(יח) ואהבת לרעך כמוך אהוב בעד רעך מה שהיית אוהב בעדך אם היית מגיע למקומו.
(18) Side with your fellow in the same way you would side with yourself if you were in that situation.
(א) ואהבת לרעך כמוך. ר"ל כל אופני הטוב והחסד שאדם מסכים בדעתו וגומר בלבו שראוי לו לקבל מאהובו יעשה לרעהו שהוא כל אדם, והוא, ראובן רוצה משמעון אהובו שיתנהג עמו כאוהב נאמן בכל הדברים, וחושב בלבו אלה הדברים והאופנים שראוי לו לשמעון להתנהג עמי, א' שיאהב אותי באמת לא בזיוף, ב' שיתנהג בי כבוד תמיד כי כן ראוי להיות וכמאמר חז"ל, כבוד חברך כמורא רבך, ג' שידרש שלומי תמיד כי כן ראוי לרעים אהובים להיות בשלום תמיד ולדרוש איש בשלום רעהו, ד' שישתתף בצערי, ה' שיקבל אותי בסבר פנים יפות כשאבא לביתו, ו' שידון אותי לכף זכות בכל דבר, ז' שיתנדב בגופו באיזה טרחה קטנה בשבילי והוא ילוני בעמלו לפעמים בדבר שלא יעמל בו הרבה, ח' שיתנדב להושיע לי בדבר מועט מממונו לפעמים בעת שאצטרך בהלואה או במתנה דבר קטן ולא ימנע ממני שאלה אחת קטנה כדרך טוב איש חונן ומלוה, ט' שלא יתגאה עלי, והוא מסכים בשכלו וגומר בלבו עוד דברים רבים כאלה, אבל לא יסכים בשכלו ששמעון יתן לו כל הממון שלו וכל רכושו באהבתו אותו, זה לא ירצה ראובן מעמו ולא יחפוץ מאתו, כי הדעת לא יסבל זה והשכל לא יחייב כן;...
This is to say, that in all the ways one wants goodness and kindess that he feels he deserves to receive from his love, he shall to do his fellow, who is every person. This is: Reuven wants from Shimon his love that he treat him as someone as a loyal companion in all ways, and that he feels in his heart that these are the things and manners that are fitting for Shimon to treat him: 1. That he love me truly without falsehood. 2. That he treat me with respect always, as the rabbis say: Honor of your friend should be like the reverence for your teacher. 3. That he ask after my well-being always, because that is fitting for loving neighbors to be at peace and to ask after each other's well-being. 4. That he be with me in my pain. 5. That he receive me hospitably when I come to his house. 6. That he give me the benefit of the doubt in all matters. 7. That he offer to help me in small matters of physical labor and that he lend me help when it does not require much of him 8. That when I am in need he loan me or gift me some money when I need it and that he not withhold from me any small request in the way of a gracious and generous person. 9. That he not not be arrogant towards me.
And he expects in his head and decides other things like this, but he does not expect that Shimon will give him all of his money and property through this neighborly love. Reuven does not want nor is he interested in this from him, because the mind does not tolerate this and common sense does not require it.
(ד) לא תקם פרש״י, אמר לו השאילני מגלך וכו׳ וא״ת מאי שנא שאין הקב״ה מזהיר בלאו על אותו שלא רצה על לא דבר להשאיל לחבירו כליו ועל זה שיש לו עליו טענה גדולה שלא רצה להשאילו תחלה הזהיר בלאו. וי״ל שהראשון לא הניח להשאיל לו אלא מחמת צרות עין שהיה מגלו חביב עליו ואין הקב״ה מכריחו להשאיל כליו שלא מרצונו. אבל זה שהיה משאיל לו לולי השנאה שהוא רוצה להנקם, אם כן מחמת שנאה הוא עושה כך,
לפיכך אמר הקב״ה תנצח האהבה שיש לך עמו את השנאה שיש לך עמו ומתוך כך יבא שלום בעולם.
ואהבת לרעך כמוך אם תעשה כן תאהבהו, והלמ״ד בו יתרה, ... ד״א אינו אומר ואהבת רעך כמוך. דאי אפשר לעשות כן. אלא לרעך, פירוש ואהבת לעשות לו טובה כמו שאתה אוהב שיעשה הוא לך. דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד. וכן תפרש גבי והגר הגר אתכם ואהבת לו כמוך.
(4) לא תקום, Rashi explains this by providing us with a parable: if someone had asked a neighbour to lend him his scythe, and had been refused, and on the day after that refusenik asked him to lend him his spade to dig with, the second person not only refusing but adding as a reason that he was refused the loan of the first person’s scythe, this is an example of revenge, i.e. לא תקום. What then is the meaning of לא תטור, “do not bear a grudge?” Answer: if the second person does lend his spade to the one who had refused him his scythe, but he added when giving him his spade: “I am not like you who refused me his scythe just yesterday.” The second person still feels vengeful even though he did not act vengefully. If you were to ask why it is that the Torah did not specifically forbid the first person to refuse to lend the second person his scythe, but referred with obvious displeasure to the second person who did lend his tool as having committed a violation of a commandment? Surely the Torah should have criticized the first person for being so miserly as not to lend his tool to his neighbour? We must give the first person the benefit of the doubt for refusing to lend his tool because he may have been afraid that his neighbour would treat his scythe, which he treasured greatly, carelessly, and that would explain his refusal. The Torah does not command us to lend our tools against our better judgment as to whom we entrust it. On the other hand, the second person made it clear that he bore the first person ill will for his refusal and he wanted to impress him as being a better person than his neighbour. Therefore the Torah commanded us to allow our goodwill towards our neighbor to outweigh our disappointment over his having refused us without giving an adequate explanation which would have been acceptable and which would have avoided any ill feeling between these two people. Therefore God said: let the love you have for him outweigh the hatred you have for him and through this peace will come into the world. If you do this, you will love him.
The prefix letter ל before the word רעך, “your fellowman,” is superfluous... the Torah was careful not to write ואהבת רעך כמוך “love your fellowman as you love yourself,” as it is impossible to do this. Rather לרעך, love to your fellow, meaning love to do good for him as you would love for him to do for you. And what is hateful to you do not do to your friend (Shabbat 31a). The same applies to the verse "and the stranger that resides with you, love him like yourself".
(א) מצות אהבת ישראל - לאהב כל אחד מישראל אהבת נפש, כלומר שנחמל על ישראל ועל ממונו כמו שאדם חומל על עצמו וממונו, שנאמר (ויקרא יט יח) ואהבת לרעך כמוך. ואמרו זכרונם לברכה (שבת לא א) דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד. ואמרו בספרא (קדושים ד יב) אמר רבי עקיבא זה כלל גדול בתורה, כלומר, שהרבה מצות שבתורה תלויות בכך, שהאוהב חברו כנפשו לא יגנב ממונו ולא ינאף את אשתו, ולא יונהו בממון ולא בדברים, ולא יסיג גבולו, ולא יזיק לו בשום צד, וכן כמה מצות אחרות תלויות בזה. ידוע [גלוי] הדבר לכל בן דעת.
(1) The commandment of love of Israel: To love [with] love of the soul each one of Israel - meaning to say that we have compassion for an Israelite and for his money, [just] like a person has compassion for himself and for his [own] money; as it stated (Leviticus 19:18), "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." And they, may their memory be blessed, said (Shabbat 31a), "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." And they said in Sifra, Kedoshim, Chapter 4:12, "Rabbi Akiva said, 'This is a great principle in the Torah'" - meaning to say that many commandments are dependent upon it. As one that loves his fellow like himself will not steal his money, have adultery with his wife, cheat his money from him nor hurt him from any angle. And so [too,] are there several other commandments dependent on this - the thing is well-known [revealed] to all who have intellect.
(טז) כָּל אַהֲבָה שֶׁהִיא תְלוּיָה בְדָבָר, בָּטֵל דָּבָר, בְּטֵלָה אַהֲבָה. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, אֵינָהּ בְּטֵלָה לְעוֹלָם. אֵיזוֹ הִיא אַהֲבָה הַתְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת אַמְנוֹן וְתָמָר. וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ תְּלוּיָה בְדָבָר, זוֹ אַהֲבַת דָּוִד וִיהוֹנָתָן:
(16) All love that depends on a something, [when the] thing ceases, [the] love ceases; and [all love] that does not depend on anything, will never cease. What is an example of love that depended on a something? Such was the love of Amnon for Tamar. And what is an example of love that did not depend on anything? Such was the love of David and Jonathan.
THE OBJECTS OF LOVE
Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one "object" of love. If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. Yet, most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not by the faculty...Because one does not see that love is an activity, a power of the soul, one believes that all that is necessary to find is the right object—and that everything goes by itself afterward. This attitude can be compared to that of a man who wants to paint but who, instead of learning the art, claims that he has just to wait for the right object, and that he will paint beautifully when he finds it. If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to somebody else, "I love you," I must be able to say, "I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself." ...
Helplessness is a transitory condition; the ability to stand and walk on one's own feet is the permanent and common one. Yet, love of the helpless one, love of the poor and the stranger, are the beginning of brotherly love. To love one's flesh and blood is no achievement. The animal loves its young and cares for them. The helpless one loves his master, since his life depends on him; the child loves his parents, since he needs them. Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold. Significantly, in the Old Testament, the central object of man's love is the poor, the stranger, the widow and the orphan, and eventually the national enemy, the Egyptian and the Edomite. By having compassion for the helpless one, man begins to develop love for his brother; and in his love for himself he also loves the one who is in need of help, the frail, insecure human being. Compassion implies the element of knowledge and of identification. "You know the heart of the stranger," says the Old Testament, "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; . . . therefore love the stranger!""
(1) The phrase “Love your neighbor as yourself” cannot be meant literally, since man cannot be expected to love his neighbor as himself. Moreover, Rabbi Akiva has ruled that “Your life comes first.” The Torah here enjoins us that we should wish upon our neighbor the same benefits that we wish upon ourselves. Perhaps, this is the reason for the dative instead of the accusative form of the verb phrase; we find the same in “And you shall love him as yourself” (19:34). Indeed, sometimes a person may wish upon his neighbor certain benefits, but only wealth, not wisdom and the like. But even if he wishes his cherished friend well in everything, i.e. wealth, honor, learning, and wisdom, he will not do so unstintingly; he will still insist on a larger share of the benefits. It is this shortcoming that the Torah condemned. Rather, a man should wish his fellow well in everything, just as he does in his own case, and he should place no limitations on his love. Therefore, in the case of Yonatan and David (I Shemuel 20:17), it says that Yonatan “loved him as his own soul,” since he had removed all jealousy from his heart, declaring “And you shall rule over Israel” (ibid. 23:17).
(א) מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁל דִּבְרֵיהֶם לְבַקֵּר חוֹלִים. וּלְנַחֵם אֲבֵלִים. וּלְהוֹצִיא הַמֵּת. וּלְהַכְנִיס הַכַּלָּה. וּלְלַוּוֹת הָאוֹרְחִים. וּלְהִתְעַסֵּק בְּכָל צָרְכֵי הַקְּבוּרָה. לָשֵׂאת עַל הַכָּתֵף. וְלֵילֵךְ לְפָנָיו וְלִסְפֹּד וְלַחְפֹּר וְלִקְבֹּר. וְכֵן לְשַׂמֵּחַ הַכַּלָּה וְהֶחָתָן. וּלְסַעֲדָם בְּכָל צָרְכֵיהֶם. וְאֵלּוּ הֵן גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים שֶׁבְּגוּפוֹ שֶׁאֵין לָהֶם שִׁעוּר. אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁכָּל מִצְוֹת אֵלּוּ מִדִּבְרֵיהֶם הֲרֵי הֵן בִּכְלַל (ויקרא יט יח) "וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ". כָּל הַדְּבָרִים שֶׁאַתָּה רוֹצֶה שֶׁיַּעֲשׂוּ אוֹתָם לְךָ אֲחֵרִים. עֲשֵׂה אַתָּה אוֹתָן לְאָחִיךְ בְּתוֹרָה וּבְמִצְוֹת:
(1) It is a positive commandment to visit the sick, comfort the mourning, to remove the dead, to bring in the bride, to escort guests, and to occupy oneself with all the needs of burial; carrying [the coffin] on one’s shoulder, to walk in front of him, to eulogize, to dig, and to bury. As well to make the bride and groom happy, and to take care of all their needs. And these are ‘Gemillut Chasadim’ that are done with one’s body, that have no measurement. Although all these are rabbinic laws they are included under "Love Your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18), meaning that all things that you would like others to do for you, you should do for your brother.
(ה) ואהבת. עֲשֵׂה דְּבָרָיו מֵאַהֲבָה, אֵינוֹ דוֹמֶה הָעוֹשֶׂה מֵאַהֲבָה לָעוֹשֶׂה מִיִּרְאָה, הָעוֹשֶׂה אֵצֶל רַבּוֹ מִיִּרְאָה, כְּשֶׁהוּא מַטְרִיחַ עָלָיו מַנִּיחוֹ וְהוֹלֵךְ לוֹ (שם):
(5) ואהבת AND THOU SHALT LOVE [THE LORD] — Fulfil His commands out of love, for one who acts out of love is not like him (is on a higher plane than one) who acts out of fear. He who serves his master out of fear, if he (the master) troubles him overmuch, leaves him and goes away (Sifrei Devarim 32:1).
"The Hebrew Bible contains the great command, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18), and this has often been taken as the basis of biblical morality. But it is not: it is only part of it. The Jewish sages noted that on only one occasion does the Hebrew Bible command us to love our neighbour, but in thirty-seven places it commands us to love the stranger. Our neighbour is one we love because he is like ourselves. The stranger is one we are taught to love precisely because he is not like ourselves.”
Before we start the discussion of the psychological aspect of selfishness and self-love, the logical fallacy in the notion that love for others and love for oneself are mutually exclusive should be stressed. If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue—and not a vice—to love myself, since I am a human being too. There is no concept of man in which I myself am not included. A doctrine which proclaims such an exclusion proves itself to be intrinsically contradictory. The idea expressed in the Biblical " Love thy neighbor as thyself !" implies that respect for one's own integrity and uniqueness, love for and understanding of one's own self, cannot be separated from respect and love and understanding for another individual. The love for my own self is inseparably connected with the love for any other being.
The ultimate criterion of justice, as of everything else in human life, is the divine imperative—the law of love .... Justice is the institutionalization of love in society .... This law of love requires that every man be treated as a Thou, a person, an end in himself, never merely as a thing or a means to another's end. When this demand is translated into laws and institutions under the conditions of human life in history, justice arises.
Babylonian Talmud Brachot 6b
1. There is certainly something in the Rambam’s words about which we should awaken ourselves, for he added these words: “God commanded us about loving the stranger just as God commanded us about loving Godself,” specifically with regard to the positive commandment to love converts. Why didn’t the Rambam add these words regarding the commandment to love our fellows? Likewise, how do we understand what he adds next, that “the Holy Blessed One Godself loves the stranger?” Aren’t these words meant to be understood as loving all Jews in general, for certainly the Holy Blessed One loves Israel!
It would seem that an explanation would work as follows: If Reuven hates Shimon, but Reuven does not know that Shimon is a Jew, but rather thinks he is a non-Jew, we would not say in this case that Reuven has inadvertantly committed the sin of hating his fellow Jew. In order to explicate this case, we need to look at the picture from the side of love: that is, if Reuven loves Shimon, and Shimon is in fact a Jew, but Reuven is mistaken and thinks Shimon is not a Jew, would we say that Reuven has fulfilled the commandment of loving his fellow Jew in this case? Of course not. For every love has a reason, and the reason for that love enters into the general commandment of loving one’s fellow.
That is to say, the commandment of loving one’s fellow does not extend to loving a person who happens to be a fellow Jew; rather, it means that we are to love a fellow Jew because they are a fellow Jew—in this way the reason for the mitzvah enters into the general rule of the mitzvah. This suggests that we should understand the mitzvah of “Love your kinsman” to mean: Love your neighbor precisely because they are your kinsman. And immediately we find that if Reuven loves another Jew but does not realize they are Jewish, the reason for his love is not on account of the other’s Jewishness, but rather his love is a general love, without the required reason for this mitzvah. And thus the mitzvah is not fulfilled in this case.
The same is true when it comes to hatred. Our interpretation of the verse, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart,” is that the fact of kinship should prevent you from the feeling of hatred towards him. And similarly, this reason of prevention of hatred enters into the general prohibition, and we thus find that if Reuven mistakes Shimon for a non-Jew, even though in fact Shimon is a Jew, nevertheless Reuven has not transgressed the prohibition of hating a fellow Jew, even unintentionally. For since Reuven lacks the awareness [that kinship exists between them], the essence of the sin is not present in this case, namely: allowing the hatred of a fellow Jew to overcome the restraining function that knowledge of their Jewishness is meant to perform. Thus, anytime this knowledge is missing, there is no basis to label it as a transgression at all, and the absence of knowledge is not a condition for categorizing the transgression as intentional or unintentional [as knowledge often is], since it is rather a condition of the transgression itself.
2. We find in many verses in the Torah that the stranger is grouped with the orphan and the widow as a single category. The common factor between them is they are abandoned and on their own. We can continue this line forward, and say that if our love of the stranger comes from the fact that they are alone and abandoned, such a love does not fulfill the commandment to love the stranger. For as we explicated above, the reason for the love enters into the commandment itself, and the reason for the love of the stranger comes from their raising themselves up and coming under the wings of the divine presence, and not from their status as one who has no relatives to redeem them. And if the required reason for the love is missing, then the mitzvah cannot be fulfilled. This illuminates the words of the Rambam, who specifically added that we are commanded to love the stranger as we love God. In other words, just as the love of God is strictly a pure love, and not because we have compassion for God, so too the love of the stranger is not fulfilled if it is not a pure love.
And when the Rambam further adds that the Holy Blessed One Godself loves the stranger, he means to prove this fundamental point, for this is the language of the verse: “Who does justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger.” See that the stranger is clearly set apart from the orphan and the widow: In the case of the orphan and the widow, the verse says, “God does justice;” but in the case of the stranger, it specifically says, “God loves the stranger.” And if love of the stranger came about only because they are most in need of love, then the verse would not have needed to separate them from the widow and the orphan. This is what the Rambam means by saying that the Holy Blessed One Godself loves the stranger, on account of what we have seen here, that the idea of such love is reserved specifically for the stranger and not the orphan and widow. Thus we learn that love of strangers is a pure love.
3. Let us examine the Rambam’s sefer hamitzvot, negative commandment number 170, where he does not distinguish between the warning to the tribe of Levi not to take spoils in war, and the warning to the kohanim not to do the same. Since the entire tribe of Levi was warned, there is no need to distinguish the warning for the kohanim into a separate mitzvah—the kohanim are already included in the general warning. One of the great scholars of the previous generation was surprised at this: Why, he asked, did the Rambam count love of the stranger as a separate mitzvah from love of kinsmen in general? Isn’t it a similar case, in which converts should be subsumed within the general mitzvah? From what we’ve seen above, we can see that they are indeed two separate mitzvoth, with two different reasons behind them: love of fellow Jews is about the elevated status of Jews; love of converts is on account of their own elevated status, having come under the wings of the divine presence. And since they have different reasons, they are different types of love, and different commandments. Thus it makes perfect sense that the Rambam counted them as two separate mitzvoth.
4. In the Ramban’s commentary on the Torah, it appears that he understands the reason of loving the stranger as the fact that “God is close to the broken-hearted.” And, as is his method, he interprets the end of the verse, “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” But as for the Rambam in his Sefer HaMitzvot (positive commandment 207), who writes [in the Mishneh Torah] explicitly that the reason for the commandment to love the stranger is because the they have come under the wings of the divine presence: We must study much more how he would interpret, according to his thought, the end of the verse, “For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”