8 myths
Love in Jewish tradition: the love between God and Israel, the Song of Songs, and the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.
8 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines love, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
A stone that took a dozen shepherds to move. A seventeen-year-old fugitive. A girl leading her flock. Jacob rolled it off by himself.
God spoke to Moses with two words. One meant harshness, one gentleness. Rebbe Elimelech found the whole arc of the spiritual life inside that grammatical shift.
The nations asked Rabbi Akiva why a beautiful, strong people would die for an invisible Beloved. He answered from a love poem, reading one word as above death.
God walks his own wine cellar and finds sixty-nine barrels turned to vinegar. One barrel holds. Then the Tabernacle stands and God groans.
God's throne stood five hundred years above the seventh heaven. He left it all and asked freed slaves for scraps of wool so He could live among them.
One word in Leviticus opens the altar to every human being, and King Menashe's cry from prison pierces heaven after a lifetime of wickedness.
Ben Sabar earned two hundred more years by helping an orphan marry. A younger sage was taken mid-study, desired above, and mourned for three days.
Joseph in chains, Leah bargaining for roots, David ducking a spear from the king who once kissed his forehead. Song of Songs holds all three.
