\u05d1\u05e1 \"\u05d3<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Love your fellow as yourself: I am the L-rd. (Leviticus 19:18)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is probably no one on Planet Earth who has not heard the phrase, \u201cyou shall love your neighbor as yourself\u201d. Although in rabbinic sources this mitzvah is more narrowly defined as ahavat yisrael<\/em>, the imperative for Jews to love and feel responsible for one another, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag zt\u201dl, the Ba\u2019al HaSulam, explains that it is ultimately the task of the Jewish people to inculcate all of humanity with this idea. Furthermore, we learn from Rabbi Nissim Gaon that all mitzvot that are logically compelling are incumbent upon all people, Bnei Yisrael and Bnei Noach alike. Thus, the concept of ahavat yisrael<\/em> is a microcosm of the mitzvah to love one\u2019s neighbor in the humanity-wide sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the gemara in Tractate Shabbat, we have the following story: a potential Roman convert came to the great sage Hillel and said to him, teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot\u201d. Given the sheer size and depth of the entire Torah, Written and Oral, the proselyte\u2019s request is odd. The Kli Yakar explains that this man was sincere in his desire to convert and by \u201cone foot\u201d, he meant one overarching principle that could serve as a basis for understanding the rest of the Torah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hillel\u2019s patient answer to the man was, \u201cthat which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow\u201d (Shabbat 31a). Hillel also explained, \u201cthe rest of the Torah is an explanation (of that commandment). Go and study it.\u201d Rabbi Akiva, continuing this idea, stated, \u201cthis is the great principle of the Torah\u201d (Sifra 2:12). In other words, of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah, 612 of them are prioritized under this one (Ba\u2019al HaSulam, Matan Torah<\/em>, p. 17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Maharsha notes that Hillel\u2019s answer was clearly a reference to the commandment to love\u2019s one\u2019s neighbor as oneself. Why, asks the Maharsha, did Hillel phrase it in the negative, instead of a direct, positively-worded translation, like Onkelos\u2019s? There are positive (\u201cdos\u201d) and negative (\u201cdon\u2019ts\u201d) mitzvot in the Torah. Which category does, \u201clove your neighbor as yourself\u201d belong to? According to the Maharsha, we learn from Hillel\u2019s rendering of the verse that \u201clove your neighbor\u201d is actually a negative commandment, just like the other mitzvoth in the verse, e.g. not taking revenge and not bearing a grudge. It is like a summary of all of the interpersonal \u201cdon\u2019ts\u201d in the Torah. But, how is an imperative to love others negative? According to the Sefer Yereim, \u201cLove\u201d means you don\u2019t do or say to someone else something you know is hurtful. Don\u2019t ask, \u201chow do I know what bothers him? Am I a prophet?\u201d That\u2019s why the verse includes the word, \u201cyourself\u201d, i.e. learn from yourself, what you know in your heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love cannot mean, says the Maharsha, an imperative to bestow an equal amount of goodness upon another; we know this from a different legal principle. In the gemara (BT Bava Metzia 62b) we learn that chayecha kodem\u2014<\/em>\u201cyour life comes first\u201d. It is a mitzvah to prioritize your own life above that of another, may G-d protect us from ever having to make such a decision. Then again, aren\u2019t there so many stories of tzaddikim\u2014righteous people\u2014who willingly gave their lives to save others when they had every right to think of their own survival needs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider an idea from Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, the Holy Baal Shem Tov. He taught us that the way to understand this mitzvah of is through the verse Psalms 121:5, \u201cG-d is the Shadow of your right hand\u201d. A person\u2019s shadow does whatever he does. When King David characterized G-d this way, he was telling us that G-d behaves with us the way we behave towards others. More technically speaking, G-d creates patterns of Divine Guidance in the universe that correspond to what we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aim of loving one\u2019s neighbor is to create a certain type of world, i.e. a world of peace, love and trust, and we achieve that by not doing to others what we don\u2019t want done to us. Usually, we think of this in terms of the other person, what I should do for him or her. What the Baal Shem Tov is saying is that the central player in this mitzvah is vous<\/em>! Start with yourself and your preferences (that the Torah has defined for me), and reason outward towards the people around me\u2014what I should NOT do to them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What kind of world do you want to live in? You can create it by employing the physician\u2019s first principle: primum nil nocere<\/em>\u2014first, do no harm. Or, as Dovid HaMelech said, \u201cflee from evil and do good\u201d (Psalms 34:15). If we want to be healers of the world, we have start by stopping. For example, we all know that good health and clean water are much harder if not impossible to attain if we don\u2019t stop smoking and dumping commercial waste into the oceans. In the same way, we can understand that not only is the principle of chayecha kodem<\/em> not a contradiction to the mitzvah of loving your neighbor\u2014it is the central mechanism, the prerequisite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n May we all be blessed to experience the warm and caring world that G-d wants us to bring about, and by taking responsibility for each other, merit that day when the knowledge of G-d will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n BON SHABBOT ! SHABBAT SHALOM !<\/p>\n\n\n\n Par le rabbin Tani Burton<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a9 Copyright, tous droits r\u00e9serv\u00e9s. Si vous avez appr\u00e9ci\u00e9 cet article, nous vous encourageons \u00e0 le diffuser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nos blogs peuvent contenir du texte, des citations, des r\u00e9f\u00e9rences ou des liens qui comprennent des \u00e9l\u00e9ments prot\u00e9g\u00e9s par le droit d'auteur de Mechon-Mamre.org<\/a>, Aish.com<\/a>, Sefaria.org<\/a>, Chabad.org<\/a>et\/ou AskNoah.org<\/a>que nous utilisons conform\u00e9ment \u00e0 leurs politiques.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u05d1\u05e1”\u05d3 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the L-rd. (Leviticus 19:18) There is probably no one on Planet Earth who has not heard the phrase, \u201cyou shall love your neighbor as yourself\u201d. Although in rabbinic sources this mitzvah is more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parshot-of-the-rabbis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n