KEDOSHIM: 19:18 LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF (my secret revealed)

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

In Leviticus 19:18 there is the most awesome and complicated mitzvah in the Torah:"Love your neighbor as yourself, I am Hashem. Ve'ahavta leReyacha kamocha, ani Hashem."

My secret for remembering that this mitzvah is Lev 19:18 is as follows. Now once I explain my secret I guess it won't be much of a secret anymore, but here goes:

Lev, although short for Leviticus, is also the word in Hebrew for heart. And everybody knows that the word for love in English comes from the Hebrew word for heart, which is Lev.

Now the First World War had just ended that year. Everybody had vowed that this would be the last war, it was so terrible. Horrible new weapons were invented that were unthinkable in earlier wars, and millions lost their lives. Poison gas and flame throwers. These were never before seen or used in warfare. It was so bad they couldn't ever imagine that there would one day ever be a second world war. So in those days they didn't call it WW1 or the First World War. They just simply called it The Great War, it was so bad.

So the answer to heal the world then was as true then as it is today- Love your neighbor as yourself. And the letters reish and ayin in hebrew spell both the words for evil and neighbor. The consonants remain the same- just the vowels are different.

This is arguably absolutely the hardest mitzvah. But do not love the evil!!! Love the one, even your neighbor, even yourself if you have sinned and you think of yourself as evil and unable to return to Hashem and to goodness, in spite of the evil, and perhaps turn him or yourself around, and back on the right path. {Sur meRa, turn away from evil. Just turn away. Change direction. Not easy maybe, but turn away anyway. VeAsay Tov - and do good (Psalm 34). DO good and you become good. You are what you eat. But you are also you are what you DO. The converse also is true. DO evil and you become evil (an "evildoer"). But you can change. It is never too late!

Of course if someone is coming to kill you, then love isn't enough. You have to kill him first. But maybe before it gets to that point, we can try to kill him with kindness.

Shabbat Shalom!

© 2000 - 2009 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen Melman, z"l

http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/2007/07/yahrzeit-of-my-father-27-tammuz.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EEDC1630F93BA35754C0A9649C8B63

Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua
(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective).

Dedications are available.