Ahavas Yisroel, Humility, Divisions Within, & Divisiveness

מצוה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל כגופו שנאמר ואהבת לרעך כמוך.

The formulation is so difficult and conspicuously difficult. If you just look before and after how the Rambam presents other mitzvos, it highlights there's no need for the phrase al kol adam. In Halacha Beis, in the previous halacha, the Rambam writes מצות עשה להדבק בחכמים כדי ללמוד ממעשיהם. Not al kol adam. In Halacha Daled,

אהבת הגר שבא ונכנס תחת כנפי השכינה שתי מצות עשה אחת מפני שהוא בכלל ריעים ואחת מפני שהוא גר.

Halacha Hei, כל השונא אחד מישראל בלבו עובר בלא תעשה. In none of the other cases is there any need and therefore we don't find this phrase al kol adam. So what's what what is it expressing, what is it conveying here? Generally in terms of the semantics of the word adam, adam means a person, an individual. If there's no specific interpretive context, so then it means any human being, not necessarily a Jew. Obviously in Mishneh Torah, obviously that there is a a Jewish context as it were and that tailors the meaning, and adam means a Jew, a Jewish individual. But here given that the whole phrase is seemingly and and so blatantly unnecessary, it appears that adam has a more specific connotation. In Parshas Balak,

לא איש קל ויכזב ובן אדם ויתנחם ההוא אמר ולא יעשה ודבר ולא יקימנה.

So the pasuk speaks of ish, Hakadosh Baruch Hu's not an ish, Hakadosh Baruch Hu's not a ben adam. So in Aderes Eliyahu, the Gr"a comments,

וזה שאמר לא איש והן הגדולים וכמו שכתוב עליכם אישים.

Well, say the Gr"a doesn't mention this, right, Rashi the beginning of Parshas Shlach,

כולם אנשים אנשים לשון חשיבות. ובן אדם הם הפחותים מזה.

Then the Gr"a explains, it's not not relevant to us in our context, why one is viyichazev and the other is viyisnacham. So ish means a person of chashivus, a person of distinction, and adam or ben adam, he's just in in it's not so much in modern English, but in in old English, so there was a word Adamite from lashon adam which means one of its meanings means a person, it's not a distinguishing yichus to be a descendant of Adam Harishon, right, one can't really, you know, claim any special distinction by invoking the zeide Adam Harishon, right, so. ובן אדם הם הפחותים מזה. Yitachen, so עד כאן דברי הגר"א, yitachen that that's the pshat in the pasuk in Parshas Behaalosecha,

והאיש משה ענו מאד מכל האדם אשר על פני האדמה.

Moshe Rabbeinu who has the greatest of all human beings to ever live, Va’ish Moshe, and yet his humility was anav meod מכל האדם אשר על פני האדמה. He, despite being an ish, despite his unique supreme chashivus, his humility far, far surpassed that of mikol ha'adam, all the pussim, all the rest of us without any distinction אשר על פני האדמה. Could it be that you find such a usage, could be. In the beginning of פרק ז' ביסודי התורה, the Rambam writes as follows: מיסודי הדת לידע שהקל מנבא את בני האדם. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it’s one of the fundamental beliefs of our religion to know that Hakadosh Baruch Hu grants prophecy, שהקל מנבא את בני האדם. The Rambam then gives us the profile of the navi: אדם שהוא ממולא בכל המדות הללו, adam, adam. So the Rambam describes how his lifestyle of focusing on Hakadosh Baruch Hu ultimately culminates in Ruach Hakodesh shoreh alav. ובעת שתנוח עליו הרוח תתערב נפשו, his soul mingles מעלת המלאכים הנקראים אישים, the lowest level of malachim that the Rambam listed earlier in Yesodei HaTorah, veyehafech, and he’s transformed, he was an adam, so he should be transformed to a different type of adam, veyehafech l'ish acher. Now, it’s true, this is the lashon hapasuk that the Rambam is about to quote:

ויבין בדעתו שאינו כמו שהיה אלא שנתעלה על מעלת שאר בני האדם החכמים כמו שנאמר בשאול והתנבית עמם ונהפכת לאיש אחר.

So the whole time he’s an adam, he’s a ben adam, he’s a ben adam, he’s a ben adam. Then when he zocheh to nevuah, he becomes an ish. So it’s possible that again even though most of the time the Rambam is just using adam in its more general and generic sense of an individual, again be it a human, be it a Jew, depending upon context, but that this havanah of the Gaon is reflected and that sometimes what the Rambam has in mind again is this contrast, that adam means simple, lacking distinction.

מצוה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל.

So obviously adam here means a Jew, the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisrael, the part beyond that. But it's possible what the Rambam is telling us here is as follows: In order to fulfill the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisrael, a person has to be be'einei atzmo adam and everyone else is echad mi'yisrael. מצוה על כל אדם, pussim. A person has to recognize, I mean this isn’t a person doesn’t have to have recourse to imagination, he just has to look in the mirror and have a reality check. A person has to recognize that he’s bivchinas adam, but that is supposed to be one’s self-image. And has to see everyone else, all other Jews as echad ve-echad mi-Yisrael. The challenging instances of mitzvus ahavas Yisrael can only be met, that challenge can only be met when approached with humility, when approached with an understanding that one is bechinas Adam. So let's to try to understand that, let's maybe first illustrate with a petty example and then move to try to move a little bit away from the Kotsker. Hopefully you don't understand what I'm talking about the next couple of sentences, that's wonderful if you don't, wonderful if you don't. But sometimes other people annoy us. They're annoying. I don't know, temperamentally they're different, their whole style is different, I don't know whether it's the style of speech or the style of how they carry themselves, and it grates. No E after the I. And it becomes a challenge to have the appropriate ahavas Yisrael. So it's important to understand that that reaction is a form of gaivah. We think of gaivah in its cruder manifestations, but it has less crude, more subtle expressions as well. And when one doesn't succeed at ahavas Yisrael because of those, because people are annoying, because of that I don't know, gap in temperament, in style, etc., that's a form of ego. Because really annoying is shorthand for annoys me. There's no objective annoying. Annoying is something we like to talk euphemistically so we just say ploni is annoying, but there is no such thing. So if I say that, what I mean is that he annoys me. So that's driven by ego. That's a form of gaivah. It's not the most crude or most extreme manifestation of gaivah, it doesn't qualify for the Rambam's פרק ב מהלכות דעות כל המגביה לבו כפר בעיקר, and I don't think it qualifies for that indictment, but it's ego, it's gaivah. And if a person would be bechinas Adam, that wouldn't happen. What, there's something better, superior about my style, about my temperament? I'm entitled to disapprove of someone else? Ve-anachnu mah. So that's the sort of petty circumstance where bechinas Adam is necessary. But it's necessary in even when one moves away from that katnus hamochin. It's also necessary. I think we spoke last week, two weeks ago, at some point about the Rambam in Rotzeiach ushmiras nefesh quoting the Gemara in Pesachim that a baal aveira is mitzva lisnoso. Not only mutar lisnoso, the Gemara escalates as it continues, but ultimately the Gemara says mitzva lisnoso. יראת ה' שנאת רע. And in that sense, there are real divisions within Klal Yisrael. Not only real divisions between shomrei Torah umitzvos and tinokos shenishba, which is what רובא דרובא דרובא דרובא דרובא of those who are not shomrei Torah umitzvos are. But also there are real divisions, although objectively obviously to a much smaller degree, but subjectively it's more challenging to deal with. There are divisions within shomrei Torah umitzvos, within bnei Torah. And in many of those cases, one may legitimately and correctly view other shomrei Torah umitzvos as not in an eilu va'eilu sense adopting a different position, but as just being wrong, and very wrong. And wrong in a way that has really, really serious repercussions and reverberations. Wrong in a way that justifies, warrants sina. So we discussed and I mentioned that this as my son pointed out to me that the Rambam doesn't make this exception in Hilchos Deos. He records the din that mitzva lisnoso at the end of Rotzeiach ushmiras nefesh but he doesn't mention that as an exception in Hilchos Deos. So it isn't. So somehow or other the ahava and sina coexist. The only way ahava and sina coexist is if the sina isn't personalized. It's not my subjective sina for someone else. It's a principled objective sina for whatever element of ra that I'm reacting to. But if it's my personal subjective sina, so that can't coexist with ahava. That's a tartei desasrei. But if it's a principled objective sina reacting to whatever element of ra exists, so that can coexist with ahava. What makes the difference, and again, the divisions, even divisions that warrant sina don't have to result in divisiveness, but they often do. What determines whether or not the sina we experience is a subjective personal sina or whether it's an objective principled sina reaction to an element of ra, whether or not a person is bechinas adam. If a person is If a person is bechinas Adam, so then the sinah won't be my personal subjective sinah. But if that is missing, if one edits the halacha and says מצווה לשנוא את כל אחד ואחד מישראל without the al kol adam, if the humility is not present, so then the ra that one is reacting to affects one, and of course we personalize the sinah. Of course we personalize the sinah. The only way the sinah doesn't get personalized is if one recognizes that the definition of the mitzvah is

מצווה על כל אדם לאהוב את כל אחד ואחד מישראל.

The divisions within Kahal Yisrael are frightening. And it's our avodah. What can we do? We can change, each of us can change one person in Kahal Yisrael. But that's a tremendous thing. It's our avodah to be bechinas Adam. It doesn't mean neglecting yiras shamayim, sinas ra. It doesn't mean neglecting that. But if we commit ourselves, work on ourselves, to try to cultivate and recognize the bechinas Adam, so then it's possible to be mkayem what it says in Hilchos De'os and also what it says in Hilchos Sotah.