DEUT212 For the rabbis, love of God was not to be a rare emotion, restricted to a spiritual elite in fleeting moments of rapture, but a perpetual opportunity, an everyday activity. By Ioving God through one's normal behavior, one causes God to be loved by others; one sets an example for others. In the words of a midrash, "'You shall love the Lord your God' can be taken to mean that you should cause God to be loved by others – that is, you are to cause God to be loved by humankind. Hence you are to be loving in the give-and-take of every day life and in your goings about in the marketplace and in dealing with others." Seder Eliyahu Rabbah, chap. 26, p. 140. In other words, a lover is delighted with the opportunity to carry out the wishes of his or her beloved. The commandments of the Torah express the will of God and consequently the command to love means that we behave toward God as a lover behaves towards his or her beloved. Performing the commandments is not a means toward love of God, it is love of God. In this view, loving is doing. Love is not a prelude to action, but action itself. Love is not an ethereal emotion, but concrete deeds. Love is expressed as deed.