פרשת אחרי מות- קדושים

In this week’s parsha we learn about the famous mitzvah to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Although many may view this mitzvah as beyond the call of duty and only for the most pious, loving another Jew like one’s self is just as obligatory and expected from a Jewish person as putting on tefillin. Rebbi Akiva was emphatic about the implementation of this statute, claiming it to be a primary principle of the Torah. The gemara (Shabbos 31a) illustrates the fundamental importance of loving others as well. The gemara relates the story of how a convert once came to Hillel requesting to be taught the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Despite the dubious intent of the questioner, Hillel proceeded to teach the convert,  “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to your friend. That is the entire Torah.The rest is the explanation. Go learn!!!” The immortal concept of loving one’s neighbor changed not only the Jewish people, but the entire world. However, it still needs to be understood why this principle is so important in the eyes of Chazal. How could Hillel have asserted that the entire Torah is almost a symbol of this idea and every law is in truth just another expression of loving other people? What about G-d, and all the mitzvos that do not relate to other people? Moreover, the Torah contains much diverse subject matter and a lot of the content doesn’t seem to focus on the subject of loving others at all! How could Hillel say that loving other people is the foundation of the entire Torah?

Rav Chaim Friedlander teaches us that in essence, the obligation of loving others as one’s self really requires one to extend beyond himself. The natural disposition of a person is to only think about his own needs and to only act in the way he sees fit. Man by nature is very self-centered and self-absorbed. However, the Torah was designed in order to refine us. The Torah encourages us to extend beyond our selfish natures and to outgrow the little world that we have made for ourselves. For instance, if one wishes to perform any mitzvah, he must have the intent that he is doing so solely for the sake of G-d. If one lacks such intent, by definition, he is unable to keep the Torah. In order for one to fulfill the Torah, one is forced to think about something besides himself. Therefore, when Hillel was asked to explain the entire Torah while standing on one foot, he told the convert that the Torah was simple. To appreciate the Torah one must care for the other. Every single detail of the Torah brings us to a greater love either of other people, the creation, or Hashem Himself. If one doesn’t care about the world around him, whatever wisdom the Torah tries to bestow upon him will seem meaningless and irrelevant. A person has to develop a love external to himself in order to embrace what the Torah is all about.

So what is the best way a person can develop a love of others? I believe that we can find an answer to this question in the Rambam. The Rambam writes in Hilchos Deos 6:3 that since one is expected to love every Jew like himself, it logically follows that one must care for their honor and money as if it were his own. In other words, the Rambam is claiming that basic love of another person involves caring for both his spiritual and physical needs. If we train ourselves to become sensitive to a person’s most fundamental needs, we are exercising an incredibly deep love and concern for another human being. We are giving to others in the intimate way that we ourselves would love to be given to. This is truly extending beyond one’s self and touching another person’s heart. If we can train ourselves merely to behave this way and act with these lofty intentions in mind, we will evolve into the loving people that Hashem wants us to be. Exhibiting such tender loving care for others will ultimately plant a love for them in our hearts.

Rav Shimon Shkop has another piece of advice to help us cultivate a love of other Jews. He claims that we just need to shift our perspective a little bit. The reason many find it so hard to love others as themselves is simply because others are not themselves. To feel abundant love for a separate being in a separate body who lives a life with different challenges, tastes, hopes, dreams, etc., is naturally foreign. However, if we can relate to other Jews as extensions of ourselves, which is the real truth, loving them can be a lot easier than we may think. A human being is very capable of developing incredibly powerful feelings of love for his spouse, children, and friends. Why is this? The answer is that the closer one is to a person, the more he feels a unity with them. We should realize that the Jewish people are one big family and that we are all members of Hashem’s Chosen People. Moshe Rabbeinu teaches us in Devarim 14:1 that “You are sons to the Lord your G-d.” That makes us all brothers! If one can look at his wife as an extension of himself, then his children as an extension of himself, then his neighbors, and then the entire Jewish People as just an extension of himself, of course he will love them as himself! The more a person pushes himself in this direction, the bigger he becomes. One can ultimately one’s self to a point of realization that the entire world is really just a part of himself.

I was privileged to have received a brilliant insight into this matter from a psychologist who  gave a shiur in the yeshiva a short while ago. This man was very successful in his field and had a profound understanding of the human condition. He told me that he was once counseling a patient who had extreme feelings of jealousy. The patient wanted to know how he could break the terrible habit which was just causing him grief. The psychologist answered by saying that he remembered that when he was a young bucher in 1958, he was privileged to have attended the Super Bowl game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. The game was later called “the greatest game ever played,” filled with drama and excitement down to the very last seconds when the Colts made the game-winning touchdown. The psychologist pointed out that when the Colts won, the fans exploded in jubilation, shouting “WE WON!!! WE WON!!!” Was it really a “we”? Did the fans really win the game? Did they even know any of the players on the field personally? The truth is that human beings have it within their capacity to find joy in others. What made the fans so excited was that they viewed the team’s success as their own. Jews can do the same thing with each other. We are all on the same “team,” so to speak. When witnessing another’s success, we can and should immediately grasp the moment as an opportunity to rejoice.

May we all be zoche to love others as we do ourselves!!!