If I Were Jewish
4 min read
This week’s Torah portion contains the famous mandate to “love your fellow as you love yourself” (19:18). In fact, when Hillel was asked to explain the Torah on one foot, he said this is the foundation of the Torah. “What is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the primary principle of the Torah. The rest is commentary. Go learn.”
It seems obvious that if we want someone to be kind to us, we should be kind to them. This only seems fair, right? But when we examine the words of the Torah carefully, we must take note that it doesn’t say to treat someone like we would want to be treated – rather to love someone like we love ourselves. What is the deeper meaning of this?
Lesson:
We often think, “of course I love myself!” but when we really think about it, we often love certain parts of our self. And maybe certain parts of our self we don’t love so much. And that is perfectly rational as we are all works in progress.
But loving ourselves – all parts of our self – is a prerequisite to loving someone else. If I only love those parts of myself that can be neatly presented and tied with a pretty little bow, then how can I possibly love someone else for their inadequacies? But how do we identify those parts of ourselves that we don’t love so much and then learn to truly love ourselves for those parts too?
God made a special way for us to identify those parts of ourselves that maybe we don’t love so much. The very thing that bothers us in other people are usually the very things that we ourselves need to work on. Those around us are our mirrors and if we are triggered by something someone else did, it’s an indication to look inside ourselves in that same area. For example, if someone is perpetually late and it bothers us, we can ask ourselves if there is some aspect of time management within myself that I can work on? This takes some quiet self-reflection and many times we find distractions and other tasks to fill our time. But if we really want to work on fully loving ourselves, this is a key ingredient.
Once we’ve identified a certain area of ourselves that we could improve upon we can ask God to help us, after all we were all created in the image of God – he created us with our seemingly inadequacies! As such, we can acknowledge that God created me with this particular character trait and thus, it is part of my holy mission in life.
When we acknowledge that we have the power to use this particular trait for the positive, and to work on it, then we are already halfway there to transforming it. By looking at this particular part of ourselves, instead of hiding it under deeper layers of ourselves, we are giving even the seemingly ugly parts of our self love and compassion. We are letting that part of us to be seen, to acknowledge it and know that it too was created in the image of God.
Recognizing those parts of myself and accepting them is the first step in seeing that someone else is also a work in progress, and to love them for also being human. Not every part of the rose is beautiful – in fact, some of the rose can even hurt! But that too has purpose and when we are able to see the purpose and beauty first in ourselves, in our mission in life, in our relationship with God, then we are in the right step in being able to see that in other people and fulfill the mandate of truly “loving our fellow like we love our self.”
Exercise: When triggered by someone else, try to go inward and see if there is something within you that can be worked on. Thank G-d for this opportunity for your personal growth instead of focusing on the other person. After offering yourself love and compassion, see if you are able to give it to the other person as well.
