There is a love of God so universal that every single Jewish soul possesses it, regardless of spiritual level. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi locates it in a verse from Isaiah that most people read as poetry: "My soul, I desire You at night" (Isaiah 26:9).
The Zohar reads this as a declaration of existential need. "Since You, God, are my true soul and life, I desire You." Not the way a person desires a luxury. The way a person who is suffocating desires air. The way someone exhausted to the point of collapse yearns for their soul to revive them. The way a person falling asleep longs to wake up again.
This love is the inheritance of every Jewish soul from the patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob implanted it so deeply that it cannot be extinguished. And it manifests as a simple, overwhelming recognition: God is the life of my life. Without God, I am not merely diminished. I do not exist.
But the Zohar describes an even deeper love: "Like a son who strives for the sake of his father and mother, whom he loves even more than his own body, soul, and spirit." The prophet Malachi grounds this: "Have we not all one Father?" (Malachi 2:10). This is not love born of what God gives you. It is love born of who God is to you.
The Tanya acknowledges that most people cannot consciously access these exalted states. But it insists that every soul carries them as a hidden inheritance. The question is not whether you possess this love. It is whether you are willing to uncover it. And the method is achingly simple: rise from sleep in the dark hours, open the Torah, and let the light of the Ein Sof (אין סוף) draw your sleeping love to the surface.