How to Love G-d is a collection of excerpts to inspire one to love G-d. The excerpts have been selected from Tanach, Talmud, commentaries, earlier and later authorities, Jewish philosophers and Chassidic texts.

What characterizes love the way it is supposed to be? A person’s love for G-d has to be intense, enormously passionate, causing him to be entirely preoccupied by it, just like one who is lovesick. His mind is always on the love-object, whether he is at rest, in motion – even while he eats and drinks. The love of G-d should involve those who love Him even more completely than the love of a human being, since we are commanded in the verse “With all your heart and all your soul.” This is the content of Solomon’s parable “For I am lovesick” (Song of Songs 2:5). In fact, the entire Song of Songs is one continuing metaphor for this aspect of loving G-d.

Maimonides (Rambam), Laws of Repentance, chap. 10

Compiled by Rabbi Yosef Ginsburg