In his 2000 lecture on Exodus 33, Dennis Prager says: I’ve always been intoxicated, not with love, but with goodness.
God tells Moses that his goodness will pass before his eyes, not his love.
What is the difference between goodness and love?
Love is more emotion. Goodness is more action.
If you say Joe loves a lot of people, you mostly think that Joe loves a lot of people, but if you say Joe is a good person, you immediately assume Joe does a lot of good.
There are spouses who beat their spouse and who love the person they beat. You might say, he loves her! He’s sick and he beats her.
That’s easily said. You would never say he’s a good spouse. It’s possible to love and to not do what is good. It is possible to do what is good and to not love.
Once you say that God is good, you’re saying that God rejects bad, because part of goodness is rejecting the bad.
The Hebrew Bible repeatedly says that you should love good and hate evil. There are things you shouldn’t love. Goodness must triumph.
God tells Moses that his essence is good. If someone wrote this today, they would say, Moses, sit back and let my love envelop you.
Love is amoral. There’s no judgment and we hate judgment. We want to be children who are never judged. If I love the person who does evil as much as I love the person who does good, then I am saying that love is unaffected by morality.
God loves but God is not love.
