American Jewish Life

Title

Love Your Neighbor in 8 Easy Steps

Description

Rabbi Israel Becker of Congregation Chofetz Chayim in Tucson, Arizona, explores why the sage Hillel changed the connotation of "love your neighbor" from a positive action to "That which is hated to you, do not do to your friend."

Love Your Neighbor in 8 Easy Steps

There is a famous story in the Talmud about how someone asked the great
sage Hillel to teach him the whole Torah while standing on one foot. The
Maharsha commentary (Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, 1555-1631) explains that the
question was not facetious. The questioner wanted to know if there is
one fundamental principle that connects to the entire Torah. Hillel
responded, "That which is hated to you, do not do to your friend."

The Talmud commentaries explain that Hillel was referring to the Torah
commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The
centrality of love your neighbor was echoed several generations later by
Rabbi Akiva, who taught that love your neighbor is a major principle
that permeates the entire Torah.

The obvious question that many commentators ask is, "Why did Hillel
change the explicit connotation of the verse, which was presented with
the positive (to actively love)?" Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman (1843-1921)
explains that Hillel is actually presenting to us a tangible way to
fulfill the mitzvah of love your neighbor. Hillel reveals to us that the
commandment of generating love is not one of quantity, but one of
quality.

If you could measure the amount of love a person generates for himself,
the normal human will certainly love himself more than his neighbor. For
example, when a person looks at a group photo, the first person they
notice is themselves. Are most human beings violating, then, love your
neighbor as yourself?

G-d is asking us to strive to generate more and more love for our
neighbor. But He does not expect us to go beyond the scope of what a
human is capable of. What G-d demands of us is to provide the same
quality of human interaction that we would want for ourselves.

Hillel is also teaching us that love your neighbor is not an abstract
emotion. Love your neighbor is fulfilled by translating the emotion into
concrete action. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (1785-1865), in his
famous Haketav VehaKabbalah, provides eight steps to fulfill love your
neighbor as yourself. He explains that “as yourself” teaches not
that we are obligated to give everything we have to the next person,
because that is not what we expect the next person to give to us. Love
as yourself means to do to him what you would want to be done to
yourself, and not to do to him what you would not want to be done to
yourself.

Rabbi Mecklenburg gives eight concrete very human examples of how to
love your neighbor:

1. Be truthful.

2. Treat him with dignity.

3. Ask how he is faring.

4. Respond to his pain.

5. Greet him in a friendly way.

6. Judge him favorably (by giving him the benefit of the doubt).

7. Extend yourself when he asks for a small favor.

8. Let him borrow from you something that he needs.

Hillel's response to the questioner, which is recorded in the Talmud for
all time, actually provides for us a tangible way to perform a mitzvah
that we might feel is otherwise beyond our reachable ability, attainable
only to a few select super-holy individuals and not something that every
single one of us can apply constantly.

These steps may seem small and trivial, but Hillel is teaching us that
small steps enhance G-d's world in a powerful way.

Date Created

June 1, 2020

Community

Congregation Chofetz Chayim and Southwest Torah Institute

State

Arizona

Place

Tucson

Creator

Rabbi Israel Becker, Congregation Chofetz Chayim and Southwest Torah Institute

This item was submitted on August 11, 2021 by Jewish History Museum in Tucson using the form “Contribute Your Materials” on the site “American Jewish Life”: https://americanjewishlife.org/s/american-jewish-life