Does G-d Need You?

Does G‑d really care?

After all, He doesn’t need anything. He is perfect, and beyond perfect.
Nothing can hurt Him. And nothing can be given to Him that He does not already have.
Why should He care about anything at all? Perhaps it’s all meaningless.

But He cares.

True, G‑d doesn’t need to care. But He chooses to care.
He chooses with unbridled will.
Nothing influences His decision.
Nothing can—because when He chooses, nothing yet exists.

That is the meaning of G‑d’s free choice—that nothing precedes this choice.
So that nothing is higher than G‑d’s choice to care.

Does G‑d need your mitzvahs?

No. G‑d desires your mitzvahs.

Why?
There is no why.

If there would be a reason why, it would not be a true desire.
If there would be a reason why, then it would be a need. Then a mitzvah would be no more than a device—valued when needed, disposable when not. Like a plastic fork or a paper napkin.

Then a mitzvah would have a price. We could ask G‑d, “How badly do You need it? What else can we give You instead?”

With a mitzvah, there is no “instead.” A mitzvah is a jewel of immeasurable value, the embodiment of divine desire. Nothing can replace it.
That’s why the sages taught, “The greatest reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself.”
Because the reward must be somehow comensurate to the deed. And there is nothing anywhere in the league of the value of a mitzvah. Other than the mitzvah itself.

Does G‑d need you?

No. He desires you.

If He would need you, you would be no more than a utility, a means to an end. There is no real love when your entire value is that you fulfill a need.
Rather, G‑d desires you—not that which you provide, not that which you fulfill.
Just you. Your closeness.

With unbridled, undiluted, pure desire,
He awaits you to come close to Him.

How do you come close to Him? With a mitzvah.

Face to Face

Here is the crux of the matter:

There are two sorts of relationship: Face-to-face. And back-to-back.

I could be interested in what I can get from you.
Then we are back-to-back. Because it’s not you that I’m interested in. And it’s not me that’s interested. It’s my back to your back — “what I can get” relating to “what you can give.”

Or I could be interested in you. Interested in what’s best for you. Interested because I get who you are and feel what that’s like and what the world seems like from within you.
Then we are face-to-face. Because then there is no reason. Nothing to get. Just you.

Even if I cared for you because I love the way you are, we are still not face-to-face. Because the-way-you-are is not you.

Even if I cared for you because you are my parent or my child, we are still not truly face-to-face. Because there is more to you than being a parent or a child.

If so, only with the One who knows you before you were formed in your mother’s womb, you at your most essential core, and chooses you there—only with your Creator can you stand truly face-to-face.

Only His love is real, and the love of those who love those who their Creator loves.