We all know that God loves us. Its basic Judaism. It even says it in the Torah. But what does it mean?

How can God love us if God is perfect and can’t be hurt?

If you love someone, but it doesn’t hurt you when they don’t respond to you, is that love?

If you say “I love you, but what you do with that piece of information doesn’t matter to me,” the love is a lie.

If you say, “I love you, but if you don’t love me, I don’t care,” the love is a lie. There cannot be love without vulnerability.

The truth is, God is vulnerable. When we don’t reciprocate his love, it hurts him immensely.

What we do matters to him, because God has a purpose in creation, and if we stand in the way of his purpose for the world, it hurts him, because his purpose is real.

We can hurt him, which is why his love for us is real.