To love G‑d… for he is your life (30:20)

How is it fitting to love G‑d?

A person should love G‑d with such great and powerful intensity that his soul is bound in this love and is constantly pursuing it as one, for example, who is smitten with lovesickness - as one who is so obsessed with a carnal love that his mind is never free of desire for that woman… Even more so is the love of G‑d in the hearts of those who love him…

This is what King Solomon meant when he said by way of metaphor, "for I am sick with love."1 Indeed, the entire Song of Songs is a metaphor for this concept…

- Maimonides

The Jewish calendar follows the phases of the moon. At the start of every month, the kiddush levenah prayer sanctifying the new moon is recited. This special mitzvah can only be observed in the first half of the month, while the new moon is growing nightly. Also, the moon must be visible when the blessing is said.

Once, during a rainy spell, the last night for kiddush levanahhad arrived and still the moon had not made its appearance in the skies of Lubavitch. Rabbi Hillel of Paritch wrote in a request to Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, pleading that the Rebbe pray for the moon to appear. "Don't worry," said the Rebbe, "there will be a moon."

Late that night, the chassidim stationed on the 'moon watch' which Reb Hillel had set up reported that something of a moon had emerged. Reb Hillel went outside and shrugged off the yellow haze in the clouds: the Rebbe promised that there will be a moon, he insisted, not this sorry excuse for a moon. Just before dawn the skies broke, and a clear moon illuminated the heavens.

Remarked Reb Hillel: "Once, many years ago, cloudy skies prevented me from observing the mitzvahof kiddush levanah. But then I was a young man, hale and fit, and I managed to survive the disappointment. But today I am a weak old man; had the moon failed to appear, G‑d forbid, I don't think I would have made it through the month."