LOVE OF ONE'S FELLOW AND
LOVE OF THE ALIEN

AS THE BASIS FOR A MORAL SOCIETY

If one violates a minor mitzva, eventually he will violate a major one;
if he transgresses "Love your fellow as yourself" eventually he will
transgress "Do not hate" and "Do not take revenge or retain
anger", and in time he will disobey "So that your brother may live
beside you", until he will finally commit murder – therefore it is
written: "If it should be that a man bears hatred toward his fellow."

(Sifri, Shoftim 187)

Whoever takes revenge against his fellow violates a negative
commandment, as is written "Do not take revenge or retain hatred".
Even though he does not receive lashings, it is a very evil trait; man should
not take to heart anything in the world, for those who understand know that all
is vanity and worthless, and not worthy of revenge.

 (Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deot,
7:7)

"He shall be to you, the sojourner that sojourns with you, be
loving to him as one like yourself" – just as it was said to Israel
"You shall love your fellow as yourself", so was it said regarding
aliens: "And you shall love him as yourself for you were sojourners in the
Land of Egypt" – understand the feeling of aliens for you too were aliens
in the Land of Egypt

(Sifra, Parashat
Kedoshim 3)

"WHERE IS THE PLACE OF
HIS GLORY?"

Jonathan Chipman

A widespread Hassidic idea (of unclear
origin) offers an novel look at the concept of the 'makkom kadosh'- the
'holy place':

"The world of The Holy One, Blessed Be
He, is immense and holy… there are many holy places, but the holy city of
Yerushalayim is the most exalted, and within it is the holiest place, the Kodesh
HaKodashim – the Holy of Holies… There are seventy nations in the world.
The nation of Israel is the holiest of them all, and within it the priests –
especially the High Priest – are the holiest… There are holy days during the
year… Sabbaths and festivals – the holiest of all is Yom HaKippurim, the Day
of Atonement… there are seventy languages, among them the holy tongue. The holiest
book is our sacred Torah, and in the Torah is His True Name [the
Tetragrammaton] which possesses supreme holiness…

Once a year, at
a set time, the four holinesses unite. On Yom HaKippurim, when the High Priest
would enter the Holy of Holies (as described in our parasha) and would utter
the True Name in a state of sanctity and purity…

Yet any place where one lifts his eyes
heavenward can be a Holy of Holies.

Every man created in the image of God is a
High Priest. Every day of one's life is a Day of Atonement, and every statement
made honestly and sincerely is the True Name… (Appears in
S. Ansky's play "The Dybbuk" as an ancient folk tale; I have also
heard the words attributed to Menachem-Mendel of Kotsk.)

There is kedusha (holiness) which is focused
on a single point in the "world-soul-year" (i.e., space, time, and
the human soul) dimensions, and there is potential for kedusha hidden
everywhere in the world. One of the poles in this tension is expressed in the
midrash which relates to the patriarch Yaakov's Vision of the Ladder, as it
discusses the meaning of the name of the Holy One, Blessed Be He – "HaMakkom"
– the Place:

"He came upon a certain
place" – Said Rav Huna in the name of Rav Ami: Why is The Holy
One, Blessed Be He, called Makkom? Because He is the place of the world;
the world is not His place." (Bereishit Rabba 69:9)

From this it is clear that the Creator is
above and beyond any physical definition of place. Jewish thought recognizes a
balance between the conception of God as transcendental and His being conceived
of as being imminent. Says the Kaballah: "Surrounds all the worlds"
and "Fills all the worlds". On the one hand, he is all powerful,
seated on an elevated and exalted throne, dwelling in the far reaches of
infinity, surrounded by scores of angels. On the other hand, he is found
everywhere, in the smallest and most insignificant of his creations and in
every fiber of our existence; he is as near to us as our souls, and hears the
quiet whisper of a prayer. He is "the place" of our lives, but also
above the dimensions of place and time.

It seems, however, that there is another
aspect to this phrase: by making "the Place" one of God's
appellations, we actually say that there are no holy places; any
specific kedusha belonging to this or that place, is illusory. But here,
too, there is a paradox: Yaakov meets God in a specific place, in Bet-El, which
was afterwards considered a holy place. He even erects an altar there, saying
"Indeed there is a god in this place and I knew it now… it cannot be
but that this is the house of Elohim, and this is gateway to heaven"
(Bereishit 28:15-17)

A literal reading of this passage brings us
to the following conclusions: this place is imbued with an awe-inspiring
numinous attribute of kedusha; this place has a special approach to God
– it is truly the Gate to Heaven. From the continuation of this passage
in the midrash, it can be understood that the subject is not the identifiable
Bet-El – found in the portion of Binyamin, north of Yerushalayim; "Bet-El"
[lit. "House of God"] is a code word for Yerushalayim itself, site
of the Bet Hamikdash. Elsewhere it is written that the feet of the ladder
rested in Beer-sheva, and its head in the celestial Bet Hamikdash. Thus, the
name "Bet-El" was transformed into a name of a sanctified, specific
place on earth.

Amos Keinan formulates this perception in
sharp and extreme terms:

'HaMakkom" (The Place) is one of The
Holy One's names… place is but a site of worship which the fathers of the
nation used to erect wherever they set up tent… when the Bible says "And
Avraham named the place" it refers to… the name of "Makkom"
which is an altar, or a hallowed tree, or a "bama" (an
elevated place of worship)… these places of worship had properties of healing
and salvation… a god comes and a god goes. The place remains for ever…
Yerushalayim, navel of the world, the object of wars which will never cease as
long as men believe in a god." (Amos
Keinan, Rose of Jericho, (Tel Aviv: Zemora-Bitan, 1998), p. 51-52.)

In contrast to this earth-centered approach,
the identification of "the Place" with The Holy One, Blessed Be He,
and its use by Chazal as a name of God, turns every place into a makkom
where one meets God, as expressed in the words of Kotzker Rebbi: "Where does
God dwell? Wherever one brings him into his heart."

It is interesting that Rabbi J. B.
Soloveitchik expresses a similar idea, in the course of a Halakhic analysis of
the concept of kedusha. (See, for
example, "Days of Repentance and Holiness" in Divrei Hashkafa (Yerushalayim,
Dept. of Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, 5755, pp. 117-119).)
In a number of places, he notes that from a Halakhic standpoint, there is no
inherent holiness in objects or places per se. Sanctification of place
or time is but the result of an intentional human action, in which one
sanctifies something as an instrument for the service of the Creator – who is
infinite, incomprehensible, omnipresent and found in every object. So it is
with 'objects of heaven': One sanctifies an animal for a sacrifice – or money
or some object for the Temple – by speech; a Torah scribe sanctifies a Torah
scroll, tephillin or mezuzah by the very writing for the sake of the fulfilling
a mitzva; the Bet Hamikdash itself was sanctified by the erection of walls
which separated between it and the unhallowed areas outside it, etc. Even the
Shabbat day, whose holiness is "set forever" from the six days of
creation, is sanctified by the kiddush over the wine, in which man
expresses his agreement or approval of the sanctity of the Shabbat.

From the perspective of theological terms, it
seems to me that the rejection of the concept of inherent holiness is related
to the negation of idolatry which is so essential to Judaism. Rambam discerned
the origin of idolatry in fetishism, in thought which ascribes inherent kedusha
to objects which were once instruments for the worship of the gods. (See
"Laws of Idol Worship", Chap. 1)

Another midrash, which relates directly to
the construction of the Temple, deals with the question of God's
self-limitation in relation to the dimensions of the physical universe.

"An alternative explication: "Shaddai
– we cannot attain to him; He is great in power and justice" (Job
37:23). When The Holy One, Blessed Be He, said to Moshe: "Make for Me a
dwelling," he was puzzled and said: "The glory of The Holy
One, Blessed Be He fills the upper and the lower worlds, and He says, Make for
Me a dwelling!?" Yet more: He looked and saw Shelomo building the Bet
Hamikdash which is greater than the Mishkan, and he [Shelomo] said: "But
will God really dwell on earth: (I Kings 8:27). Said Moshe: "If so
spoke Shelomo regarding the Bet Hamikdash – which is greater than the Mishkan –
how much more so regarding the Mishkan?!" (Shemot Rabba 34:1)

This midrash expresses a basic problem in the
understanding of the religious act, of mortals' attempt to worship God, in the
erection of temples and houses of worship in which God is to reside. There is
something paradoxical – even sacrilegious – about the very thought of 'holy
places'. The continuation of the above passage from Shelomo's prayer at the
inauguration of the Temple clearly expresses this approach: "Even the
heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this house
that I have built?" (Ibid.) The Midrash provides an unanticipated
answer:

"Said The Holy One, Blessed Be He:
"Not as you think do I think, but twenty cubits in the North and twenty in
the South, and eight in the West, and yet more, I will descend and will
diminish my holy presence so as to dwell within one square cubit."

The answer of the midrash is that God
contracts himself so as to be accessible to man, as an act of hessed, of
grace. There is no building on earth capable of really being a suitable
dwelling for the Infinite; but because man builds it as a gift for God out of
love, with longing that this will bring man and God closer, He accepts this
with love, and He diminishes Himself so that His presence – infinite in its
essence – can enter into a physically bounded area – finite in its essence;
then He can enter even the most minute of places!

As in the concept "tsimtsum"
(contraction) in the Lurian Kaballa, so here, too, The Holy One, Blessed Be He,
"contracts himself" in order to make room for man: there, at Creation,
He did so in order to make it possible to create man; here, he does so in order
that He can be accessible to man, "a dwelling below", a meeting point
of the finite with the infinite.

Rabbi Jonathan
Chipman is a translator by profession, and a scholar in Jewish studies. He
write a weekly sheet (in English) on the portion of the week and the Haftara,
titled "Hitsei Yehonatan". (Anyone interested in ordering a
sample of subscription can write via email to: yonarand@internet-zahav.net.)

"LOVE YOUR FELLOW AS YOURSELF" –

AN IMPORTANT RULE …

ON ONE LEG… "MINI-TORAH"

Pinhas (Jacko) Greenwald

When the gentile
requested that Hillel convert him "on condition that he teach him the
entire Torah while standing on one leg" – was he mocking Hillel? Or
perhaps – as suggested by Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz (Tractate Shabbat 31a –
Steinzalz edition) – he wished to learn from Hillel one basic foundation
("leg"), and ergo Hillel's answer.

Rabbi Akiva found this basis expressed in the
passage "Love your fellow as yourself". Rashi, commenting on
this passage, reminds us that for Rabbi Akiva, this was "A major rule in
the Torah."

But Hillel, approximately two centuries before Rabbi Akiva, formulated
it differently. In answer to the gentile who approached him, he said:
"That which is hateful to you, do not to your fellow – the rest is but
commentary, go and learn."

The Golden Rule

Not
to do unto others that which we would not want done to ourselves, is known as
the Golden Rule. Whether worded negatively – as by Hillel – or whether
positively ("Do to the other that which we would want for
ourselves"), its universal character remains unaltered. It can be found in
the words of Confucius and others, and it cuts across epochs and continents. It
is as though Hillel had said to the gentile: From the moment you behave
respectfully to the other, you have become a Jew.

All
the rest requires contemplation, study, refinement, – on the assumption that
"Great is study, for it leads to action."

In
this sense, it can be said that Hillel charted the way for Ben Zoma, who
countered Rabbi Akiva's words – "Love you fellow as yourself – this is a
major rule in the Torah" – with: "This is the record of the
begettings of Adam' – this is even a greater rule." (Yerushalmi,
Nedarim 9:4). The universal significance of this message is clear, but what is
the connection to love of the other?

The
author of the "P'nei Moshe" (ibid., ibid.) explains. Ben Zoma relates
to the continuation of the passage: "At the time of God's creating
humankind, in the likeness of God did he make it." When we are
conscious of the fact that the other was also created in the image of God, we
cannot behave towards him in a menacing manner. It should be added that
interjecting God into human relations, which turns this rule into a categorical
dictate, should not surprise us, because it conforms to the end of the passage
in our parasha "Love your fellow as yourself; I am the Lord."

How to Apply This
Command?

At first glance, it would seem that that there is no
practical application of this rule; can a person be expected to love his fellow
as much as he loves himself?

It is
possible that the phrase "VeAhavta l'reyacha"
(rather than "VeAhavta
et reyacha") can help us understand the command somewhat
differently.

The
preposition 'l' may be read as 'on behalf of'; on behalf of your fellow – love
"as yourself" – meaning: "Relate to the other as you would
expect him to relate to you." This reading brings us back to the Golden
Rule formulated by Hillel! Indeed, Yonathan ben Uzziel translates the passage
"Love your fellow as yourself" – That which is hateful to you,
do not to your fellow.

Understood
in this sense, the commandment is not some elevated ideal which one should
strive for, without realistic hope for realizing it; it is always capable of
fulfillment. This is Hillel's "one leg", with which all human
morality concurs.

This
rule shapes our attitude to the other and makes it possible for us to stand
before the Lord. Areas of application are many and varied; the prohibition
against envy, the interdiction against cheating, gloating over another's
misfortune, and, of course, any deception.

This meaning makes possible our understanding of the
mitzvah as defined by one of the rabbis, (quoted in "Likkutei Anshei
Shem"): "A miniature Torah" – a little Torah – which we must
carry with us everywhere, at all times.

Rabbi Pinhas Greenwald is a newspaperman and
educator

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser
(Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

This
weekly publication was made possible by:

The
Moriah Fund, the Tisch Foundation and private donors

To our readers:

We will be happy to have you actively participate in "Shabbat
Shalom" by:

·       
Letters to the editor

·       
Publication of Divrei Torah (in coordination with the
editorial board)

For details, contact Miriam Fine (053-920206 or 02-6730196)

If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom, please consider contributing towards
its publication and distribution.

·       
Hebrew edition distributed in Israel $1000

·       
English edition distributed via email $ 100

Issues may be dedicated in honor of an event, person, simcha, etc.
Requests must be made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in
advance to appear in the English email.

US, Canadia or British tax-exempt contributions to OzveShalom may be
made through the New Israel Fund or through P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc.

Contributions should be marked as donor-advised to OzveShalom/Netivot
Shalom, the Shabbat Shalom project.

New Israel Fund, POB 53410, Jerusalem 91534 (Please include Israeli
address and telephone number)

New Israel Fund, POB 91588, Washington, DC 20090-1588, USA

New Israel Fund of Canada, 801 Eglinton Ave. West, Suite #401, Toronto,
Ontario M5N 1E3 Canada (Canadian tax exemption)

New Israel Fund of Great Britain, 26 Enford Street, London W1H 2DD,
United Kingdom (British tax exemption)

P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc., 317 Madison Ave., Suite 607, New
York, New York 10017 USA

About us:

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of
a civil society in Israel. It is committed to promoting the ideals of
tolerance, pluralism, and justice, concepts which have always been central to
Jewish tradition and law.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep attachment to the land of
Israel and it no less views peace as a central religious value. It believes
that Jews have both the religious and the national obligation to support the
pursuit of peace. It maintains that Jewish law clearly requires us to create a
fair and just society, and that co-existence between Jews and Arabs is not an
option but an imperative.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's programs include both educational and
protest activities. Seminars, lectures, workshops, conferences and weekend
programs are held for students, educators and families, as well as joint
seminars for Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Protest activities focus on
issues of human rights, co-existence between Jews and Arabs, and responses to
issues of particular religious relevance.

9,000 copies of a 4 page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah
reading are written and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are
distributed to over 350 synagogues in Israel and are sent overseas via email.
Our web site is www.netivot-shalom.org.il.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's educational forums
draw people of different backgrounds, secular and religious, who are keen to
deepen their Jewish knowledge and to hear an alternative religious standpoint
on the subjects of peace and social issues.

Oz
Veshalom-Netivot Shalom fills an ideological vacuum in Israel's society.
Committed both to Jewish tradition and observance, and to the furthering of
peace and coexistence, the movement is in a unique position to engage in
dialogue with the secular left and the religious right, with Israeli Arabs and
with Palestinians.

Our activities are
funded by donations and one part time employee.

OzveShalom/Netivot Shalom                Tel./Fax
972-2-5664218

Pob 4433                                             Email:
ozshalom@netvision.net.il

Jerusalem 94310, Israel                www.
netivot-shalom.org.il