Love is a value; a feeling; a unique, basic, vital energy, of great intensity, instilled within us by the Creator. It is a creative energy, which creates, develops and motivates our every positive activity. It is our spiritual spring. It is the most impressive gift, granted us by our Creator. According to the philosophers of ancient Greece, love is the energy that created and moves the universe and all that it contains. According to God's words in "Kriat Shema" (a Jewish prayer, based on Deuteronomy 6: 4-9) love will extend man's days on Earth for eternity. I allow myself to add that love is the energy that brings us to properly express Good and in doing so, to realize our purpose.

God's special emphasis on love and His numerous attempts to convince us to realize it, point to its great significance, but also to our basic problem in expressing it.

Love is also a unique, and necessary, spiritual nourishment. It is the 'glue' that stabilizes our spirituality, in order to function in a natural and efficient manner. It could be said that most people hunger for this food.

Love also neutralizes many of our negative phenomena and induces happiness, peace, harmony, confidence, trust, encouragement, unity and so forth. Love is also the means, which leads us to find Good everywhere. It is the most efficient tool for bringing people closer; bringing with it a daring to approach the other to grant him assistance, protection and primarily, the most sought-after and precious thing - love. It is also the most efficient means of approaching God.

True love stands behind acts of love, such as: assistance, mercy, forgiveness, recognition, esteem, protection, care, sympathy and consideration. It is the tool which transforms a defenseless baby into an emotionally mature adult, capable of dealing with most of life's challenges. Human beings are attracted to each other, primarily because of their giving and receiving that unique energy called love.

When you turn to someone with genuine love, you cannot simultaneously act against him. You can only act to benefit him. I presume some of you have experienced this wonderful phenomenon.

God's creation of the universe is an expression of Good, and is therefore an expression of love. And, as we shall see later on, it is an expression of love at infinite intensity, which is why every detail of this creation, including man, is essentially positive and was created to express Good. It can therefore be said that His "Word" is an inseparable part of that creation, and hence, is also an expression of love.

Every positive act is more perfectly performed when it is accompanied with love. Most of us recognize the importance of love between a man and a woman in building their future, in the success of the sexual act and the degree of its fertility. The root cause of a man's impotence and of a woman's frigidity lies, among other things, in a difficulty in the expression of mutual love. This phenomenon is not unique to man. A connection of love can be recognized in other animals' fertility and survival, even much more dramatically than in mankind. It is so marvelous to discover love in birds, in the cooperation between the male and the female in building their nest and raising their chicks.

It can therefore be said that love is amongst the most important of our spiritual means and perhaps the most important one of all.