Love Your Friend
Love your friend* as yourself
That is the whole Torah**
The rest is commentary
How can that be?
We are commanded to love God too
with all our heart, soul, and might***
So how is just loving your friend
to Almighty God not a slight?
The answer, of course, lies in the verse --
Who is the friend you can count on
Through thick and thin, through bad and worse?
~ Why, that friend is God, foremost and first ****
_______________________________________
*Leviticus 19:18: 'Love your friend as yourself,'
The word ' your friend' (Hebrew, rey-eh'cha) is
often mistranslated into English as 'your neighbor.'
In Biblical and Talmudic Hebrew, 'rey'us' always
refers to friendship. 'Shakhen' is 'neighbor.'
**This is how the Sage Hillel responded to a
fellow who wanted to be taught the whole
Torah while standing on one leg. (See Talmud
Shabbos 31a).
***Deuteronomy 6:5
****See Proverbs 27:10: 'Do not forsake your
friend and your father's friend...' (Your father's
friend is God Himself -- Rashi's Commentary).
|