n of the Song of Songs,
which "all the waters could not quench," "a love as strong as death."(364)
This love raised up a nation of martyrs without parallel in history,
although the followers of the so-called Religion of Love fail to give it
the credit it deserves and seem to regard it as a kind of hatred for the
rest of mankind.(365) Whenever the paternal love of God is truly felt and
understood it must include all classes and all souls of men who enter into
the relation of children to God. Wherever emphasis is laid upon the
special love for Israel, it is based upon the love with which the chosen
people cling to the Torah, the word of God, upon the devotion with which
they surrender their lives in His cause.(366)

7. Still, Judaism does not proclaim love, absolute and unrestricted, as
the divine principle of life. That is left to the Church, whose history
almost to this day records ever so many acts of lovelessness. Love is
unworthy of God, unless it is guided by justice. Love of good must be
accompanied by hate of evil, or else it lacks the educative power which
alone makes it beneficial to man.

God's love manifests itself in human life as an educative power. R. Akiba
says that it extends to all created in God's image, although the knowledge
of it was vouchsafed to Israel alone.(367) This universal love of God is a
doctrine of the apocryphal literature as well. "Thou hast mercy upon all
... for Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest nothing which Thou
hast made.... But Thou sparest all, for they are Thine, O Lord, Lover of
souls," says the Book of Wisdom;(368) and when Ezra the Seer laments the
calamity that has befallen the people, God replies, "Thinkest thou that
thou lovest My creatures more than I?"(369)

8. Among the mystics divine love was declared to be the highest creative
principle. They referred the words of the Song of Songs,--"The midst
thereof is paved with love,"(370) to the innermost palace of heaven, where
stands the throne of God.(371) Among the philosophers Crescas considered
love the active cosmic principle rather than intellect, the principle of
Aristotle, because it is love which is the impulse for creation.(372) This
conception of divine love received a peculiarly mystic color from Juda
Abravanel, a neo-Platonist of the sixteenth century, known as Leo
Hebraeus. He says: "God's love must needs unfold His perfection and
beauty, and reveal itself in His creatures, and love for these creatures