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In the second parsha of this week’s double Torah portion (Acharei-Kedoshim), there’s a verse (Lev: 19:18) that tells every Jew to love every other Jew. The verse reads, “Love your neighbor like yourself.” “Okay,” you say to yourself, “I’ll do the best I can.”
As a matter of fact, that’s why we have the oral Torah, to enable us to put the written Torah into practice. And the oral Torah brings a couple of rabbis who elaborate: Rabbi Akiva (in Torat Cohanim) says, “This command (‘Love your neighbor like yourself’) is an important general principle in the Torah.” Several generations before Rabbi Akiva, another rabbi (Hillel, in tractate Shabbat 31A), said, “This is the entire Torah – the rest is commentary.” The difference between them is obvious. Rabbi Akiva doesn’t say that the command to love your fellow Jew is equivalent to the entire Torah – he only wants to establish it as a general principle that includes many details (such as not to steal, not to gossip, not to bear false witness, etc). Hillel, on the other hand, says that the command to love a fellow Jew corresponds to the whole Torah; it contains the message of the entire Torah, and the remainder is only explanation (not details).
Both Hillel and Rebbe Akiva were huge rabbis, who provided the very foundations of the oral Torah. Whatever either of them said was truly the words and intentions of the One above, so the statements of each of them are true and have their own rightful place in the Torah. If so, then what did Rabbi Akiva add by saying that love of a fellow Jew is a major principle – Hillel already several generations earlier had said that it is equivalent to the entire Torah – and what more is there to add by saying that it’s an important general principle?
Another statement of Hillel will help us to understand. In Ethics of the Fathers (Avot 1:12), Hillel says, “Be like the students of Aharon; love peace and pursue peace, love all creatures, and draw them closer to Torah.” You could ask; what’s the connection between loving all creatures and drawing them closer to Torah? In loving all creatures, it’s natural to seek their good and their welfare in all matters, whether physical or spiritual. If so why does Hillel go out of his way to single out the spiritual side - bringing all creatures to Torah?
One explanation is that in demonstrating love and care for another creature – specifically in our case, another Jew – it’s important not to compromise the Torah. You cannot go to another Jew and try to make a good impression upon him by telling him that he doesn’t “really have to do all 613 mitzvot,” or “you don’t have to really be that strict in that mitzvah,” or similar things. You have to bring the person to the Torah, not the other way around. You have to show him how the Torah is truth and light, not compromise the Torah by trying to bring it to him. Therefore, you must “love all creatures, and draw them to the Torah,” and not the opposite. However, this explanation assumes that drawing another Jew to Torah is only a side point. It implies that the main thing is to love people, and then afterward to draw them to Torah. But, when you look closely at the statement of Hillel, you see that the Torah is not an incidental point. It is the goal; first love all creatures, in order to ultimately “draw them closer to Torah.”
Moreover, it is explained in Tanya (ch. 32), that all Jews are one in their soul-root, that all Jews have one Father in heaven. Therefore, all Jews must feel and demonstrate unqualified love for all other Jews, since we are all spiritual brothers and sisters in our soul-roots. And if so, why does Hillel stipulate that in loving all creatures (specifically Jews, in our case), we should draw them to Torah? If we truly love, unconditionally, why try to draw another Jew closer to Torah? Love him as he is…
Which brings us to another question: what’s higher, the Torah or the Jews? On one hand, “the thought of [creating the] Jews preceding everything” (Breishit Rabba 1:14), implying that the Jews are higher than the Torah. On the other hand, “Yisrael is united with the Torah, and the Torah is united with G-d” (Zohar, Pt 3, 73A), implying that the Torah is higher. The explanation is that in our spiritual soul-root, the Jewish soul is higher than anything else, even than the Torah. But as the soul descends into the body, we no longer experience our direct connection with G-d, and we need the Torah to re-connect us with our spiritual essence. So, in regard to the soul in the body, the Torah is higher.
When it comes to loving another Jew, we have to love him for what he is in his spiritual source – a spark of the One above. However, since we are souls in physical bodies, we have to apply the rules and instructions of the Torah. Down here in the physical world, it is the Torah that connects us with the essence of our souls in the infinite light of G-d above. While the body has a tendency to drift off the path and succumb to physical temptation, every Jew wants to return to his spiritual source, and it is the Torah that brings him back. Therefore, it is precisely because of essential brotherly love that we wish to do what Aharon said – to “love all creatures” - including fellow Jews - and “draw them to Torah.” If you love someone, you do what is best for him, and Jewish spiritual health lies with the Torah. That’s why no Jew can feel complete when another Jew is still far from the path of Torah. Your essential love for him demands that you see to his spiritual health as well as your own, and that comes from the Torah.
Now we can understand the two statements of Hillel and Rebbe Akiva. Hillel, saying that “ahavat Yisrael” – love of a fellow Jew – is the entire Torah, was referring to the soul as it exists above, in essence, higher than all of creation, higher even than the Torah itself. On this level, the Torah exists for the Jewish people, to bring out the essence of their soul, and this is why Hillel said that love of a fellow Jew is the entire Torah.
Rebbe Akiva, though, was referring to the Jewish soul as it comes down into a physical body. On that level, the soul has to operate according to the instructions of the Torah, and even the love that one Jew has to express for another, has to be according to the Torah. On this level, Rebbe Akiva couldn’t say that love for a fellow Jew is “the entire Torah,” because that would imply that one could bend the rules of the Torah in order to express love for another Jew. In order to ensure that we bring the Jew to the Torah, and not the other way around, Rebbe Akiva said that love of a fellow Jew is a “main principle” of the Torah, but not the entire Torah. By saying that it’s a general principle, he emphasized that it’s part of the Torah, and therefore it is subject to the rules and teachings of the Torah itself. And therefore, together with unconditional love and help for fellow Jews, we have to also connect them with the Torah, because that’s what connects every Jew with his spiritual source in the essence of the One above.
Adopted from Likutei Sichot of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ztz’l, Vol. 17, pp 215-224
Rabbi David Sterne, Jerusalem Connection in the Old City of Jerusalem