would be too much for this woman to bear so he decided that he would skip Yom Kippur in shul & spend it with her. As he was walking, he realized that it would take him well over an hour to walk which might be too much for this woman to be alone. So he went to the yeshiva where his Rebbi, Reb Yaakov Kaminetsky was davening. He walked up to him in the middle of Maariv & asked him if he was allowed to take the bus so that this woman wouldn't have to be alone for even an hour.
Reb Yaakov pointed to his shtender where he had his money & told him to take the money & get on the bus!
Can any of us imagine doing something like that? We tend to look the other way when there are problems. Who wants to get involved? To take a bus on Yom Kippur and to spend the entire Yom Kippur with a widow instead of being in shul is something that's unheard of. It's people like Reb Zelig & his actions that show what real love for a fellow Jew is.
However, how does this get us to love Hashem? Perhaps, since we said love is reciprocal, if we show Hashem that we love His children He will in turn show His love for us & when we see that He loves us we will automatically feel the love for Him too. We say it three times a day. Let's mean what we say & take it upon ourselves to try to help one another & be there for those that need it. By showing our love for one another, we will come to the ultimate love, the love of Hashem!
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