And you shall love your friend like yourself

The Mitzvah to love someone else as one loves oneself is a very difficult concept to grasp. Surely it is against everyone’s nature to love someone else in the exact same way as we love ourselves, especially if it is a stranger?[1]In light of this, the Ramban understands that the Mitzvah to “Love your friend like yourself” is not that we must actually literally love him in the same way as we love ourselves. Rather, the Mitzvah is to desire for our friend everything that we would want for ourselves, in the same proportion. For instance, just like we want to be wise and wealthy, so we should want our friend to be as wise and as wealthy. The focus of this Mitzvah, explains the Ramban, is to negate from our hearts all jealousy and the need to be in a better position than everyone else.

Someone who achieved this lofty goal was the Brisker Rov as illustrated by the following story which took place his home.
One evening, the community leaders came to the Brisker Rov’s home to discuss an urgent matter with him. After they were welcomed in, they immediately sensed that his home had no form of heating and was unbearably cold. Upon leaving the house, the men decided to organize for chopped wood to be delivered to the Brisker Rov so that their stove could be heated and their home be warmed.

The following night the men returned for further discussions and as they walked in to the home, they once again felt the cold. They turned to the Rebbetzen and asked why her home was not warm. “Yesterday, so many poor people came to our home. They all complained about the cold and said they had no money to buy wood,” she explained, “the Rov was not able to give them money, but he allowed them to take as much wood as they needed, until all the wood was gone” she said in earnest. When the men left, they once again arranged for the wood supplier to fill up their storehouse with wood, but realizing that this would happen every day, this time they added a lock to the door. They gave the key to the Rebbetzen and with great empathy said to her, “We are giving you this wood for your home only. If the Rav gives it to poor people instead, we will consider it theft!”

The follow day, the men returned to the Brisker Rov’s home, and it was once again freezing. “Why isn’t your home warm?” they questioned the Rebbetzen. “Because my husband said, ‘if the poor people are going to be cold, then we too are going to be cold!’”

Rabbi Moshe Kormornick, is the best selling author of SHORT VORT, available in Jewish bookstores worldwide, as well as at Feldheim.com and on amazon. 

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