Okay, ready to start? The topic tonight is אהבת ישראל. The מצוה to love your fellow Jew. Now when I mentioned to somebody that the topic is אהבת ישראל, they said, well, they think that we did it once. Well, first of all, I don't remember exactly if we did or we didn't. Second of all, even if we did, it doesn't matter, we could do it again. It's one of those things that it's never enough. The more we talk about it, the better it is. It's a very important מצוה and therefore, even if we know some of the details or all the details surrounding the מצוה of אהבת ישראל, it is still important to review it. Just like it says, before every holiday we should review the הלכות of the holiday. For ראש השנה, we always learn the הלכות of ראש השנה. We learned it last year, we learn it again. Before פסח, we learn the הלכות of פסח. It says some people used to learn the הלכות of טהרת המשפחה every month, because every month it comes back again. So certainly it doesn't hurt if we learn the הלכות, anyway this is not הלכות, but talk about the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. Now, the מצוה is all based on the פסוק where it says, ואהבת לרעך כמוך, which means you shall love your friend like yourself. And this is a commandment in the תורה. Since it's a commandment in the תורה, it is a מצוה for us to keep, to do the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. It actually reminds us of a similar מצוה which also starts with the words ואהבת. And we say that a few times a day in the שמע, ואהבת את ה׳ אלקיך, you shall love ה׳ your G-d, and we use the same term, ואהבת. And here it says, ואהבת לרעך כמוך. And actually it is known that some of the ספרים say that the מצוה of ואהבת לרעך כמוך, the מצוה of loving your fellow Jew like yourself, is a stepping stone or a vessel to be able to fulfill the מצוה of ואהבת את ה׳ אלקיך, you shall love ה׳ your G-d. It is through אהבת ישראל, through loving your fellow Jew, that we are able to fulfill, to do the מצוה of ואהבת את ה׳ אלקיך. Now I'll explain a little bit later why and how. This is a very, very important מצוה, as we see it from the famous statement that רבי עקיבא said on the פסוק, ואהבת לרעך כמוך, you shall love your friend, meaning your fellow Jew, like yourself. The גמרא tells us, and רש״י brings it down in חומש, אמר רבי עקיבא, רבי עקיבא said, זו כלל גדול בתורה, this is a big rule in the תורה. That means that there are certain מצות which are not considered rules of the תורה. They're not rules, they are individual מצות. And when we talk about a rule, a rule is something that includes many, many details. If it's a one individual thing, you don't call it a rule. A rule is one thing that contains and includes many details. So there are some מצות which are just individual מצות. It's just a מצוה, the one מצוה that it is. Then there are certain מצות which are considered a כלל, which means a rule, a מצוה that includes in it more than one thing. And then there are מצות which are called כלל גדול, not just plain a כלל, a rule, but a כלל גדול, a big rule, which means that includes many, many details, and they're all included in this one מצוה. And since concerning אהבת ישראל, רבי עקיבא says that כלל גדול בתורה, it's a big rule of the תורה, obviously this is a מצוה that includes many, many things, many, many parts of the תורה. There is even a stronger expression. We know the famous story in the גמרא with the גר, the גוי actually, who came to wanted to convert. At first he came to שמאי, and he says to שמאי, 'I'm ready to convert on one condition, that you teach me the whole תורה as long as it takes to stand on one foot.' What did שמאי do? דחפו באמת הבנין, he threw him out. He said, 'How can I do that? Impossible.' So what he did was he went to הלל. When he came to הלל, and he said to הלל, 'I want to convert on condition that you will teach me the whole תורה as we stand on one foot.' So הלל said, 'Fine! I agree.' So he converted him, and when he came to teach him the whole תורה, so he said to him these words, 'מה דעלך סני לח-' לחברך לא תעביד. זהו כל התורה כולה. What you don't like for yourself, don't do to somebody else. This is the whole תורה. See, this is the whole תורה. ואידך and the rest, פירושא, and the rest is just commentary. So the whole תורה is don't do unto somebody else what you don't want to be done to you, which is basically the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. The difference is, it's said in a negative term rather than in a positive term. The positive term is love your fellow Jew, and in a negative way is don't do anything to your fellow Jew that you don't want to be done to you. But the idea is the same. So here we find a statement of הלל, which is even a stronger statement than רבי עקיבא. רבי עקיבא said this is a כלל גדול, a big rule of the תורה. He did not say this is the whole תורה, while הלל actually said זהו כל התורה כולה, this is the whole תורה. So here we see the importance of the מצוה of אהבת ישראל, that the מצוה of loving your fellow Jew is the basis of the whole תורה.

Now, the question is, why would this מצוה be the basis of the whole תורה? We can understand why this is the basis of some מצות. There are many מצות that are based on אהבת ישראל, like the מצוה of helping another Jew, the מצוה of lending another Jew money, the מצוה of giving צדקה, the מצוה of הכנסת אורחים, the מצוה of all the דינים that go along with not stealing and not hurting somebody. They're all connected to אהבת ישראל. So we can understand how some מצות are derived or are details of this one great, general מצוה of loving your fellow Jew. But how can we say this is the whole תורה? Why is it the whole תורה? Why is the מצוה of פסח connected to אהבת ישראל? Why is the מצוה of שבת connected to אהבת ישראל? Many מצות that we find that we don't see the connection to אהבת ישראל. So how did רבי עקיבא, and certainly the way הלל put it, how did they say that this is, includes the whole תורה? Obviously, there is something special about the מצוה of אהבת ישראל, which is the basis of the whole תורה. And then we find more places where we see the importance of אהבת ישראל, and also it being a basis of the whole תורה. And one of the places is, it says that השם would not have given the Jews the תורה at הר סיני if there wouldn't have been a preparation of אהבת ישראל. It says, ויחן שם ישראל נגד ההר. It says that the אידן rested in front of the mountain. This was when they came to the mountain on the day of ראש חודש סיון, which was six days before השם gave them the תורה. So the פסוק says, he, the nation, rested in front of the mountain. And our sages ask, if it's the nation, it should have said they rested, not he. Why does it say singular? And the answer is that they at that point were such, had such אחדות, such unity, they had such great אהבת ישראל that that was the reason they were able to receive the תורה in a few days. And had they not had this אהבת ישראל, had they not had this unity and love for each other at that time, השם would not have given the תורה. So here again we see that this is not just a very important concept, but this is the foundation of the תורה. If not for this, השם would never have given us the תורה. We find later on also that when it came to build the משכן, השם told them, build a sanctuary for Me. And משה רבינו came down from heaven to give over to the Jews the commandment of השם that He wants a מקדש or a משכן built for Him. So it says, before he spoke to them and conveyed to them השם's commandment, it says, ויקהל משה. משה gathered all the Jews together, and then he told them, you should know this is what השם said, זה הדבר אשר צוה ה', this is what השם said, He told us to make a משכן. And all the commentaries say that in order for them to be able to build a משכן, first you had to have ויקהל משה, all the אידן, all the Jews had to be gathered together. And it doesn't just mean gathered together in one place. They had to be gathered together as one. They had to have the proper אהבת ישראל before they were able to fulfill the מצוה of building a משכן. Now, building a משכן means making a dwelling place for God. So here we see that in order to make a dwelling place for God, you have to have אהבת ישראל first. This shows how important אהבת ישראל is. We know that the destruction of the בית המקדש, the destruction of the בית המקדש, which is one of the worst things that happened to the Jewish nation, was because of the lack of אהבת ישראל, because they had שנאת חנם, they didn't like each other, and therefore the בית המקדש was destroyed. And therefore it says in many places that the בית המקדש will be rebuilt If we have אהבת ישראל. And therefore this shows again how אהבת ישראל is so important.

We know that our custom is, as the custom in our נוסח, נוסח האר״י, but the truth is many other people also have the custom, not all נוסחאות, it's all taken from the האר״י ז״ל. He writes, נכון לומר קודם התפלה, it is proper to say before you start דאווענען these words: הריני מקבל עלי מצות עשה של ואהבת לרעך כמוך. I accept upon myself to fulfill the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And we say that before we start דאווענען, before מה טובו. If you look in the סידור, ליובאוויטשער סידור, you'll see that before מה טובו it says נכון לומר קודם התפלה, it's proper to say before דאווענען, I accept upon myself to fulfill the מצוה of ואהבת לרעך כמוך. So this is an introduction to תפלה. So again it shows that we cannot start דאווענען unless we take upon ourselves the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And the truth is, whether we take upon ourselves or not, we're commanded to do it anyway. And if a person doesn't take upon himself, he doesn't have to do it? But what it means is, we have to strengthen it. When you take upon yourself something that you have to do anyway, every time you renew your commitment, it gives you more courage and more strength. So what we do before דאווענען is we take, we commit ourselves again to the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And that's the only way we could start דאווענען in the morning. Now there is a very simple reason for this too, other than what I'm going to explain later on. There is a simple reason, there is a story told that the פריערדיקער רבי, the previous רבי once said, that the day of his בר מצוה his father said to him, ask me something. Now is your chance. Ask me a question that's bothering you and I'll answer you. And he told him that when he became בר מצוה, his father, the פריערדיקער רבי's father was the רבי רש״ב, the fifth ליובאוויטשער רבי, he said when he became בר מצוה his father had asked him, ask me something. The רבי מהר״ש asked him. And the רבי מהר״ש said that when I became בר מצוה, my father the צמח צדק asked me to ask something, and the צמח צדק when he became בר מצוה, the אלטער רבי said to him, ask me something. Anyway, the פריערדיקער רבי said, what was the question he asked his father? He asked, why is it that before דאווענען we say הריני מקבל עלי מצות עשה של ואהבת לרעך כמוך? Before דאווענען we accept the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. Why at that moment, what's the importance? So the רבי רש״ב gave him a very simple answer. He said that when we go to דאווען and we ask השם to fulfill our wishes, our prayers, the best way to ask השם to fulfill our prayers is if we give Him pleasure. And he gave him an example, a משל. A משל of a father and children. When children come to a father and ask the father to give them whatever they want, if the father sees that all the children live happily together, and there is אחדות, unity among the children, he has the greatest pleasure from the children. And when a father has pleasure from his children, he will give his children whatever he can, whatever they want he'll give them, if he's only able to do. השם, when He sees that we have אחדות, we have unity, then השם gives us whatever He can, and He could give us everything. So therefore in this case, He could give us anything we want. And that's why before we start דאווענען, we say to השם, yes, we are באחדות, we have אהבת ישראל, we accept upon ourselves the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And therefore, please, now when we דאווען to You, please answer our prayers. That's a very simple answer. But the truth is there is more to this than just what it looks, as it looks superficially, to explain what is the meaning behind the מצוה of אהבת ישראל, and why it is so important, and why it is a foundation to אידישקייט, a foundation to מתן תורה, a foundation to the משכן, foundation to תפלה. This is what's going to bring משיח, etc., etc.

So let's explain the מצוה of אהבת ישראל in its deeper explanation, the way it's explained basically in תניא and different places. We know that everything in the world is basically made up of two parts. And the two parts are the חומר and the צורה. חומר is the matter, and the צורה is basically the spirit of it. In other words, we could call it גוף ונפש, body and soul. Everything has a body and a soul. Everything is made up of these, these two parts. Starting from the human being, we all know that we have the physical body, and then we have the soul. We have the life force that makes us alive. And here we, by a human being we could see how one is without the other. We could have a person who has the body, but he's not alive. So there's something missing there. So when he is alive, obviously there is something there in addition to the body, which is the soul. That's the spirit of the body. An animal, להבדיל, also also has the body, the גוף, and the נפש, the soul. Even the plant has a גוף and a נפש. There is the body, the plant itself, and then when the plant grows, obviously there is something there in addition to the body, and that's why when we cut it off, then we don't see any soul there, it stops growing. But when it's connected to the ground, to the tree, it grows, so there is the נפש that's there. The truth is that not only these three, which is the מדבר and the חי and the צומח, the human being and the animal and the plants, but even the דומם, which is the last, the lowest category, these are unmovable objects like rocks, they also have a נפש. The only thing is the נפש is not seen. There is the physical part of it, and then there is the life force that gives it its existence. That is referred to also as a נפש, even though it's a נפש we don't see. In a human being, it's more visible, but in a rock, you can't see it, but we know it's there. The אריז״ל writes that there is a נפש of a person, a נפש החי, a נפש of an animal, a נפש הצומח, the נפש, the life of the plant, and he says there is what he calls the נפש הדוממת, the נפש of the דומם. Because everything has that גוף and that life force. So by some things, it's a life force that gives it life in addition to its existence, like the human being, it's not only in existence like a rock, but it also is alive, and certain things, that spiritual part, that נפש, only gives it its existence, but doesn't give it what we call life, but it's nevertheless there. The same is concerning the whole world as a whole. The world as a whole is also made up of these these two parts. You have the physical part of the world, with everything that's there, the nature of the world, and then you have the life force of the world, which is the נפש. And what is that? That's השם, who gives the world its existence. השם is referred to as the נפש of the world, is the life force of the world. אברהם אבינו, when he started thinking where the world, how the world runs, it says that at his time everyone worshiped idols, but he sat down and started thinking, there must be, he says, some force to the world. When all the, the רמב״ם explains actually, he looked into, he says, all the גלגלים, the the planets move, and the whole solar system moves, and everything is coordinated, there must be some life force there. And actually, the גמרא uses the term of נפש. The גמרא says, מה הנפש ממלא את הגוף, כך הקדוש ברוך הוא ממלא את עולמו. Which means just like the נפש, the soul of a person, fills up the body, so too השם fills the world. השם is the life force of the world. Unfortunately, but obviously this is what השם wanted, this is not something that we could see. What we see superficially is the חומר, the matter, the material of the world. The נפש of the world, which means the spirituality of the world, or in other words the צורה of the world, we do not see. If we think about it, and we learn about it, we come to an understanding that it's there, like אברהם אבינו did. The רמב״ם says how did אברהם אבינו come to understand it? It says, the רמב״ם uses the term, היה משוטט בדעתו, he thought a lot, and he was very, had a deep understanding, so he came to an understanding that there must be some force that runs the world. There is some נפש in the world. But if you don't think about it, and don't you learn about it, just the way the world looks superficially, we do not see the צורה, the spirituality of the world, we only see the חומר, we only see the matter of the world, the גשמיותדיקע part of the world. That's why the word טבע, which means nature, also means sunken, טובעו בים, so something that's sunken because the truth, which is the נפש of the world, is hidden inside the world. Like when something sinks in water, it's there, but you don't see it, it's covered up even though it's there, the same thing in the world. It's covered up. That's why the word עולם, which means world, also has the meaning of העלם, העלם which means concealed, because the world, the way השם made it, is that he concealed the truth, the spirituality, the צורה, or what we call the נפש that's in the world is covered up. And that's the way he made it, and that's the way he wants it. But what he wants is that we Jews should change that. We Jews should reveal the truth of the world. We should reveal that the most important part of the world is not the חומר, not the matter of the world, but what we call the צורה, which is the spirit of the world, the נפש of the world. And it's our job to do it. And that is the actual meaning of what רש״י says in the beginning of חומש. on the פסוק בראשית ברא אלקים. The פסוק starts off saying in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. So רש\"י says that the word בראשית is made up of two words: בית, בראשית is בית, and then the word ראשית. And רש\"י quotes that there are two things that are that are called ראשית in different places. One is the Jews, one is the תורה. So what the פסוק really means that the world was created because of two ראשית, because of the two things: the Jews and the תורה ומצוות. What is the meaning behind it? That השם created the world in a way that we Jews by using the תורה ומצוות, we will reveal the truth that's hidden behind in the world. We will reveal the נפש, the צורה, the spirituality that's in the world. In other ספרים, it's referred to as התגברות הצורה על החומר. צורה is called form, but that's another word for the spirituality; חומר is the matter. And you have to have the התגברות, the overpowering of the צורה over the חומר. The way the world looks superficially, there is התגברות החומר על הצורה. The חומר, the matter seems to overpower the spiritual part of it, you don't see it. What השם wants is that we should reverse it and have התגברות הצורה על החומר. And how does השם want us to do it? He gave us the tools: He gave us a תורה and He gave us מצוות, and He said when you do מצוות, which are spiritual, by doing those מצוות, you will bring the spirituality of the of the world into the open, and you will have the התגברות, that will become that will be the overpower, that will overpower the the חומר. But we know that before we are able to do it in the world, we have to just first do it in ourselves. We know that in order for us to influence the world at large, we have to first do it in a small, miniature way in ourselves. As we say in every ברכה, we say ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם. So first we say אלקינו, our God, then we say מלך העולם, He's the king of the world. In order for us to proclaim Him as the king of the world, we have to first realize that He is אלקינו, He's our God. And that's how it works. Whatever we want to influence the world, we have to first do that within ourselves in a small way, then we could have that influence, bring it out into the world. So the same, so in this ענין, if we're saying here that we have to bring out within the world the truth that the נפש is the most important part, not the חומר, not the matter, first we have to do it in ourselves. How do we do it in ourselves? By doing מצוות, too. When we do מצוות, that's the way we show that the נפש, the spirituality is more important than the physical part. And that's obvious. When a person does a מצוה, he reveals within himself the truth. The best way to show it is when a person wakes up in the morning and takes a pair of תפילין and puts it on. What's he doing here? He's taking a leather box with leather straps and wrapping it around his hand. Why in the world is a person doing that? What, is he taking his blood pressure? What's he doing here? Why And people wonder. The truth is, you got to be nuts to do it. Why should a person The only reason you do it is because השם said so. So here you're doing something because of a spiritual reason, not because of a physical reason. See, certain things a person might do that there is a physical reason to do it also, and in the meantime he feels he's doing a good deed. But there are many מצוות that by doing the מצוות, it's only spiritual, there is nothing physical behind it. Example of of תפילין, ציצית. Why should we wear these strings hanging down from our garments? Someone once asked me, a גוי saw me walking, he says, \"What are these spaghettis doing hanging down on your side?\" There's no reason we should have the ציצית hanging. The only reason is because השם said so. So when we do a מצוה, we reveal within ourselves the feeling that the spirituality is the most important part, because here we're doing something spiritual, and we do it, and to us it's very important. So we show that the spirit is very important. This is the the real meaning behind a statement of the חכמים. The מדרש says לא ניתנה תורה אלא לצרף בהם את הבריות, the מצוות, that the reason השם gave the Jews the מצוות, the commandments, is לצרף את הבריות, to purify the people. Now the simple meaning in this מדרש is that השם gave us the מצוות to make us finer people. When we do מצוות, you become more איידל, more refined, you become a better person. So השם gave us the מצוות to become finer people. That's the simple פשט. But definitely this is not the only פשט, it cannot be. In other words, according to this פשט, השם gave us the מצוות because we need some refining. That means that the מצוות is because of us. Because there is a world, and the world has human beings, and the human beings have to be refined, they shouldn't be coarse and גראב and low, so השם decided to give them מצוות, that will be the way they will be refined. We know it's just the opposite. The whole world was created because of the מצוות. Obviously the מצוות came before the world's creation. No no, not in time, but in reason. The world is here because there are מצוות, and according to this, the מצוות are here because of the world. Since there is a world and people, and the people have to have some kind of code of law, השם gave it to them. The truth is it says in many, many ספרים that the מצוות that the גוים have, the seven מצוות, is for that reason. Because they're here, for whatever reason השם wants them to be here, and השם wants them to be civilized and normal, so he gave them seven מצוות, which will keep them civilized and will make them as normal human beings the way השם wants. So by them, the מצוות are a result of their existence. Since they are here, they need a code of law. Concerning us, it's just the opposite. The מצוות are not here because there are people, so you have to give them a code of law. The people are here because there are מצוות. So we can't say that השם gave us the מצוות פשוט to make us finer people. The פשט is deeper. השם gave us the מצוות לצרף בהם את הבריות, which means the word לצרף means to purify. The term לצרף is used in Hebrew when you purify gold, silver. You chop it out of the mountain, it has a lot of a lot of dirt, and in order to separate the dirt from the good part, you put it into an oven, a furnace, it's called כור הברזל, and in that furnace, it gets separated, the bad coarse part falls aside, the good part stays on one side, that's צירוף. When it says השם create gave us the מצוות לצרף בהם את הבריות, that's what he means. השם gave us מצוות that by doing the מצוות, we will separate the coarse part, which is the חומר, which is the matter, the גשמיות, the physicality, from the spirituality, which is the good good part, like separating the dirt from the gold. So השם gave us מצוות, not because he wants to help us. השם gave us מצוות because he made a world, and the world the חומר, the גשמיות, the physicality of the world seems to be stronger. השם had his reason why he wanted a world that we Jews should work on reversing that and showing that the spirituality is more important than the גשמיות, the נפש is more important than the גוף. So he gave us the מצוות to through the מצוות we do that job. And that's what it means, the מצוות לצרף בהם את הבריות, to separate the good from the bad, to reveal that this is good, this is bad. When the gold is mixed with the the dirt, you can't see, they all look alike, and as a matter of fact, it looks dirty, from the outside everything looks dirty, so you only see the חומר, the bad part, the גראבע חלק, גראבע part. And when you do the צירוף in the oven, it separates, now you see, hey, this is dirt, this we throw away, and this is gold, this is silver, even copper, metal, whatever other things. And the same with us. We have to by doing מצוות, what we do is we show that this is gold and the spirituality is gold, and the חומר, the גראבקייט, the the coarseness, physicality of the world, that is not the עיקר, not the main important part. So by doing מצוות in ourselves, we show the התגברות הנפש על הגוף, we show the overpowering of the נפש over the body. We show in ourselves the התגברות of the צורה over the חומר, as it's called in ספרים, and then we are able to do it to the whole world. The truth is that even though I'm saying that every מצווה we do brings out within us the התגברות הנפש על הגוף, that the נפש is more important than the body, but in truth, it is not always done that way. It's possible for a person to do a מצווה and nevertheless not to feel that the spirituality, which we call the נפש, is more important than the physicality. We wake up in the morning, we put on תפילין, and not so many people really think at the moment, I'm putting on תפילין because this is the will of השם, and otherwise I wouldn't do it, and it's only the spiritual part. We're so used to it, we do it out of habit. And the same with every מצווה, that not always, and unfortunately more not than yes, that the מצוות actually are done in a form that bring out within us the concept of overpowering the נפש over the גוף. Because of that, השם gave us one מצווה that this one מצווה מצוה, it's impossible to fulfill unless you have the feeling of התגברות הנפש על הגוף, that the נפש is more important than the body. There's one מצוה like that. Every other מצוה, even though this is the meaning behind the מצות, but we don't see it. There is one מצוה that you can't fulfill. The מצוה of תפילין, you could. You could fulfill the מצוה of תפילין, putting on תפילין, and not feeling that the נפש is more important than the גוף. You just do the act out of habit. You could eat מצה and forget that this is because it's a spiritual מצוה of השם, etc., etc. Any מצוה like that. But there is one מצוה that you can't do it. If you don't have the feeling that the נפש is more important than the body, you just cannot fulfill the מצוה, and that is the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And I'll explain why.

The מצוה of אהבת ישראל is, ואהבת לרעך כמוך, you shall love your fellow Jew like yourself. How is it possible? All the commentaries ask: how is it possible for a person to love somebody else like himself? It's against nature. It's impossible. We know that the nature is that a person loves himself first, beyond anything. You could try to help somebody else, everything, but to love like yourself? And therefore, some even come and say that since it says כמוך, like yourself, but not actually like yourself, it's almost like yourself, but you can never love somebody like yourself. But nevertheless, the simple פשט in the פסוק is: love your fellow Jew like yourself, meaning exactly like you love yourself. Then the question goes a little further: the מצוה of אהבת ישראל is to every single Jew. You have to love each one equally. How is that possible? Naturally, when you have a feeling to somebody, it's connected to that person's characteristics, to that person's qualities. A person that did you a favor, you love him more, a person who is nicer to you, a person who generally is a nicer person, a better person. A person who is a גראבער מענטש, a coarse person, you don't have such a strong feeling to him. It's impossible to have the same feeling to all the Jews, to all people. It's impossible. Certainly when we say that the מצוה of אהבת ישראל is to love a Jew that you never saw, a Jew that's across the sea and you just heard that there is a Jew there, you have to have a feeling of love. How is that possible? It's naturally impossible. So, how did השם give us such a מצוה that it's impossible to do? It's only impossible if we look at it in a superficial way, based on the חומר, based on the more, the materialistic part of it. Then it's impossible. But if we look at it from the נפש part, from the נפש point of view, then we know that every single Jew has a נשמה. And even though we know that it says there are different levels of נשמות, but in truth, in source, all the נשמות are the same. So, in truth, all the נשמות are the same, from the same level, and there's no difference between one and another. When there is a difference between one Jew and another, the difference is only in his behavior, the difference is only in his superficial parts of himself, but the essence of the person, they're all the same. When they say all people created equal, the statement is not so true, but only נשמות are equal, that is true. Every single נשמה is the same. And as a matter of fact, they're not only the same, in the source, they're all one. There's like one נשמה. Just like we know that we do know that a husband and a wife is considered one נשמה, that's what it says in the זוהר. A husband and a wife were originally one נשמה, then it split, came down as two human beings, and then later when they get married, they unite again. But originally it was one נשמה that split. In truth, all the נשמות of all the Jews, let's say, אן עין הרע, now we have 12 million Jews, it's all split into 12 million parts of one נשמה. So, really, we're all one נשמה. If you look at it that way, then you can't ask, \"How could I love another Jew like I love myself?\" Loving the other Jew is loving myself because we're really one. It's not only like we say sometimes, כל ישראל חברים, all יידן are friends. We say כל ישראל אחים, we're all brothers. It's more than that! We're all really one. In the ירושלמי it says that all Jews are like one big body. And no matter how much one part of your body hurts, you don't hate it. You can't say, \"I don't like...\" חס ושלום someone says, \"I don't like my hand.\" It's part of yourself. As good or bad, but it's part of yourself. And if, by mistake, one hand will, by mistake, hurt your other hand, you don't say, \"Well, he hurt he hurt me. I don't like him.\" It's impossible to say because it's all one body. All the יידן are all one body. And therefore, you could like another ייד like you like yourself. Therefore, you could like the all equally because they're all the same. משה רבינו and the lowest person are all the same. But when can you do that, which that's the way to fulfill the מצוה of אהבת ישראל, if you don't have that feeling then you really didn't fulfill the מצוה. When can a person fulfill the מצוה of אהבת ישראל that way? Only if in his mind the נפש is more important than the גוף, than the body. The moment a person feels that the body is the more important part, then you can't fulfill אהבת ישראל, because looking at it from the body perspective, this person is different than this person, and he's definitely not me. The only way I could fulfill the מצוה of אהבת ישראל is if I realize that the נפש is more important than the גוף. If the גוף, the body, is more important than the נפש, then there can't be a regular אהבת ישראל. If the נפש is more important, then you can have אהבת ישראל to everybody. So here we have one מצוה that cannot really be fulfilled unless the person feels that the נפש is more important than the גוף, which we call the התגברות הנפש על הגוף, or התגברות הצורה על החומר. And if you do have that feeling that the נפש is more important, then you could love everybody. They say the מעזריטשער מגיד once called his student רב מיילך, רב אלימלך of ליזענסק, one of his greatest students, and he called him over and says, \"Listen מיילך, הער מיילך, איך וויל דיר יעצט איבערזאגן וואס איך האב געהערט אויסרופנדיק אין מתיבתא דרקיעא. I want to tell you something that I just heard being announced in the heavenly ישיבה. They announced saying, ב'דארף ליב האבן א רשע גמור פונקט ווי מ'האט ליב א צדיק גמור. You have to love the greatest רשע, the greatest evil person, like you love the greatest צדיק.\" The רמ\"ק, רב משה קורדובירו, who was one of the great מקובלים, actually was the teacher of the אריז\"ל, the אריז\"ל is the greatest מקובל, he was the teacher of the אריז\"ל, he writes in a ספר called תומר דבורה, he says the same thing. He says that you have to love a רשע. אהבת ישראל goes on a רשע. And he proves it from a גמרא. Some people thinks, well, this concept of loving even the worst Jew comes from חסידים, it comes from the קבלה, but if you learn just you don't get into these things and you're not involved in these things, then it's not the same. He quotes the גמרא. It's an interesting גמרא. The גמרא says that if you have a few people who deserve the death penalty from בית דין, and there are different levels, some are worse, some are better, and בית דין for some reason, I don't even know how the case happened to be, but if they mixed them up, a few people, and they don't know which person deserves the worse death and which person deserves the lighter one, so what do you do? So the גמרא says you give them all the lesser one. And where does the גמרא take it from? The גמרא says like this, since the פסוק says, \"ואהבת לרעך כמוך, you shall love your fellow Jew like yourself,\" so ברור לו מיתה יפה, so give him the best, the easiest death. Whom are we talking about here? We're talking about people who deserved the death penalty. But to deserve the death penalty according to הלכה is very, very hard. You have to, first of all, do a terrible sin, a very terrible sin that deserves that penalty. Number two, he has to be warned at the time he does it. Number three, you have to warn him within seconds of when he does it. And he has to answer, \"I don't care.\" If you warned him and he did the sin a minute later, a minute later, then it doesn't count. Now, you got to be a real terrible person to do the עבירה being warned, doing it on the spot, and doing the worst עבירה that you deserve to die. And nevertheless, the גמרא says when we're talking about such people, and we're wondering what kind of death penalty to give him, the גמרא says the פסוק says, \"ואהבת לרעך כמוך, love your fellow Jew,\" so you have to love him. So you have to give him the easiest one. You have to give the death penalty because that's the הלכה, but if you have a question which one, give him the better one because of אהבת ישראל. Now, if אהבת ישראל doesn't apply to a רשע, then it certainly doesn't apply to these people. And the גמרא, this is not from קבלה or חסידות, the גמרא says, \"ואהבת לרעך כמוך, therefore give him the easier punishment.\" So the רמ\"ק says from here we see that you have to love even the greatest רשע. Now, how is it possible to love a רשע? The answer is, if we would look at him superficially, looking at the רשע from what he did, looking at him how he behaves himself, then we can't love him. If you look at his עצם הנשמה, the essence of the נשמה, and the essence of the נשמה is there by every single Jew, like the גמרא says, \"אף על פי שחטא ישראל הוא, a ייד even if he sins, he's still a ייד.\" What's the פשט he's still a ייד? He still has that נשמה, and he still has that עצם הנשמה. And if you look at that from that perspective, then you can could love the greatest רשע the same way you love the greatest צדיק. So it comes out from here that the only way to fulfill the מצוה of אהבת ישראל properly is if you realize the נפש is more important than the גוף. And this is why אהבת ישראל is the foundation of יידישקייט. Because, as we said in the beginning, the whole purpose of all of the מצוות is to reveal the fact that the נפש is more important than the גוף. Which is the מצוה, the only מצוה that you can only fulfill by doing that, is the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And that's why that's the foundation. That's why that's the foundation of יידישקייט. That's why he said: זה כלל גדול בתורה, it's a big rule in the תורה, or הלל said: זהו כל התורה כולה, it's the whole תורה. That's why השם would not give us the תורה if we wouldn't have proper אהבת ישראל. Because if השם gave us the תורה for the reason of revealing the נפש in the world, if we wouldn't have אהבת ישראל, obviously we are not ready for it. So when השם saw that we had the proper אהבת ישראל, השם said, \"Oh, these people have the right idea. These people are able to bring out how the spirituality is more important than the physicality, because if they wouldn't feel that way, they'd never have אהבת ישראל. They wouldn't really do the אהבת ישראל, because it's impossible.\" So השם said, \"I'll give them the תורה, which the purpose of giving the תורה is to do that in the world, to reveal the spirituality of the world.\" That's why the בית המקדש was destroyed if you don't have אהבת ישראל. Because the יידן not having אהבת ישראל showed that they don't realize the purpose of the whole תורה. When they do realize that, משיח will come, because then the יידן will show that we know what is the goal of השם's giving the תורה, the revelation of the נפש over the גוף. That's how when it comes to דאווען, before we start דאווענינג, we have to say to השם: we accept upon ourselves the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. Because what's דאווענינג? דאווענינג is תפלה. Now, people think דאווענינג is a time when we beg השם, we ask השם to give us certain things that we need, which is true. But there is a deeper פשט in תפלה. The word תפלה comes from the word תופל, which means connect. It's a time when a ייד is supposed to connect himself to השם. When we wake up in the morning, we're pretty low level spiritually, and as we דאווען, we raise ourselves to a higher level. That's why דאווענינג is compared to a ladder. So in order to raise ourselves, to connect ourselves to השם, the best way to come to that level is by feeling that the נפש, the spirituality, is more important than the גוף. And that could only be fulfilled by having the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. And this is why we say that the מצוה of אהבת ישראל is a כלי, a vessel, to be able to fulfill the מצוה of אהבת השם, of loving השם. As we said that the מצוה of loving השם is ואהבת את השם אלקיך, the מצוה of אהבת ישראל is ואהבת לרעך כמוך. And we said that ואהבת לרעך כמוך leads you to ואהבת את השם אלקיך. Yes! Because if a person has אהבת ישראל the right way, that means that this person has the feeling that spirituality is more important, then certainly this person is going to love השם, who is the the true spirituality, the truth, this is God. So certainly, if you have אהבת ישראל, it will lead you to come to have אהבת השם. And that's why it says that there are three loves that a ייד is supposed to have: אהבת השם, אהבת התורה, and אהבת ישראל. You have to love השם, you have to love the תורה, and you have to love יידן. And it says כולה חד, all three are one. We understand why, because loving another ייד is revealing this the the greatness of the נפש, which is the importance of the תורה, which is השם. It says in other places, I think the אלטער רבי writes this, that another reason to love every ייד is because you should be אוהב מה שאוהבו אוהב. A person should love, when do you show love to somebody? If you don't only love that person, but if there is somebody that that person loves, you love that somebody because your friend loves him. Then you really show your love to this friend. If you know that your friend has a friend, and because he's a friend of your friend, he becomes your friend too, then it shows really friendship. So it says, since השם loves every single Jew, we should love every single Jew, because then we will show that we love השם. השם loves Mr. So-and-So, and I love השם, so automatically I love Mr. So-and-So. So it's אוהב מה שאוהבו אוהב, I love the one that my beloved loves. That's אהבת ישראל, that's the connection between אהבת ישראל and אהבת השם. But it goes along the same line. Why does השם love that other Jew? Why does השם love Mr. So-and-So? Because he has a נשמה and he's a Jew. So me loving him is basically loving the נשמה because השם loves the נשמה, and automatically the גוף, the body also, because this is a body which contains that נשמה, which is along the same lines I said before. So this is the concept of אהבת ישראל, the idea of showing that I look deeper than what looks in the surface. In the surface, it looks as if this is a person, and he behaves in a certain way, and he has a certain character, certain qualities. And אהבת ישראל is done when we look a little bit deeper, beyond the surface, we look into the נפש. But you have to be ready for it. You have to be a person that understands that the נפש is more important than the גוף, and then you're able to have אהבת ישראל. And this is the basis of אהבת ישראל: to love every single Jew because every single Jew has the נפש. And by a Jew, the נפש is not just a plain life force, but it's a נפש אלוקית, it's a godly soul, which is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, part of השם. And because of that, you have to love him. And therefore, even though it says in certain places that certain Jews, it says it's a מצוה לשנאותו, it's a מצוה to hate him. Imagine, it says there are certain Jews that are so terrible, if they do certain terrible עבירות, it's a מצוה to hate him. But the פשט is, it's not a מצוה to hate him. It's a מצוה to hate his actions, what he did is what you should hate. But the person himself, because he's a איד, it's a מצוה to love. That's why it says in פרקי אבות: הוי מתלמידיו של אהרן, you should be from the students of אהרן, אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, you should love peace, run after peace, אוהב את הבריות, love the people, ומקרבן לתורה, bring them closer to the תורה. The term it uses is אוהב את הבריות, love the people. And the word בריות actually, if we translate it literally, means creatures. The word בריה means creation. Love those that were created. Why does he use such a term? Why doesn't he say love the Jews, or like the פסוק says ואהבת לרעך כמוך, your friend, or בני ישראל, יהודים? I mean, so many terms he could have used. Why does he say love the creatures? So in תניא, the אלטר רבי explains that what he wants to tell us is that there are some people that unfortunately have no merit whatsoever. Like, listen, a person does something good, he has merit. Some people have more merits, they're bigger צדיקים, some people are smaller צדיקים, not so good, but they have some merit. Then there are some people that have no merit whatsoever. Their only merit is that they were created by השם. They're basically creatures, that's all they are. So here it says אוהב את הבריות, you have to love the creatures, even those people who are only creatures, their whole מעלה is only that they were created by השם, you have to love them, too. The question is why? They didn't do anything good, they don't deserve it. But if you love a איד because of the truth, because he has a נשמה and his נשמה is part of my נשמה, and if I don't like him, it's like not liking yourself, but that's impossible, a person likes himself, so how could you not like him? If you look at it that way, we don't care that he is only a בריה בעלמא, he's only a בריה, only a creature, because in truth he has the holy נשמה, too. And therefore, it's our obligation to love him. And how do you love a person? How do you show your love? Love is actually a feeling in the heart. How do you show that you love? You do something for the person, you help a person. So by a איד, how do you show love to another איד? You help him. Now helping could include גשמיות and רוחניות, helping physically and helping spiritually. If he needs a loan, you give him a loan. If he needs help in any other way, you help him. The most important help that you might do to a friend is spiritually. If a person doesn't know the importance of תורה ומצוות, then the best way to help him, which is the best way of showing your love, is by showing him the truth, the truth of תורה ומצוות, showing him the truth of what's behind in his purpose in life. That's more important than giving him money. Just like it says in the מדרש, that גדול המחטיאו יותר מן ההורגו, it's worse if someone makes someone sin than killing him. Because if you kill him, you take away his body; if you make him sin, you're taking away, you're ruining, you're hurting his נשמה. So the same thing is helping: helping somebody physically is not as important as helping somebody spiritually. Now, in truth, sometimes the way to get to him spiritually is by helping physically, which we have to do. And we have to do everything to help another איד, even in money or doing him a favor, whatever it is. But the end goal, the goal should be to help him spiritually. That's why, what does it say in פרקי אבות? אוהב את הבריות, love the בריות. And what should you do because of that? ומקרבן לתורה, bring him closer to the תורה. Which, by the way, it doesn't say bring the תורה closer to them, which would mean like some people say, cut parts of the תורה, trim it, make it custom-made for their need. That's not true. You can't custom-make the תורה. The תורה is one תורה. So you can't bring the תורה down to them, you have to bring them up to the תורה. But that's the result of אהבת הבריות, love the people. But it's all based if we understand that there is a נשמה in every single ייד. And this is why this מצוה is the most important מצוה, because this is one מצוה that contains the purpose of all of תורה ומצוות, which is to reveal the נפש of the world, and that is done through the מצוה of אהבת ישראל. Questions? Yes. You have a lot of questions. Okay. We have if there are different Jews, and we're asked to kill one of them to save all the rest, we know we can't do that regardless if there's a hundred צדיקים and one רשע. Right. When we're able to save a Jew from dying, we do have regulations which one to go after first, who comes, how to save first, offer to prayers. Helping, huh? By saving, it says that? Saving a life? Says your life comes first. A person's own life comes first, חייך קודמין. Two people are drowning, I think in a prior. Well, if they're both the same, it's like I said, yeah. But that's because, but if one person, let's say is saving his life, and the other person is helping him in other ways, his life comes before anything else of another person, whether he's a רשע or not. Can I ask what happens if you have a situation where some גדול is going to die, or two simple יידן? You have to save the two simple יידן. You always go after the majority? Yeah, yeah, there's no 100%. Yeah. Yes, any The fellow with a lot of questions. Yes. In the זכות of אהבת ישראל, we we received the תורה, right? Is there any or also the two בית המקדש built, did אהבת ישראל have anything to do with them being built? Was there a connection about that? By the משכן it says, in the משכן it says, ויקהל. But by the בית המקדש, I don't remember if it should say that the אחדות brought the building of the בית המקדש. They definitely had the אחדות, there was Was felt? More than that. Thank everybody for coming. We are going to announce the the top