The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Babylon (5): The Eric Rule

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  Deuteronomy 6:5  NASB

You shall love – Love God—or else!  Is that what it sounds like?  Is that how it makes you feel?  How can you be forced to love someone?  You can’t!  Impossible!  So, if that’s what Moses meant, he couldn’t have been more mistaken.  Forget this commandment!  It just doesn’t work.

Which means it can’t be a commandment.  The only way this works is if it is motived by our own desire.  It’s not a command to love God.  It’s an expression of my overwhelming desire to love Him.  Ira Stone clarifies:

“On the basis of this wholehearted love, we perceive the importance of observing the mitzvot.  Like lovers who are never satisfied by the exercise of our efforts on behalf of our beloved, we are never satisfied that we have accomplished all that is commanded of us by our infinite love for the infinite beloved.  We are constantly motivated to do more and with greater intensity and to further obligate ourselves, because we can never be satisfied with the extent of our obligation or its fulfillment.”[1]

I call this the “Eric rule.”  Listen to Clapton’s remark as you enjoy the music.  CLICK  “ . . . but, say, if I’ve got Doyle and Derek in the band like I have for this show, I will try to do more, you know, to play better, outside of what I normally try to achieve.”

I do want to love God.  I can’t think of a higher calling.  I am sure there is no greater satisfaction.  But nearly everything in life gets in the way.  That’s why I need to practice the Eric rule.

“Because the vicissitudes of everyday life can be so overwhelmingly difficult, the yetzer ha-ra must be exercised with ever greater power and, like a muscle, its strength soon grows our of proportion to the strength of the yetzer ha-tov.  With Mussar practice, however, we can reengage our yetzer ha-tov, our desire to serve another before ourselves, without denying the legitimacy of the yetzer ha-ra.”[2]

How?  How can I do more when I’m emotionally just keeping my head above water.  Well, if we listen to Luzzatto, we need to tune in to pleasure.  Yes, that’s right.  The real motivator in life is not duty.  Duty is like a commandment.  Possible but difficult and debilitating.  No, what we really need is pleasure because pleasure brings with it the insatiable appetite for more.  We need lots of pleasure—resulting from an orientation toward God.  When Eric has Doyle and Derek in the band, his playing is sheer pleasure.  He loves it because it is so satisfying.  He’ll want to do it again—with even more intensity.  To feel fulfilled.  That’s what we need.  That’s what causes us to want to love Him with everything we’ve got.  And that means if we aren’t totally enjoying loving God then something isn’t right.  We won’t last.  Duty only goes so far.  The “Path of the Righteous” is about enjoying God so much that nothing can get in the way.

Step 5: Answer this: What really gives you pleasure—infinite pleasure? 

Topical Index: Luzzatto, duty, pleasure, love, Deuteronomy 6:5

[1] Ira F. Stone, in Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, p. 13.

[2] Ira F. Stone, “Introduction,” in Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, p. xviii.