Vahavta L’reiacha Kamocha

What exactly does the mitzvah of v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha entail? So the Ramban writes haflaga, as it were, in an exaggeration:

כי לא יקבל לב האדם שיאהב את חברו כאהבתו את נפשו.

Ramban says it's a psychological impossibility for a person to love someone else as he loves himself. It can't be, it can't be done. So the Torah doesn't mean this literally. Moreover,

ועוד שכבר בא רבי עקיבא ולימד חייך קודמין לחיי חברך. וחי אחיך עמך את חייך קודמין לחיי חברך.

So what does the mitzvah entail? This is the same point that the Maharsha makes here in Masechet Shabbat as well in explaining why Hillel tells the ger in the negative: דסני לך לחברך לא תעביד and not in the positive as the pasuk has it. So he makes the same point as the Ramban and says it clearly the pasuk doesn't mean it in the positive. דבר הלמד מעניינו לא תקום ולא תטור. So despite the fact that it is phrased in a positive tone, it doesn't really mean that, the Maharsha says. What it really means,

ויש לעיין בזה גם שאמר לו בלשון תרגום שכן היה לשונם מכל מקום מאי שינא לומר לו בלשון שלילה. ויש לומר דמשמע ליה דקרא לא איירי אלא בכי האי גוונא בלא תעשה דגבי לא תקום ולא תטור כתיב. ועליו קאי ואהבת לרעך כמוך שלא תעשה לו רע מכל דסני לך. אבל לגבי לעשות לו טוב לא קאמר ואהבת לרעך כמוך דאמרינן חייך קודמין לחיי חברך.

Okay. He doesn't explicitly state the Ramban's first hechrech; he does mention the second one. So the first pshat then in the pasuk is basically what the Maharsha says, that the chiyuv of v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha is not to do anything to someone else which a person himself finds distasteful, which a person himself would not want to be subjected to, he shouldn't subject someone else to. That's the chiyuv of v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha. Some of the meforshim, including the Ramban himself, Ramban has two pshatim. Ramban's first pshat,

אלא מצוות התורה שיאהב חברו בכל עניין כאשר יאהב את נפשו בכל הטוב.

dehainu that the mitzvah of v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha isn't equating the depth or intensity of love; it's not even equating priority of love, but what it's saying is that you have to love your friend in all the areas in which you love yourself. So the same way a person wants for himself parnassah and a person wants for himself chochmah and a person wants for himself kovod and kahena v'kahena, so a person has to love his friend in all those areas. That's what v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha means. That v'ahavta l're'acha kamocha in all the areas in the entire spectrum that one has self-love, so one should have ahavas re'im as well. But again there is no equation either in terms of the intensity of the love or in terms of the priority of the love. And some of the other meforshim follow the Ramban. The Sforno, the Chizkuni, similar pshatim to this pshat in the Ramban. The Rambam, agam that we're taking it a little bit out of context because there are two Rambams which really need to be understood together, but the Rambam in Hilchos Aveil in Perek Yud-Daled also and again if you sort of isolate that from what the Rambam says in Hilchos Deios so the Rambam says

ואהבת לרעך כמוך כל הדברים שאתה רוצה שיעשו אותם לך אחרים עשה אותם אתה לאחיך בתורה ומצוות.

Okay so in all areas that's what Veahavta Lereiacha Kamocha is. Okay. A second pshat. So far according to neither of these two pshatim does Veahavta Lereiacha Kamocha really mean that a person has to have any kind of hargasha. A person has to express, has to manifest, a person can't do according to the Maharsha, a person can't do מה דסני לך לחברך לא תעביד. Even according to the Ramban, love in the sense of giving, providing, so help him out in terms of his parnassa in terms of his kovod, compliment him, give him chizuk in all the areas in which a person welcomes chizuk from others so in that as well. But then the Ramban offers a second pshat. Ramban's second pshat

ויתכן בעבור שלא אמר ואהבת את רעך כמוך והשווה אותם במילת לרעך שיהיה פירושו להשוות אהבת שניהם בדעתו.

And the Torah is coming to tell us

כי פעמים שיאהב אדם את רעהו בדברים ידועים להיטיבו בעושר ולא בחכמה וכיוצא בזה ואם יהיה אוהבו בהכל יחפוץ שיזכה רעהו האהוב לו בעושר ובנכסים וכבוד ובדעת ובחכמה ולא שישווה אליו.

A person can love in the sense of want the best for his friend. He can love when good comes to his friend but love davka kamoso. I'm happy that you should have osher but not chochma. Or I'm happy that you should have osher and chochma but not to the degree that I possess it. ויצווה הכתוב שלא תהיה פחיתות הקנאה הזאת בלבו. So the Torah here imposes a mitzvah that that flaw of jealousy, not to love and not to want the best for your friend the way for yourself

אבל יאהב ברוב הטובה לחברו כאשר אדם עושה לנפשו ולא ייתן שיעורין באהבה.

So according to this pshat in the Ramban you should love success, good fortune, thriving, flourishing for your friend as you love for yourself. You shouldn't look to be better, you shouldn't look to be superior, you should eliminate any, again, residual kina from your heart. That's what the Torah is telling us. The paradigm is Yonasan and

ועל כן אמר ביהונתן כי אהבת נפשו אהבו בעבור שהסיר מידת הקנאה מלבו ואמר ואתה תמלוך על ישראל.

So here already again the Ramban is not backtracking what he said initially but here already the Ramban... is saying that the mitzvah v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha again is to want to see your friend succeed and flourish in all areas the same way you want to and to the same degree, that he should succeed to the same degree. Now the Rambam in Hilchos De'os and it's a little bit of a of a diyun and I don't think we're going to get into it tonight exactly how to integrate this with the Rambam in Hilchos Aveil, but in Perek Vav of Hilchos De'os, so the Rambam says as follows:

מצוה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל כגופו

shene'emar v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha לפיכך צריך לספר בשבחו ולחוס על ממונו. So a very very difficult Rambam. Very very difficult Rambam to understand. The Rambam begins seemingly in contrast to the Ramban and seems to say no, that the pasuk should be understood literally, v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha, you have to love your chaver as you love yourself. What the Ramban says is a psychological impossibility, the Rambam seems to say that is what the pasuk means.

מצוה על כל אחד לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל כגופו.

He seems to take the pasuk at face value, literally. But then the applications he gives are such shvach applications. Here it is the pasuk's telling you you have to love your friend as yourself, so לפיכך צריך לספר בשבחו, you have to say ich veis, I don't know, nice nice nice svara, nice drasha, nice tie, whatever, ich veis vos, tzarich l'saper b'shvacho, you have to give him a compliment, v'lachus al mamono, you have to if he asks you to go buy him a bottle of soda you have to see where the Pepsi's on sale or where the Coke's on sale, you have to be chus al mamono the same way you be chus al mamoncha. That is very almost almost I shouldn't say almost petty nafka minas. No here it is the Rambam's definition of the mitzvah seems to be so lofty and the applications seem to be very petty. All of the hachnasas kalla, the nichum aveilim, the k'vuras hamais, all that the Rambam mentions in Hilchos Aveil. There's no mention of of it here. Okay so that's takeh a shayla how you integrate the two Rambams. The other question is, so the Rambam and the Ramban have the sort of a machlokes in terms of what the human capacity is? Maybe. Because ultimately we'll see that definitely our shittas that do disagree with the Rambam so it wouldn't be so terrible if we had to concede that point already. Lulai d'mistafina, well anyway habocher yivchar, but I'll just say it briefly. The lashon haRambam is as follows, again:

מצוה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל כגופו

shene'emar v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha. What's the lashon of the Rambam right k'gufo? Is there a Rambam? Thank you. What's the lashon of the Rambam right k'gufo?

מצוה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל כגופו

shene'emar v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha. Lulai d'mistafina I would say that all these kashas חדא מיתרצא מגו אידך. The fact that the Rambam against the Ramban says no, taka pshuta kemashma, but then the the the Rambam goes on to give these these petty nafka minas, lesaper beshivcho, kivodo, it's as if the Rambam maybe wasn't holding by by by those things and lachus al mamono, I don't think the Rambam was too, I don't think he checked what his what his stock was up or down too many times a day. He doesn't get much into that either. Ela mai, what's what's the hemshech hapassuk here?

לא תקום ולא תטור את בני עמך ואהבת לרעך כמוך אני ה'.

What's the subject matter of לא תקום ולא תטור? What's what's at stake in לא תקום ולא תטור? So the Rambam at the end of Hilchos De'os in Perek Zayin, the Rambam says:

הנוקם מחברו עובר בלא תעשה שנאמר לא תקום ואף על פי שאינו לוקה עליו דעה רעה היא עד מאד.

Ela ra'ui, listen rabosai,

אלא ראוי לו לאדם להיות מעביר על מדותיו על כל דברי העולם שהכל אצל המבינים דברי הבל והבאי ואינן כדי לנקום עליהם.

So the subject matter, the the realm in which לא תקום ולא תטור is operative is olam haze-dikke petty, the pettiness of olam haze which is דברי הבל והבאי ואינן כדי לנקום עליהם. Lulai demistafina, I don't know, habocher yivchar. When the Rambam says

מצוה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד מישראל כגופו,

the Rambam understood this as a hemshech. לא תקום ולא תטור, again in milei de'alma, השאילני קרדומך איני משאילך or הריני משאילך איני כמותך and I'm going to be mashil you the magal, the kardom even though you weren't mashil me. So what are you talking about? No, don't don't stoop to that. Don't stoop to that. It's you're dealing with דברי הבל והבאי ואינן כדי לנקום עליהם. Again, in milei de'alma, no, milei de'alma a person taka is capable of, when the Ramban says a person can't love, can't love someone else as he loves himself, so mistama the Ramban isn't just talking about if if a person has the attitude, if a person has, the Rambam would tell us, if a person has the correct understanding, he has the correct hashkafa that the money, that the kovod is devarim shema'bach, so taka why can't a person love his friend as he loves himself? Why can't, why shouldn't I be capable of of wanting everyone else to have the same the same hatzlacha and and the same and and they too should have enough to meet their meet their needs? Such a... Again, at the end of the day it's nothing which is intrinsically meaningful. And even the lav davka that the Rambam has to be denying, again the sense of self which the Ramban is talking about, but according to the Rambam no, the the focus here, what we're dealing with here again is the same subject matter as לא תקום ולא תטור. In those matters of לא תקום ולא תטור, so veahavta lere'acha kamocha, there it taka can be pshuta kemashma. There's no reason to say that it's that it's bederech haflaga. Now there are many, many who learn pshat. Okay, so again, so where we're holding so far. So the Maharsha says it really means what the Gemara in Shabbos says,

מה דסני לך לחברך לא תעביד זו היא כל התורה כולה.

The Ramban's first pshat also doesn't mean literally, but it means love do for him in all the areas that that you do for yourself. The Ramban's second pshat, our third altogether, is that you should you should love success, you should want success for your friend as for your the same in all areas and to the same... and success to the same degree as you'd love for yourself. Rambam we just discussed. Now there is a the Tomer Devorah says it, the Netziv says it al pi Yerushalmi, others say it as well, Netziv quotes a Yerushalmi, others quote this Yerushalmi in Nedarim as well. The Yerushalmi in Nedarim explains, again, the flow of the pesukim:

לא תקם ולא תטר את בני עמך ואהבת לרעך כמוך,

that it means like this. Yerushalmi gives a mashal: if a person is cutting something, cutting a piece of meat or something, and with his right hand, so he wasn't sufficiently careful and the knife slips and then it cuts his left hand, so the Yerushalmi says is the person going to turn around with his left hand and hit his right hand? So the Netziv says what the Yerushalmi is telling us is that pshat in the pasuk is ve'ahavta lere'acha, you should love your friend. And what should the basis for that love be? How, how can you come to to feel that love if you'll understand that it's kammocha because in loving your friend, you're really loving yourself. The Tomer Devorah says the same, he says the, again, the interconnectedness of all nafshos Yisrael is the basis for the mitzvah ve'ahavta lere'acha kammocha. I think the lashon of the I have it here, I'll just read you the lashon of the Tomer Devorah, I think I have it.

ולכך ראוי לאדם להיות חפץ בטובתו של חבירו ועינו טובה על חבירו וכבודו יהיה חביב עליו כשלו שהרי הוא הוא ממש ומטעם זה נצטוינו ואהבת לרעך כמוך.

So ve'ahavta lere'acha kammocha is because in loving your friend, it's because he's part of you. The kammocha is is the reason, the basis for for ve'ahavta lere'acha. On a practical level, this is obviously a very beautiful idea, but certainly one which is not something which most of us are are probably on a madrega that we really sense or or experience or intuit. So we know the sefarim say, so we know it's true, but it's not necessarily something that that we feel. So lema'aseh, how does a person come befoal to be mekayem to be mekayem ahavas Yisrael? מצוות בין אדם לחבירו are much more challenging oftentimes than bein adam lamakon. Much more challenging because we don't we don't experience this this reality of kammocha. We know it, but it's not it's not really something that we feel. It's tremendously challenging and it requires a tremendous avodah. So how does a person, how does a person work on himself to to be mekayem? Again, according to all the pshatim it requires an avodah, whether ve'ahavta lere'acha kammocha involves a feeling as it does according to the Ramban's second pshat and the Rambam, whether it just involves a willingness to extend oneself constantly as needed. It's an avodah. So how does a person come to this avodah? So a couple of perspectives. I don't know if any of you have have recollections of of having been in in a winter when there's been a blizzard. Blizzard with a few feet of snow where basically everything closes down. You know, companies close down, no one goes to work, there's no there's no vehicular traffic whatsoever. So if you go out walking in in that weather, you see an amazing scene. You see that the the guy next door to you who generally blocks your driveway when he when he parks the when he parks at night, and the guy two houses down from you who who cuts you off if when when he's in a rush to get to work, so everyone is so relaxed and everyone is so friendly and there's such a tremendous sense of of goodwill and good feeling. It's an amazing thing, amazing thing. So what what accounts for that? What accounts for that? So the answer is that people are not busy pushing their own agendas. The ego isn't isn't driving them. They can't get to work, they can't really do anything, all they can do is sort of go out and and enjoy the the beauty of of the natural world. So people's egos recede. And when people's egos recede, so then ahavah surfaces. In Sha'arei Kedusha, Rabbi Chaim Vital writes how ga'avah is associated with in terms of the dalet yesodos, the yesod ha'eish. And then he says of the other midos ra'os which fall under this rubric of ga'avah, he says sinat zulato. Sinah has its root, has its source in ga'avah. Conversely, zeh le'umas zeh, Rabbi Chaim Vital explains, anavah is the source of many midos tovos and given that there's a symmetry, it's quite clear that according to Rabbi Chaim Vital, the same way sinah is rooted in ga'avah, so so too ahavah is rooted in anavah. And that's exactly what we're talking about, that when a person's ego again recedes, when a person's ego isn't intruding, so then there's an ahavah which which almost naturally surfaces, or it certainly can surface. So clearly one one practical way to to work on the mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael is to work on the middah of anavah. Work on the middah of anavah, and to the degree that a person is an anav, to the degree that his ego doesn't intrude, so to that degree it's it's liberating, and to that degree a person can can have a genuine sense and and express ahavas Yisrael. The Ba'al HaTanya says something similar with a different emphasis in Perek Lamed Beis of Tanya. Again it's with a different emphasis, I'll just read you the first few lines:

והנה על ידי קיום הדברים הנ"ל להיות גופו נבזה ונמאס בעיניו רק שמחתו תהיה שמחת הנפש לבדה.

If a person isn't interested in the physical, he he spurns the the physical, and his simcha is only in devarim ruchniyim,

הרי זו דרך ישרה וקלה לבוא לידי קיום מצות ואהבת לרעך כמוך לכל נפש מישראל מגדול ועד קטן.

Why? כי מאחר שגופו נמאס ומתועב אצלו. Again he spurns the physical

והנפש והרוח מי יודע גדולתן ומעלתן בשורשן ומקורן באלוקים חיים שגם שכולן מתאימות ואב אחד לכולנו ולכן נקראו כל ישראל אחים ממש מצד שורש נפשם בהשם אחד רק שהגופים מחולקים.

He says the separateness and separation that exists is mitzad haguf, mitzad the physical. The more a person is involved with the physical, so then the more distance we feel from each other. And the more a person is aduk bruchniyus and again in the Baal HaTanya's words, gufo nivzeh venimas, so then the more a person feels that sense of achva verayus mitzad shoresh nafsho. Again, it's a different emphasis, but lemaaseh there's certainly a considerable overlap. One final perspective I just wanted to mention tonight. The Yesod Veshoresh Haavodah talks about, the Chofetz Chaim has a Kuntres on Ahavas Yisrael. In that Kuntres on Ahavas Yisrael, he quotes and reproduces a couple of Perakim from the Yesod Veshoresh Haavodah. The Yesod Veshoresh Haavodah says that it's impossible for a person to bring nachas ruach kiviyachol to the Ribono Shel Olam unless אם לא כשירגיל את עצמו in Perek Shevi'i of Sha'ar Aleph in Yesod Veshoresh Haavodah,

אם לא כשירגיל את עצמו לקיים בסמידיות שתי מצוות עשה כלליות שבתורה הקדושה. האחת מצוות עשה של ואהבת לרעך כמוך והשנייה תלויה בה והיא מצוות עשה של בצדק תשפוט עמיתך

being dan lechaf zechus. And then subsequently, he says, אך זה ברור ופשוט, this is in Perek Ches now,

שאין אדם יכול לבוא על קיום מצוות עשה זו של ואהבת לרעך כמוך על אמיתותה ועל תכליתה בשלמות ובסמידיות אם לא עמד על המדרגה של קיום מצוות עשה זו בצדק תשפוט עמיתך עד תכליתה בשלמות ובסמידיות.

That in order for a person, he says it's impossible, the Yesod Veshoresh Haavodah says, it's impossible to be mekayem Veahavta Lereacha Kamocha unless a person is first mekayem Betzedek Tishpot Amitecha. Only to the degree that a person trains himself to view other people, other Jews, favorably, so only to that degree can he aspire to have a sense of ahava for them. If a person sees other people cynically, skeptically, so obviously that's going to preclude having a sense of ahava for them. And therefore, the avodah has to begin according to the Yesod Veshoresh Haavodah with the mitzvah of Betzedek Tishpot Amitecha to train oneself to constantly, constantly be dan other Jews lechaf zechus. A person's constantly dan lechaf zechus, so then he sees people through a favorable lens. He sees people through a favorable lens, then a person can come to the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisrael.