There has long been a debate in academic circles about when the concept of romantic love was popularized. While there's no doubt that the emotions associated with infatuation and attraction precede the social constructs meant to formalize romantic behavior, it certainly becomes harder to find depictions of romantic love the farther back in the history of storytelling we look. There are plenty of pairings described in the Torah, though few of them directly describe the emotions those figures feel for one another. Prototypical couples like Adam and Eve or Abraham and Sarah are described in rather matter-of-fact language that can make their relationships seem cold and merely functional, a means to procreate and achieve material security. This isn't to say that passion and affection are absent from the Torah. As with everything else in those texts, every description and omission has meaning. Plainly, if the Torah describes the feelings two of its figures have for one another, there's a lesson to be learned from them.

The first emotionally striking moment of romance in the Torah is the meeting of Isaac and Rebecca. In general, Rebecca is depicted as a stunning individual and in an interesting turn she's more or less the protagonist of her portion of Genesis. Isaac's primary role in adulthood is to never set foot outside the Holy Land, unlike the wanderers who precede and succeed him. So, Isaac is incapable of leaving home to seek a wife. It was up to Eliezer, one of the family's servants, to find Isaac a wife in Abraham's birthplace. The passages that follow linger on Rebecca with more descriptive language than is typical for the texts of the earlier books of the Torah. Though Rebecca's life is still largely dependent on the conventions of her time, she still shows an uncommon sense of grace and self-consciousness throughout her story. When she rides into Canaan with Eliezer, there is a subtle, beautiful moment when Isaac sees her from afar and is drawn to her without knowing who she is. Their meeting saves their eventual union from being utilitarian. However understated, there's still a sense of true admiration and affection between Isaac and Rebecca.

Later in the Torah, Moses meets his first wife, Zipporah, after he has fled Egypt for killing a man in defense of a Hebrew slave. He reaches the region of Midian (present-day Saudi Arabia) where he defends a group of women tending to their family's flock of sheep when they are accosted by another group of shepherds. In a moment that foreshadows the role Moses will play for the freed Israelites later in the book, he helps the women water their flock and asks nothing in return. One of those women was Zipporah, whose father Jethro invites Moses to stay with the family and manage the livestock. While this may not seem terribly romantic in the modern context, a sense of destiny pervades the entire story. Zipporah (who would later save Moses's life) is not some prize for his bravery, she is the person he is fated, against all odds, to meet and marry. To use modern parlance, Moses and Zipporah seem to be soulmates.

Of course, the most grand, elaborate depiction of love in a Toritic text is the poem The Song of Songs, found in the supplemental writings. It is unique in that it focuses primarily on a young woman, but it is especially stirring for its intense romanticism. The poem makes the affection the speaker feels into an allegory for the wonders of whole nations, as well as using the purity of love as a point of contrast with the opulence of politics. Whereas in earlier stories of the Torah love is depicted as a necessary step in the lives of important people, in The Song of Songs love is nothing short of the greatest expression of freedom.