Acharei Mot – Kedoshim 5772 - English

By Rabbi Mario Gurevich
Beth Israel Synagogue – Aruba

This week, we once again read two parashiot:  Acharei Mot and Kedoshim.  The latter contains countless laws destined to regulate relationships between human beings, not so much from a legal perspective but rather from what is ethical and moral.  Kedoshim, the word that opens the parashah, constitutes an admonishment:  “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

Verse 18 contains, perhaps, the most famous quote in the entire Torah:  “Love your fellow as yourself.”  However, what not everyone knows is that this phrase constitutes the final part of a longer sentence:  "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen.  Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:18).

Being, as we are, a people devoted to questioning and dialectics, there undoubtedly were, in the past, those who wanted to believe that loving your fellow referred exclusively to other Jews.  That discussion was finally settled by Ibn Ezra, who proclaimed with absolute authority that fellow referred to all those who had been created “in God’s image and likeness”; that is, everybody.  And regarding this mitzvah, Rabbi Akiva said: Ze klal gadol baTorah, “This is the greatest principle of the Torah.”

Why is it, then, that it appears almost hidden behind the warning against “vengeance or bear[ing] a grudge against your countrymen”?  Could it be, perhaps, because the Torah, everlasting and immortal document, knows us better than we know ourselves?  I fear that it is so.

To love your neighbor means to do so regardless of whether they are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or any other denomination; regardless of whether they agree with us or not in their way of thinking.

The admonition against vengeance and bearing a grudge against your countrymen places us before the most difficult form of loving your neighbor; where no exclusive ideologies or true monopolies can exist.

The Talmud affirms that the Second Temple was destroyed due to the Sinat Chinam, the baseless (unjustified) hate among brothers.  And today we stand witness, day to day and with pain in our hearts, to new expressions of this Sinat Chinam.  How is it possible that Halachah-observant Jews lend themselves to the desecration of a Reform Synagogue in Israel, as happened just a few weeks ago?  Doesn’t Rabbi Akiva’s “greatest principle of the Torah” mean anything to them?

There are mysteries we will never entirely understand, but it is certain that if we search for the path to holiness, ethical behavior and moral life, the commandment to love your neighbor is mandatory for us all.

According to an ancient Talmudic legend, the most sacred place in the Olam Ha-ba (the world to come), where only the holiest and purest reside, has at the top of its gate a set of letters which say: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart.”  But in order to reach that place there is a very low door, which forces you to bend down, over which it is written:  “You will love your neighbor as yourself.”

Shabbat Shalom.