Summary: This week we again have a double Torah portion, one that is wide ranging and includes within it some of the great verses of Torah. We learn about the duties that the high priest must perform on Yom Kippur and the ceremony of the scapegoat is outlined. Moses then instructs Aaron about the Yom Kippur laws for fasting and atonement. Moses continues and condemns the sexual practices of some neighboring peoples and certain forms of sexual relations are prohibited. God issues a variety of ethical commandments, instructing the Israelites on how to be a holy people. And finally, various sex offenses are discussed and punishments for them are presented.
Lesson: One of the most famous aphorisms of the Torah, and a text that is quoted very often in modern days, is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It stands as the central ethical commandment which guides us in our daily lives. However, can “love” (an emotion) actually be commanded? Is it truly possible to love others, outside our own families, with the same depth which we have for ourselves?
Our commentators focus their attention on this verse and struggle with the same questions. Maimonides realizes the difficulty of the challenge of loving others as we love ourselves. His interpretation of the verse teaches that “you should love your neighbor with all the qualities and modes of love with which you love yourself.” “The quality and nature of our love must be of the highest category – parallel to that which we employ in promoting our own welfare.” He understands that it may not always be possible for human beings to provide an equal quantity of concern for the welfare of others. His solution is to clarify that the extent of our love may be limited while the spirit of our love may not.
Nachmanides is quite honest when he speaks of the difficulty of loving others as we love ourselves. “Human beings cannot be expected to love their neighbors as they love their own souls.” He broadens the definition arguing that we should wish our neighbors well in all things just as we wish success for ourselves.
Malbim, a 19th century commentator from Eastern Europe, disagreed with both Maimonides and Nachmanides. He argues that one cannot command another to “love”. He sees this commandment not as directing us in terms of how we should feel about others, but rather in terms of how we behave toward others. For him this mitzvah is all about actions, not about thoughts. Human beings need to do more than wish good things for others. We must endeavor to act in every way possible to help our neighbor.
When writing about this mitzvah, Ibn Ezra explains that we are responsible to love other human beings because God has created us all.
Modern psychologist, Eric Fromm, when teaching about self-love, wrote, “The love for my own self is inseparably connected with the love for any other being.” If we love and care for ourselves then we must love and care for others. For Fromm “love is an activity…it is primarily giving, not receiving.”
The struggle of our commentators to understand this verse is our struggle as well. What is clear from our tradition is that we must love ourselves and then transform that love into a generous love for others.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Donald Goor