Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Be Holy and Love Your Neighbor

[Music] okay I everybody Shalom Andes and I hope that all of you had a wonderful liberating PES um I do feel a little short changed because we did not have a class last week uh because it was right after p and that was which happens to be my Mitzvah par so I didn't get a chance to give AA on my bmitzvah par uh now in many many years AOS last week's para and this week's para are connected as one para uh so normally we talk about both of them uh perhaps I will sneak in something from last week's paraa uh towards the end but to be sure I cover the current para I will start with Paras kados first of all Paras kosim is a very interesting para it begins with the exhortation that God says to Moshe speak to B Isel and tell them tell them to be holy well what exactly is that a commandment be holy you know so we'll talk about that but I do have to go back a little bit I forgot to mention our dedications uh tonight's share is dedicated for a sha for n Ben zil and for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and also ouros for the safe return of our brothers and sisters held in captivity I had heard just this within the past week uh one of the hostages had unfortunately passed away and we have to be miss palel that everyone else will come back safely and generally successful mission of the IDF and is and the lasting Unity of the people of Israel as well as for K benzar and Talia blea we are all very grateful for the generous support of Torah and may for the and for all of the families of the people who who contribute to go back to the first verse be holy is that a Mitzvah what does it mean kados you so just in terms of basic just to get some basic information on the table there's a very interesting M Rashi and the ramban what is kosim according to Rashi kosim has a very specific context that actually means G you should be modest and reticence and not break down improper sexual barriers meaning you're holy when you separate yourself from improper sexual relations so according to Rashi kosim Tu is not really adding anything it's simply incorporating all of the sexual restrictions that we read about at the end of par indeed the notion that separation from improper sexual behavior as well as separation from forbidden food makes a person holy is an idea that is repeated in the Torah in many places and let me point out that in the rambam's clarification of in the Mish Torah which is 14 different books of halic topics one of the books is called safer kadus the book of Holiness and in saer kadus are the laws of mos the laws of Kash and the laws ofia forbidden sexual relationship so you see from the rambam's own definition that these are two areas that bring a person to Holiness so holiness is understood as separation from that which people might otherwise do but the Torah imposes on us obligations to be Abus to be holy ramban however offers a very radical different interpretation ramban says the following kados is actually a new Mitzvah the Torah gives us 612 Commandments you see this is the 613th to do the do certain things and not do certain things but the ramban develops the idea that theoretically it is possible for a person to keep all of the Mitzvah of the Torah and still be a disgusting repulsive person this is in the famous phrase of the ramban naval be a disgusting person living with in the letter of the law so kosim says it's not enough to keep all of the mitzvos you must live by the spirit as well as the letter you must develop a Godly character a character of goodness and compassion you need to use the Torah so to speak as your floor not your ceiling it kind of creates your minimum and then try to go beyond it so it's so interesting that the well-known concept of going beyond the law actually is part of the law itself there is a Mitzvah to go beyond the mitv and that is the Mitzvah be a holy person be a kades so according to the ran kosim is not simply a restatement of pre-exist existing laws that we already have but it's a new directive to a Jew to be a holy person it's an interesting thing we sometimes don't think about those implications because the truth of the matter is a Hally obedient je has many many details in life to be concerned about so talk about the proverbial not seeing the forest because you're focusing on the trees we have a lot of trees to look at and that's very important it's the trees it's the detail that make up our relationship to God but sometimes you got to have to step back see the perspective see the overall person that you're supposed to become ask yourself am I moving in the direction of being that person am I moving in the direction of Holiness am I moving the direction of not simply keeping the one by one by one by one as vitally important as that is but do I have an overall orientation of what I am and where I'm going and what my life is about and all of that I think is n in the Ran's directive do not be a do not be a disgusting person who is in technical compliance with all of the laws of the Torah it's a very important message it's a message it's a muser that people who are even very very observant we all need to be very very cognizant to that and of course this intersects with a lot of other things this intersects with desecrating God's name kesem sanctifying God's name making the name of God beloved in the eyes of others that people should look at a Torah Jew and say ah if that's what a religious Jew does then that's a good thing that's a noble thing how often God forbid is it the opposite people look at what a religious Jew does and says Ah if that's what a religious Jew is I want nothing to do with that rosv remarked that making the name of God beloved in the eyes of others was considered to be the most important obligation of Our Generation and as you might expect it's often the most important obligations that we tend to ignore because we like to focus on things that might be a little easier uh as opposed to looking at a big picture it again it is indeed always easier to focus on the detail than to focus on a Gestalt an overall picture so I I understand that and again I uh I'm not speaking rest assured I'm not speaking from any position of superiority I'm basically know giving this type of muser to myself as well that is something that all of us have to have to think about okay so kosim has many many mitzvot but I want to focus on one Mitzvah that's especially appropriate this time of year and that is the famous verse that everybody knows you shall love your friend your neighbor I'll get you the translation as you love yourself that's in the on this the medish comments in the name of RAB AKA you shall love your friend the way you love yourself Torah this is a fundamental principle of the Torah this is normally understood to mean this is the most important in the whole Torah now I want to mention that there's actually three views in the medish like what is the most important principle of the Torah number one is Rab's view love your friend as you love yourself is the most important principle Ben aai quotes another PK which is not even a Mitzvah it's just a statement that this is the book of the creation of man that was made in the image of God Z saer told us so bazai does not choose a Mitzvah as the most important PK he chooses a statement of philosophy or orientation that man is made in the image of God there's a third view I'll get to later but I want to focus on these two views the malbin the great 19th century uh biblical commentator was also a great God in Shen poim offers a very interesting acute and astute explanation of the mlo RAB K and benaz both of them are in agreement that loving other Jews caring about them feeling for them is fundamental they are arguing how do you achieve aat Isel benaz says you achieve aat Isel by philosophical contemplation by looking at another person and recognizing that he or she was made in the image of God as I was and therefore in their soul is a spark of divinity a spark of goodness Radiance as difficult as they might be as cantankerous as they may appear beneath the surface there is goodness beneath the surface there is Holiness because as the T-shirt saying says and t-shirt sayings are almost always true God does not make junk he who is in the image of God must have something good something beautiful and that is their true Essence meaning everything else is covered up with junk but beneath the junk beneath the dirt is beauty so that's beni's point beni's point is the way you come to love another person is by focusing and meditating on the notion that they are made in the image of God and therefore I love them because I try to perceive the Divinity that is within them so we'll call that the philosophical way of coming to aatm rabi yiva maintains that that's not ideal because the problem basically is that philosophy can only take me so far until I actually confront difficult situations meaning I'm sitting in my room I'm meditating I'm contemplating and I realize oh the Jewish soul is so beautiful people are so beautiful people have so much goodness I love humanity and as soon as I walk outside and I see that somebody is parking in my parking space all of a sudden I get upset I get angry I get mad what happened to My Philosophy well philosophy works well in the abstract but not always in the concrete that's the old story they tell uh about a builder uh who was very nice to kids the kids all loved him he gave gave candy to the kids all the time but one day he paved the sidewalk and when the concrete was was uh not uh hardened kids walk through it and they put footprints in the K read so he started getting angry somebody said how can you get angry I thought you were a lover of children he says I love children in the abstract not in the concrete right so philosophy philosophy has its limits so RAB yaka says the way you love people is not by contemplation the way you love people is by virtuous action and here's the malin's point is not a Mitzvah of emotion because if the ter is commanding you to feel love it actually would have said just like it says by God is a preposition that means to love to your friend which means show your friend acts of benevolence and love is a mitvah of action not a Mitzvah of feeling and it is RAB aa's position that through action I come to feeling so the malum says very beautifully that the two opinions RAB AA who emphasizes and Ben who emphasizes philosophical contemplation of man in the image of God are both asserting as an ultimate value but benaz says you get there through philosophy meditation re AA says you get there through action and this of course uh rika's position is a very fundamental idea in Judaism and that is instead of looking at action as the outgrowth of emotion we look at emotion as the outgrowth of action in fact this is very common in marriage counseling people say I don't feel love you know towards my spouse or whatever and sometimes the answer is act as if you did and the action will educate you by acting in certain ways we habituate ourselves to have certain feelings and that's rabiaa point now a little bit of speculation I'm going to go off on very very very thin ice here and I might be totally wrong but I want to mention an interesting thing about benazzi benazzi we're not even given his first name happened to be Shimon but benaz was an extraordinarily learned brilliant person and in M when it discusses the Mitzvah to get married you have to get married right so it mentions benazzi didn't get married because he said what can I do I have such a desire to learn Torah I can't really get married have a family it'll take me away from learning fact when I was in yiva we used to joke about the older Bachelors who were not yet married that they were members of the Ben aai Club you know what can they do my soul desires to learn Torah uh so much now this is benaz now toos brings that actually benazzi did get married but he got divorced and Bazi married RAB aa's daughter RAB yiva had a daughter and they got divorced now these are the facts as tosis presents them I'm now going to offer a speculation and again I should ask bazzi's forgiveness I might be totally totally wrong and that is the following you know the story of reab AA right reab AA was an ignorant Shepherd and he married the daughter of a wealthy wealthy wealthy landowner called saua and the landowner was so a gassed that his daughter married in ignoramus that he disinherited her and she lived in poverty and yet she sent rabaka away to learn Torah for 12 years and after he came back after 12 years he overhears her talking to a neighbor and she says I wouldn't mind if he go for another 12 he didn't even say hello and after 24 years he comes back as the greatest Sage of Israel so you're a benazzi person you love to learn you want to learn y domestic life is going to take you away from some of that being a parent but you got to get married it's a Mitzvah so what do you look for in a wife you say you know rea's daughter is kind of Ideal here she had a mother who let her husband go away for 24 years and learn that's type of wife I could manage he didn't know however that you don't always have like mother like daughter when daughter saw what mother went through she wasn't going to live that way again I'm just guessing here but it could very well be that that is why there was a divorce benazzi thought he was getting rabi aka's wife when in fact revi aa's daughter was not rev aa's wife she she was certainly a righteous woman but she could not live that particular life fact it's often it's often the case this way yeah children of rabinal families often are not not willing to live in the particular lifestyle or Milo of their of their parents for various for various reasons so it turns out that you see in benazzi itself kind of the limitations of the philosophical approach that Beni philosophically understood aat Isel but to translated in practicalities would have been difficult because of his overall commitment to learning you see so that's Theus the Mal says between Ben and RAB do you come to by meditation and philosophical thoughts contemplation regarding the image of God or do you kind of act and then feel feelings come from actions more than they come from thoughts interesting M the truth of the matter is I wouldn't automatically call this an either or the truth is both perspective Ives are Ms but reab AA says you got to start with virtuous action it is the action that gives rise to the emotion okay now let's go further with this rabaka uses the phrase love your friend K like yourself that's the p and he says CL tah this is an important cloud in Torah so theam cyer says very very beautifully that RAB AKA is making an autobiographical statement it is the love that you have for another person that will bring them to Greatness in Torah learning and rebi keep was saying look at me I was an ignorant person I did not think I would ever amount to anything and here my wife believed in me she saw in me abilities that I didn't see in myself she encouraged me she sacrificed for me she gave up for me she lived in poverty in order to help me it was the love that she had for me that was the cloud GLE that was the great great principle that brought me to Torah learning so theer says it's not just a generic general statement of the importance of AAS is RAB AA is referring specifically to how it impacted on his own life now let me just mention as an aside I had mentioned there's a third view in the med which is really not that relevant to our discussion but I'll mention it and actually it's not in the medis as we have it but in the hak toov it is brought so apparently there was a loss medish in which there's a third opinion that says this is pretty strange that the most important PK in the Torah is the PK that talks about the daily offering that you have to bring one lamb in the morning and one lamb in the afternoon that's the most important one now that's a hard one to understand we understand RAB aan benazzi AAS is Unity Community all of that is great but the corbon is a Mitzvah but you know why is it more important than or or chabas why would that be the most important idea so here the Bali mus say that one of the lessons of the Corban tamid is consistency Corban tamid literally means every day every single day you bring bring something in the morning something in the afternoon every day means every day shabas yum Kipper in addition to all the Y Kipper service the carbon T it is always there there's never a day where you don't have the two to meet them and the lesson here is to serve God unconditionally in a consistent way that is not a function of your moods or your inspiration right many people most of us maybe there are times we're inspired and we serve god with great enthusiasm and then there are off days where we don't feel like doing it the lesson of the corbon toid is stay the course be consistent keep on going you're not always going to be inspired you're not always going to feel elevated but keep on doing it don't look at mitzvos as expressions of whatever your particular spiritual mood is at a particular time so that's really a separate point we're not going to really talk about that but that's something to to ponder as well now there are a few uh issues here we know that we're in the period called the counting of the OM and the counting of the OM is the connection between pesak the holiday of freedom Shu out the holiday of Torah there is no freedom without Torah and actually we'll talk about that more next week in which the Mitzvah of the Omar appears intrinsically this should be a happy period meaning there's nothing intrinsic to this period that should be connected to sadness we're looking forward to Matan Tor it's very important here because people automatically associate the counting of the Omare with sadness and mourning intrinsically the opposite is the case these are days of joy and days of Celebration we're looking forward to the Torah and yet we know that at a much later period in history during these days and there different Customs exactly which days but during these days we do have certain expressions of sadness we don't make weddings again not not the whole om period but segments of the OM period we don't get haircuts or shave we don't listen to music again I'm not I'm not here to pin you know is it live music is only record is it only live music or even recorded music are there y exceptions whatever I'm not going to get into detail but as a general rule there are aous restrictions haircuts weddings music and the like why are there aess restrictions so the gim say that based on gamar and yamas I had mentioned reab AA came back after 24 years and when he first went he was an ignorant person he was learning with the first graders he came back the greatest Sage of Israel he came back with 24,000 students can you imagine 24,000 students the largest Yesa in the world which is either Lakewood or Mir here in ER Rael has between 7,000 and 8,000 students that's the largest is in the world 24,000 students how did you manage without a microphone without a sound system and the like and it mentions he comes back with 24,000 students and his wife who was living in poverty and rags comes out to greet him and the students think she is a crazy beggar woman and they try to block her and RAB AKA says sh all that I am and all that you are Shahi belongs to her and then there's an interesting second part of the story kalba saua who was RAB aka's father-in-law didn't realize this great Rabbi was RAB AKA so he had made a vow that his daughter could not have any property of his he disinherited her but he finally after 24 years he finally regrets what he put her through maybe because he saw that she was being treated disrespectfully by the crowd so you know when you make a vow you can go to either a bon who can anull The Vow or you could even go to a single great Rabbi although today we don't go with a single great Rabbi but there is theoretically a single great Rabbi and the way you match Reeder is you identify a mistake that you made that had you known something you wouldn't have made the vow so he goes to RAB AA and said many years ago I made a vow that I would give no property none of my wealth to my daughter but I now regret making the vout so RAB yaka asked him if you would have known that your son-in-law would become learned would you have made the vow he said learn it if I would have known he would be able to read I wouldn't have made the vow so R AA said The Vow is M The Vow is is anal and then he he revealed himself and and the light so just looking at it from Rael Rael is rea's wife looking at it from Ra's perspective all the years of suffering all the years of deprivation all the years of loneliness she now sees how beautiful it was it was worth it look at what was accomplished Imagine The Joy that's in her heart now kazal say that the 24,000 students of reab AA all all died not necessarily that year but within the span of a few years they all died between pesak and 24,000 students of RAB AKA died between PES and the gamorra itself says they died because of a plague some historians suggest this was a euphemism they died because of their participation in Bara revolt and they were killed because of their political and Military activism and I know that for some reason for some reason uh people are very sensitive to this as a heretical thought it is not a heretical thought it is it is said by certain sparm as well such as rhenen and the fact that kazal say it's a plague is not a Rya against this idea because kazal spoke about the bar Revolt in very very code terms kind of enigmatic uh hints hints and theik but whatever it is they died 24,000 students so this is in the Gar so the gim say to commemorate the deaths of the 24,000 students of rabaka we observe mourning restrictions during the OM now the gar yamas then says why did they die yeah they died because I mean the immediate cause is either a plague or bar whatever it is but why did Hashem make such a gazer so the gor's answer is they did not show proper kovot for each other they did not show proper respect for each other so they died 24,000 students dying now the thing I just want to mention I'm not sure I'm going to give you a real complete answer to this but just to mention it as a a thinking point for people to ponder is how could it be R taught is the most important principle of the Torah this was his mission statement this was his teaching so how could his students be guilty of not showing proper Cote to each other now one way of analyzing it is well maybe love and respect are not the same thing in other words some actually learned this way that they had so much of a love for each other they didn't observe proper boundaries and proper decorum so someone to say it was precisely they were so familiar with each other they were so lovey-dovey with each other they didn't have proper derit I don't like that shot that much because the truth of the matter is I think there's a very strong relationship between love and respect when you love somebody it's because you see their goodness you see their qualities you have respect for them I don't mean awe in the sense of distance but you see their fundamental goodness in other words AA and kavod are not two different things they're very much connected you can't you can pity a person that you don't respect I'm not sure you can love a person that you don't respect because love comes from seeing the no qualities within them in fact I'll even say even if you say I love my dog you know even that basically means you know I love the Loyalty I love you know the happiness he has in life even then you're identifying qualities of positivity that you see so that leaves us back to square one how could it be that BFA RAB AA who taught the vital importance of that this should be where his students fell short in not having proper COV for each other it's a real real good question it could be what happens sometimes is that if you have such a great great great great great teacher everybody tries to learn from the teacher and they don't bother to explore the connections they could get from each other it's kind of automatic in other words they they were establishing only vertical connections meaning going to the guy up they were not establishing horizontal connections and that itself was a in and in the again I understand I'm not fully answering this question other than pointing it out but I do want to point out the following people sometimes raise the question so you're telling me that for either 49 days or 33 days whatever the men hug him are we are still mourning for the 24,000 students of RAB AA I mean after all haven't we been through I mean to 24,000 students dying is a very bad thing but we've been through worse we've been through Holocaust and Crusades and all sorts of things why are we mourning this particular tragedy and the short answer is that we're not mourning it as a tragedy we're mourning it as a message and that is during this period of time we have to remember that rabaka students died because of the polarization lack of unity lack of AAS lack of cover lack of respect and therefore we have to resolve in our own lives to overcome this you see it's pretty rare that we know the meaning of a tra for example we could tell well why don't we why don't we mourn the Holocaust why don't we you know take a month or take take 49 days in the year and not get married in memory of the shaah because here's the thing the shaah of course was was an awesome tragedy but we don't have prophets we we can't say we can't say why did God allow it to happen we can only speculate Mas came to Deaths of RAB we have a definitive lesson so we're not mourning as mourners we're mourning to internalize a very specific lesson of aat Israel kot and the like and that is one of the main aodot of the Omar period to try to rectify in our own lives the sin of the Tom of Raba which quite grievously is a sin that we experience to this very day every day every day sin was of course the reason why the second B Mikes was destroyed and it is the reason why the third B Mikes has not yet been rebuilt and I don't think it's something that um needs any particular proof or documentation that unfortunately this is very very prevalent within am Israel and it's such an amazing thing because there is so much hatred against us by everybody else we don't need to Foster it within ourselves right we're fighting within ourselves when everybody else I mean again I I I don't want to comment that much on what is going on in the United States in the different campuses uh and and and the like but uh you can see how uh superficially deep is anti-Semitism meaning to say it's uh you know it doesn't take a lot for it to come out even in societies that are free and Democratic and liberal and tolerant a little bit of stress stuff comes out in fact now that uh Columbia University cancelled uh their graduation I'm sure there will be people that oh the Jews and once again they took away our graduation whatever whatever not only did they bring Co in the world you know whatever okay uh right Jews do everything okay um all righty so that that's one thing now I'm going to switch gears a little bit and I want to refer to a famous gor in Mas shabas shabas actually discusses a sage who lived earlier than rabi AKA The Great Sage Hill Hilla was several Generations before reab AA Hilla lived during the second temple Rea lived after this destruction of the temple how do I know H that live during the second well it's obvious but uh the direct proof is in the hagada right the hag talks about the Hillel sandwich he was the inventor of schwarma uh in which uh he would combine the carbon PES the matah and the moror and eat them together so it's very clear from the hag that Hil lived during the second temple period and the Garin chabas has many many stories about his patience about people who tried to make him angry by asking him ridiculous questions while he was washing his hair and he would answer it with patience and and forbearance and everything so there's a famous story about a non-jew who came to hillo and said teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot so he first went to shamai now shamai thought perhaps rightfully so that the non-jewish guy was mocking the T so we chased them away by the way I I need to correct people sometimes look at think about shamai God forbid oh shamai is the Grouch shamai is the mean guy truth is that's absolutely not the case the famous statement in peros you should greet everybody with a pleasant countenance having maab was said by none other than shamai so shamai was God forbid not a grouch that's a a stereotype but shamai felt that this was a mocking question and therefore he said I'm not going to engage with you Hill on the other hand took the position you ask the question I'm going to give you an answer I'll teach you the whole Torah on one foot and that is what is hateful to you my the Sun what is hateful to you what you wouldn't want people to do to you do not do to your friend this is often called the negative Golden Rule the golden rule is you should love your friend as you love yourself do acts of love the negative Golden Rule is don't do to the person what you wouldn't want people to do to you now there are two questions here first of all how is this the whole Torah you know the Torah is comprised of MIT between man and God and between man and other human beings now one might say the notion of not hurting people perhaps picks up the essence of the interpersonal Commandments but that's not the whole Torah it doesn't pick up shabas and kras andin and B the the go said teach me the whole Torah Hill gives him a formula that at best May Express half of the Torah but not the whole Torah that's question one how is it the whole Torah question two is why does H use the negative instead of the positive now I want to point out that Christian theologians actually make make a lot of Point here they want to say ah H I lived around the same time as yoska Jesus of Nazareth and look at the difference between the superior morality of Jesus and the inferior morality of the Pharisee rabbis Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself do love the Pharisee Rabbi says don't hurt people and there's a big difference between loving and just not hurting and they use this as an example that Jesus's morality was Superior to rinic morality now it is true of course that Jesus happened to mention the verse love your neighbor as you love yourself but yashka didn't invent that verse that verse is in the so it raises an interesting point if positive love is a higher level than simply not hurting people then why does hillow emphasize the negative rather than the positive it is a good question obviously it's not a difference between Christian and Jewish morality because positive love is in the Jewish in the in the Torah so why doesn't H use that so these are two questions on that GAR right question number one is how is this the whole Torah it only covers man and man it does not cover question number two is why does Hill use the negative and not the positive higher spiritual level right we normally assume although we will'll explore this that it is a greater level to help a person in positive ways than simply not hurting him meaning the fact that I didn't slap you today is not as Noble a level as my actually helping you today right that person goes to sleep says bashem it was a great day I didn't murder I didn't steal I didn't rape well okay that those are accomplishments to be sure but they're not as great and significant as the accomplish of actually helping people so with respect to the first question why does H use the uh how is this the whole Torah it's only half the question is answered by none other than rashi rashi gives a beautiful beautiful answer when hillo says what is hurtful to you do not do to your friend your friend includes not only other human beings your friend includes God because God is also your friend quite amazing and Rashi quotes auk in Proverbs in Mich in which says alaz do not abandon your friend who is also the friend of your father now this is fascinating because we describe Hashem in many many ways we describe Hashem as a parent AO we describe Hashem as a king we describe Hashem as a lover as a spouse we describe Hashem as a sibling brother and sister relationship all of the human relationships that exist are reflections of the Divine way that Hashem connects to us but now we have a new aspect of the relationship God is our friend by the way um if you remember the ampper ding so uh before the V before you sayu so there's a part that many Comm many Community sing together we are your nation you are people sing it together uh so you'll notice when it talks about uh we are this and you are this we say to Hashem so it actually says uh you are our friend right so it actually mentions Hashem is our friend so the notion of Hashem as a friend you know we sometimes think yeah friends you know what's the big deal you know uh I mean husband and wife are called re beloved friends people think beloved friends I mean that's kind of you know what's the big deal I mean we talk about romance passion you know friendship Is Fundamental you know it doesn't it doesn't get superseded by deeper aspects of the relationship friendship when I'm afraid when I'm lonely when I'm scared when I feel alone Hashem is there for me he is my friend so Rashi says quite beautifully when Hillel says do not do to your friend what you wouldn't want people to do to you that means you wouldn't want people to ignore your desires you wouldn't want people not to pay attention to what you need don't ignore what Hashem says he wants you to do so according to Rashi it's quite beautiful do not do to your friend what you wouldn't want people to do to you covers not only the BAM but between man and man it also covers the BAM it's a beautiful beautiful answer that Rashi gives but that does leave us with the second question why does Hillel use the negative don't hurt do not do things that hurt your friend as opposed to the positive give your friend pleasure and joy and love because after all if the positive is higher than the negative he should have said that so there are a few different answers that are given to this question I want to share with you two answers both of which are given by re in the name of re cant he says the following you know of course I'm adding a little bit to it you know in the hypocritic oath so they say the physician's first responsibility is Do no harm before before you start help trying to help a person be sure that you're not harming them by trying to help them now this is true in medicine but it's also true in spiritual life sometimes when we try to shower a person with love we're not really looking at them as to what they need and who they are we're simp simply using them as vehicles for our mitzvos our let me give you a a a simple example maybe a superficial example you know when people are sick I don't mean major sickness but a person that say has the flu or they just have to be in bed for a few days so people have different illness coping Styles some people want to be surrounded with family and friends bringing them chicken soup and sitting with them and talking to them and spending time with them other people just want to be alone and not be bothered for 24 hours just I don't want to talk to anybody so let's imagine you're the type of person who you just want to sleep the day away because you're you're you're tired you're not well you don't want to be bothered at 6:30 in the morning the doorbell rings and you have your beautiful balat neighbor who comes with a hot pot of chicken soup and she said you know I got up at 3:00 in the morning to make this delicious chicken soup from scratch I'd like you to have a bowl well I'm not sure if people like to eat chicken soup in the morning anyway but okay now on one hand she's doing a but she's doing a without understanding what you need and in the and let's assume you say well thank you for very much but I need to sleep she says but I spent 3 hours making the soup how can you not take it so what's going on you're using this person as a vehicle for you to get Alla you know this is an awful joke but whatever I'll tell you the this joke it really it really is an awful joke but forgive me but but it is funny at the same time uh there was a guy in Yeshiva who had heard that if you marry a bitter contener woman your life will be such hell that you'll go straight TOA so he was determined he wanted to marry like the worst woman who ever lived because that way you know he'll he'll you know he'll survive it straight to so it took him a long time like he turned down every good he finally found like a mean-spirited cruel woman they get married and all of a sudden there's an overnight change breakfast and bed and nice and she's totally never loses her temper and kind and generous beautiful beautiful in every way and he's not that happy so he say to her he says you know I I really appreciate your mid toos but I really married you on the opposite assumption so she said if you think you're going to go to habah because of me you got another thing coming meaning that was part part of her meaness was not even to give him not even to give him that so so the point basically is that sometimes we do paradoxically because it makes us feel good we're not really doing it to help the other person so Hill is giving the person Insight before you start helping people be sure you're not trampling on their dignity on their self respect Do no harm understand who they are step back see their needs see their personality and only when you've determined that your is not going to be hurting them do you then graduate to show love okay it's a very important idea know the person don't just look at them as an object I once saw an advertisement for it Stucker that said something and again it was well-intentioned it did rub me the wrong way it says when you give stuer to a poor person you must look at that person like a par of Fillin Like A lul Love Like An esrog you're doing a Mitzvah through your help for them and therefore you know take it seriously but you know I think there's something a little offensive to look at another human being as an object you're not seeing them as a person you're not seeing them they're just like a means they're like an inanimate object for you to get brownie points in and that is he L's Insight before you start loving don't do to people what you wouldn't want people to do to you I wouldn't want to be treated like a thing I wouldn't want to be treated like an object I wouldn't want to be treated like someone who really doesn't matter except as a vehicle for someone else is then when you treat other people behave the same way okay you see the idea that's why the negative is so important here that's answer number one answer number two which again I think is said in the name of revi salant is that it's maybe not so obvious the question assumes that the positive is higher than the negative maybe not when I do to you I show you love so there's a certain component of ego that's in it meaning you know I you know I'm recognized as a nice person as a kind person as a wonderful person I get a certain ego gratification but when I control my self from doing something bad it may not even be noticed so so for example let's assume that somebody behaves in a very very negative way and I don't respond in kind I'm not necessarily going to be appreciated for that because the other person might not even notice it's not a type of activity because it's inactivity that's going to get your recognition so in fact sometimes doing no harm is actually harder than doing good doing good plays into your ego doing no harm requires AB um abnation of the ego submerging the ego okay not letting it assert itself okay so these are different reasons why Hillel uses the negative although the Ty itself ultimately talks about the idea of the positive so these are some things to think about in the in the counting of the uh of the OM um I have more to say about this but I'll I'll leave it for next week next week is paror is actually the paral that contains the Mitzvah of counting of the OM so we'll have another another talk about that I want to wish everybody a AES Tove you know it's brought down in many many that the month of eor is an abbreviation for the p hasem y Hashem Ro I am God who brings you healing this is in the Torah after the splitting of the Red Sea so the month of is as a month of blessing for health and that means physical as well as spiritual so we very much hope that in this month of VOR all of those in need of Ruan particularly the as I said the beginning the hostages and the like uh they should be liberated and in good and good health and there should be a stepping stone towards the G that we should see [Music] it