Am Yisrael, Ahavat Yisrael: Loving Our fellow Jews even when we disagree

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Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah, Volume 2

"From the perspective of Jewish ethics, there are few (if any) graver crimes than violating the dignity of another human being. “In hurting another person I am not just running afoul of the will of God—though I am also surely doing that. At some level, I am also assaulting God, who, Jewish theology insists, is profoundly invested in the dignity of God’s creatures.” Conversely, as R. Abraham Paley (twentieth century) teaches, “being careful with and attentive to the honor of your fellow is the acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven.”

The time between Tisha B'Av and Yom Kippur, this great seven-week time of turning, is the time between the destruction of Jerusalem -- the crumbling of the walls of the Great Temple -- and our own moral and spiritual reconstruction....The walls come down and suddenly we can see, suddenly we recognize the nature of our estrangement from God, and this recognition is the beginning of our reconciliation.

Rabbi Shai Held, Judaism is About Love: Recovering the Heart of the Jewish Life, p. 27-28.

God’s love for Israel is a function of divine grace rather than human merit. In other words, Israel does not earn God’s love; it receives it as a gift from God.... The Jewish people are called upon not to earn God’s love but to live up to it.

To be sure, divine love comes with expectations, and love does not preclude disappointment. The fact that God loves us no matter what does not mean that God is indifferent to the decisions we make and the paths we take. (I have often wondered whether the Bible would be more aptly named The Book of Divine Disappointment.) On the contrary, as any parent can understand, because God loves us so deeply, the choices we make matter profoundly. But even when we fail, God does not stop loving us. Many of us struggle with ambivalence and uncertainty about ourselves, about our worth and lovability. God doesn’t share our ambivalence; God loves us more than we love ourselves.... God’s love is a gift, but it is also an invitation. God loves in the hopes that we ourselves will become lovers too. We are called to love God, but also to love one another—the neighbor, the stranger, and, at moments at least, all of humanity and creation. We are created with love, for love.

Brotherly love and harmony begin with the "great axiom of the Torah," namely, "Love your neighbor as yourself." As my father-in-law, the (previous) Rebbe would say: Love of a fellow Jew should even extend to a Jew on the other side of the world - even to someone you have never seen.

And when you have an opportunity to do a favor — materially or spiritually — for this Jew, you should do it freely and with a joyful heart.… When there is harmony amongst Jews (in addition to the harmony of a Jewish home — and preceding that, a Jew’s inward harmony — between his two inclinations), then there is peace and harmony in the entire world — especially, "peace in the land" — the Land of Israel.

Tzemach Tzedek (1789-1866)

תָּמִ֣ים תִּֽהְיֶ֔ה עִ֖ם יהוה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃

"You must be wholehearted with your Adonai your God" - Deuteronomy 18:13

Prayer is considered to be an offering before G-d - an offering of the soul. In the days of the Holy Temple, an animal offered for sacrifice had to be perfect and without defect; in the same way, when a Jew prays, he must also be whole of limb and without blemish. As all Jews are metaphorically part of the same body, if a person rejects his fellow Jew for whatever reason, it is his own self that becomes crippled. Therefore, it is customary to make the verbal declaration before praying: "I hereby accept upon myself the positive commandment of 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

There is a chasidic custom to offer these words every morning before prayer:

Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk struggled with this verse, wondering why it was written al levavekha, “on your heart”: instead of "in your heart." Don't words of Torah need to penetrate into the heart, rather than remain on the surface of it? He goes on to conclude "the intention of the verse is that at the very least, the words should be upon your hearts. Because for the majority, the heart is closed. Yet, there is no person whose heart is never open. And then, the words can fall, truly, into the heart. And it is regarding this that we pray, “open my heart with Your Torah” (petah libi betoratekha); God will open our hearts with the Torah." - Sefer Amud Ha’emet, on Deut. 6:6

The Rabbis distinguish between two types of love that God offers us: abounding love and abiding love. What are the differences between them?

Our tradition considers both important. In fact, in the blessing immediately preceding the Shema in the morning, we offer gratitude for God's abounding love (ahavah rabbah), and in the blessing before the Shema in the evening, we offer gratitude for God's everlasting love (ahavat olam).

Rabbi Zakok HaKohen of Lublin, a Hassidic Master, explains that there is a reason ahavah rabbah (abounding love) is said in the morning. Morning is a time filled with possibility. There is also a reason that Ahavat Olam (abiding love) is said in the eveing. As Rabbi Zadok explains, “When the light of the day shines forth and enters the hearts of the Children of Israel, their hearts become enflamed with abounding love for God. Because God’s love is parallel to Israel’s love, we say, ‘You have loved us with abounding love.’” Evening, in contrast, is a time of anxiety and apprehension. In the evening, consequently, we speak of “everlasting love,” the kind of love that remains “indestructible even during the night and the darkness of troubles.” - as quoted in Shai Held's Judaism is All About Love, p.96.

In his book Judaism is All About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life, (p.96-97) Rabbi Shai Held expands upon Rabbi Zadok's teaching:

"The logic of R. Zadok’s argument about the mutual love between God and the Jewish people is equally applicable to the love between human partners. R. Zadok maintains that covenantal love must be both abundant and abiding. It must have its share of “mornings”—that is, times of great passion and feeling—but it must also be durable enough to endure “evenings”—that is, times of crisis or weakened ardor—because every life and every relationship faces its share of evenings.... I am not sure love can be truly “everlasting” if it does not have moments, at least, of being “abounding.” But no love is “abounding” at all times; the emotional intensity of love, like all emotional intensity, inevitably ebbs and flows. Covenantal love remains steady even when passion has temporarily subsided, either because of life circumstances or because of the natural—and inescapable—rhythms of emotional life. It is this covenantal love that R. Zadok has in mind when he writes that “in reality, love is required whether one is in a good mood or a troubled one.” Covenantal love is above all a commitment and an orientation. It includes passion and emotion but is not limited to them. We can and must love one another regardless of what kind of love we happen to feel at any particular moment, regardless even of whether we feel any kind of love at all at that particular moment."

How can we love someone without feeling love for them at that particular moment?

Rabbi Shai Held Judaism is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life , p. 11-12

Is love an emotion or an action? And how do we go about placing it at the very center of our lives? The kind of love Judaism speaks about is not an emotion or an action; it’s an emotion and an action. It’s an existential posture, a life orientation, a way of holding ourselves in the world; it’s a way of life. Love is not (only) an emotion, since love, to be coherently considered love, persists over time in a way that many ordinary emotions do not. For comparison, we can say, “I was angry at you for five minutes,” but we can’t really say, “I loved you for five minutes.” So although love obviously has emotional dimensions, I’m not sure it makes sense to define it as an emotion. It’s more accurate to understand love as a disposition....

Rabbi Aharon Kotler (1892–1962)

“The whole purpose of creation is love (hesed), and a person is obligated to conduct themselves accordingly.”