By
definition, the mitzvah of love your fellow Jew as yourself is a command, not a concept, and Rav Shimshon
Pincus z”l, quoting the Ramban, asks how such a thing is possible, since as
yourself is an extremely difficult level to achieve.
And to illustrate the point he lets us hear as follows:
I
know many righteous people who do a lot of chesed. But I have not yet seen a ba’al chesed who
is willing to buy the same hat or tie for a needy person that he would buy for himself. A person’s affection for himself is something
truly exceptional because a person’s own life is exceedingly precious to him.
It is indeed.
In
EmunahSpeak:
Love Your Fellow as Yourself, we quoted the Lubavitcher Rebbe zy”a on
this very point. The Rebbe said:
“the mitzvah of love your fellow Jew applies (even)
to a Jew across the world whom you have never seen.” And he didn’t mean
that we should feel obligated to send him a check if we should find out that he
needed help because the Rebbe’s understanding of love your fellow as yourself wasn’t mortgaged to the touchy
feely chesed interpretation that we spoke about above (in EmunahSpeak:
Love Your Fellow as Yourself).
However much the Rebbe, was wont to
darshen in many other areas of Torah, vis á vis the mitzvah of love your fellow as yourself, his
approach was literally straight
down Main Street.
“What kind of love,” He asked?
“Torah contains no idle words. When it says ‘love your fellow as
yourself,’ love means
love. Your fellow means
not you, but him. As yourself?
Just as much as you love yourself.”
And
that has to also include what you love because it emotionally becomes part of
you.
Rav
Pincus z”l tells us that there is no joy
like Torah learning. There is no
pleasure like the pleasure of Torah wisdom.
There is no delight like deveikus with Hashem.
And
if there is no love like the love of your fellow Jew, which is nothing less than
the love you have for yourself, then what better way could there be to manifest
that love than by upgrading your fellow Jew’s taste buds with the aforementioned
joy, pleasure, and delight so that
he can reach the level of your sweet tooth for the same?
