![A group of people talk together in a lecture hall at Harvard Divinity School](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-05/02252025-DIBLoveJudaism_106.png?h=c135bd5f&itok=y0-NpNMR) # Spring Series at HDS Explores ‘Love’ Across Difference Building on the conversations that took place during the 2023-24 HDS Common Read organized by the HDS Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB), the Office of DIB continued the discussion through the spring series titled, “Love Through a Multifaith Lens.” May 07, 2025 [ Tyler Sprouse ](/people/tyler-sprouse) This spring semester, the Harvard Divinity School community explored the ways love is understood and practiced across different faith traditions. Building on the conversations that took place during the 2023-24 HDS Common Read organized by the HDS Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB), the Office of DIB continued the discussion through the spring series titled, “Love Through a Multifaith Lens.” The series explored love in three different religions: Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. Two faculty members approached the topic from different perspectives to highlight the internal diversity within each tradition. Each session was co-facilitated through a restorative approach by staff and student members of the Office of DIB. “Now more than ever, we recognize the importance of love to keep us grounded in our humanity and in the humanity of others, and to affirm our interconnectedness to each other and to the natural world,” said [Melissa Wood Bartholomew](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/melissa-bartholomew), associate dean for diversity, inclusion, and belonging and lecturer at HDS. “Through this intentional multifaith lens, we are not only learning about love’s power to help us engage across difference but also to advance human flourishing as we cultivate our connection to each other.” ## Judaism: Love of God and Love of Humanity On Tuesday, February 25, the “Love Through a Multifaith Lens” series began with a session dedicated to Judaism. [Shaul Magid](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/shaul-magid), Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at HDS, and **Jay Michaelson**, Gruss Visiting Professor in Talmudic Civil Law at Harvard Law School, led community members in a conversation regarding a debate between the Jewish intellectuals Hermann Cohen and Martin Buber. Through an analysis of passages from Martin Buber’s “The Love of God and the Idea of Deity” in his 1952 book *The Eclipse of God*, and Hermann Cohen’s 1919 text *The Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism*, Magid and Michaelson explored the nuances of each thinker’s depiction of the relationship between God and humanity. ![Jay Michaelson speaking at the event](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_3_2__480x320/public/2025-04/02252025-DIBLoveJudaism_100.jpg?h=a6769af0&itok=VwZ6r2cB) Harvard Law School professor Jay Michaelson speaks during the Judaism session of the "Love Through a Multifaith Lens" series. HDS Photo/Caroline Cataldo Influenced by Immanuel Kant’s ethical grounding of religion, Cohen held that love of God and the imperative to live morally towards one’s neighbor are synonymous, arguing that “the love of God is the knowledge of morality.” As Cohen writes in *Religion of Reason*, “I cannot love God without devoting my whole heart as living for the sake of my fellow man.” With his emphasis on the “I and Thou” relationship between God and human beings, Buber makes a subtle distinction in his conception: contra Cohen, the relationship with God is personal, not ideational. Buber explains that “when man learns to love God, he senses an actuality which rises above the idea. The love bears witness to the existence of the Beloved.” Throughout the conversation, Magid and Michaelson encouraged community members to investigate the relationship between love and responsibility. Magid also addressed the dynamic nature of the life of faith, wherein one must continuously discern what love looks like in practice. In a succinct metaphor, Magid described the ways faith can offer exploration of insight and deep reflection from a range of experiences rather than one unilateral point of view. “One way to think about religion is as a map, not as a GPS,” he said. Through this intentional multifaith lens, we are not only learning about love’s power to help us engage across difference but also to advance human flourishing as we cultivate our connection to each other.” Melissa Wood Bartholomew ## Buddhism: ‘Look into the Eyes’ The second session of the series met on Thursday, March 27. [Charles Hallisey](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/charles-hallisey), Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer at HDS, and [Janet Gyatso](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/janet-gyatso), Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies at HDS, co-led a wide-ranging conversation on Buddhism and love. With decades of writing and research on Buddhist thought, Professors Hallisey and Gyatso also brought a unique relational perspective to the discussion. “Everybody knows we’re married, right?” Gyatso said. Hallisey began with a multireligious approach to the question of love in Buddhism, using the last section of a reflection on the Buddha by the twentieth-century African American thinker Howard Thurman as an entry point to exploring the relationship between the self and others. Hallisey explained his reasoning through an analogy of a polyglot. “When people switch from language to language, often they gain new insights on a subject in one language that they didn’t think of in another,” said Hallisey. In a 1953 [audio recording](https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/599) of Thurman’s reflection, he explained that, in the Buddhist framework, the purity of one’s life “radiates a quality that is moral in character that affects the lives of other people.” According to Hallisey, Thurman makes clear that this process, which is also “an attack on the moral disorder of the world,” is redemptive in character. When you look into the eyes of another being, you see their soul, you see their potential, you see their beauty, you see their desire to be happy, you see their suffering." Janet Gyatso Hallisey described this as love. In this framework, a person “gets from under the necessities of life” and connects with an energy that is purer and more essential, which then reaches out to other people. Love is somehow given to a person; it is not subject to the will. After concluding his remarks, Hallisey said with a smile, “I’ll turn things over to someone I love.” Gyatso followed with an explication of *The Words of My Perfect Teacher* by the nineteenth-century Tibetan teacher Patrul Rinpoche—specifically of the “four boundless minds” as described in the book: loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha). As Gyatso explained, Rinpoche takes the well-known Buddhist categories and re-presents them differently, describing the fourth, equanimity, as the most important and turning it toward one’s enemies. Gyatso emphasized the power of Rinpoche’s logic through a description of the art of “recognition.” “When you look into the eyes of another being, you see their soul, you see their potential, you see their beauty, you see their desire to be happy, you see their suffering,” said Gyatso. “By seeing their eyes, you care about them.” ![Three people seated next to each other listen to a speaker](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/2025-04/03272025-DIB-Love-Buddhism-067_500x750.jpg) (From left): Khenpo Kalsang, Armond Dorsey, and Melissa Wood Bartholomew look on during the Buddhism session of "Love Through a Multifaith Lens." HDS Photo/Kristie Welsh ![Charles Hallisey and Janet Gyatso](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/2025-04/03272025-DIB-Love-Buddhism-070_500x750.jpg) HDS professors Charles Hallisey and Janet Gyatso share an exchange during the Buddhism session of the "Love Through a Multifaith Lens" series. HDS photo/Kristie Welsh ## Islam: A Divine Passion The third and final session in the series gathered on Thursday, April 10. [Teren Sevea](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/teren-sevea), Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at HDS, and [Mohsen Goudarzi](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/mohsen-goudarzi), Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at HDS, spearheaded a discussion of how love is operationalized in Islam. Goudarzi began the discussion by outlining four discourses about love in Islam: love for Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, other humans (including romantic love), and the family of Muhammad. From the first discourse, Goudarzi described the Sufi theological tradition’s use of the neo-Platonic idea of emanation, whereby all things are manifestations of God; this idea presents humans’ love of God as a path of return to oneness with the divine, the source of all existence. “There’s a beautiful Qur’anic verse that encapsulates this idea, ‘We are all from God; unto him shall we return,’” explained Goudarzi. He then described the inseparability of divine love from human love within this framework. “When we love somebody, it is because we love God,” said Goudarzi. “When we love our neighbor, that’s an infusion of divine love, because that person manifests something of God, as do all humans.” Goudarzi explained that love for the Prophet Muhammad became, later in historical Islam, a principal way the faithful express their love for God. For Shīʿite Muslims, love for the Prophet’s family—specifically Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn, whose martyrdom at Karbala in southern Iraq is commemorated through passion plays—became central as well. ![Mohsen Goudarzi speaks at event](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_2_3__480x720/public/2025-04/04102025-DIB-Love-Islam-022_crop.jpg?itok=wi8U7Wux) HDS professor Mohsen Goudarzi engages with participants during the Islam session of "Love Through a Multifaith Lens." HDS Photo/Kristie Welsh Teren Sevea referenced bell hooks’ *All About Love* (the focus of last year’s HDS Common Read) to begin to discuss the way that suffering within love can be “productive and constructive.” “In this society there is a shame of grieving,” Sevea said. “There is a shame in indulging in the madness of grieving because it supposedly removes one from living.” This segued into Sevea’s retelling of Layla and Majnun, the seventh-century Arabian love story of Qays, who became “Majnun,” or “the passionate one,” due to his all-consuming love for Layla. Drawing from the works of Islamic masters such as Ibn ‘Arabi and Rumi, Sevea explained how the tragic love story of Layla and Majnun evolved into a profound allegory for the relationship between the lover and the Divine. When we love our neighbor, that’s an infusion of divine love, because that person manifests something of God, as do all humans.” Mohsen Goudarzi “The passion Majnun had for Layla is the archetype of loving God,” said Sevea. Majnun wandered through the pain of separation and the madness of longing yet never ceased to love. “This is a kind of ontological premise in Islam’s narratives of love: one can only unite with God in death,” said Sevea. “But managing that separation from God—suffering it on a daily basis and learning to appreciate that suffering—is something that Majnun embodies for us.” Quoting Rumi’s *Fihi Ma Fihi*, Sevea referenced a line: “You will never be able to see the face of the Beloved as long as there is a single hair of love for yourself.” It is this kind of self-effacing love that Majnun embodied—complete devotion to the Beloved, to the point of abandoning all concern for his own self, only to attain a more real self that existed with his Beloved. Sevea concluded by highlighting how similar love stories in the Islamic tradition celebrate those who embraced annihilation to be able to see the Beloved. In doing so, these lovers attain their truest selves—subsisting within and through God. ## 'Love Cannot Be Contained' The School is leading critical intrareligious and interreligious conversations that explore love, connection, and community within and across diverse faith traditions. As MTS candidate Ariela Rudy Zaltzman attested, “Love Through a Multifaith Lens” provided space for HDS community members to learn deeply from one another. "The series of conversations provided a unique opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to engage in the type of discourse that rarely happens; they comprised academic context, intellectual discussions, and personal anecdotes," said Rudy Zaltzman. "This combination of elements allowed us to encounter one another as scholars, experts, and students but, more importantly, as curious people open to learning and sharing. I believe nothing strengthens a community more than when we see others as people first so that our differences and disagreements can be used as fuel for connection rather than division." Both an academic pursuit and a way of being within beloved community, love, as Bartholomew said, is essential during these times. “Love, however you define it, is an antidote to fear,” said Bartholomew. “It calls us back to our common humanity. This is our way of equipping our community to do the work of advancing just peace and healing. This series illuminated the vastness of love. Love cannot be contained.” *Banner photo: (From left): Becca Leviss, Eden Olayiwole, HDS Dean Marla F. Frederick, and Professor David Holland engage in dialogue during the Judaism session of "Love Through a Multifaith Lens." HDS Photo/Caroline Cataldo* See also:- [ Ethics ](/discover-stories-about/ethics) - [ Faculty and Research ](/discover-stories-about/faculty-and-research) - [ Religious Literacy ](/discover-stories-about/religious-literacy) - [ Buddhism ](/featured-topics/buddhism) - [ Islam ](/featured-topics/islam) - [ Judaism ](/featured-topics/judaism)