Think of yourself too – K’doshim
The most priceless of the precious gems in the sidra is the three-word golden rule, v’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
Rabbi Akiva said, “This is the great principle of Judaism.” Rabbi Yehudah heChasid said, “Even nations are called to account for their violations of this rule”.
It is bitterly amusing that another faith found it necessary to strengthen its claim to be the religion of love by pretending this teaching was its own discovery. It is even more bitterly tragic that in the name of love of neighbour they unleashed centuries of degradation and hate against the Jewish pioneers of this very rule…
But polemics aside, the three words of the golden rule have immense hidden depths of meaning. In particular, there is the fascinating implication that if there is a moral duty to love the other as myself, there must be a moral duty to love myself first.
Joshua Loth Liebman, in his famous “Peace of Mind”, said:
“Men have to be taught the immorality of tragic self-hate, just as they have to be taught the immorality of cruelty and callousness to others. Love and hate are emotions which attach themselves at times to other persons and at times to ourselves… The great commandment of religion, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’, might now be better interpreted to mean ‘Thou shalt love thyself properly, and then thou wilt love thy neighbour’.”
Erich Fromm wrote:
“My own self, in principle, is as much an object of my love as another person. The affirmation of my own life, happiness, growth, freedom, is rooted in basic readiness for such an affirmation. If an individual has this readiness, he has it also towards himself; if he can only love others, he cannot love at all… Selfishness is rooted in this very lack of fondness for oneself. The person who is not fond of himself, who does not approve of himself, is in constant anxiety concerning his own self.”
What we have to do is to avoid two extremes – thinking too little of ourselves (“God doesn’t Iove me… I’m not worthy in His sight… I mean nothing to the world”), and thinking too much of ourselves (” God loves me more than anyone else… I’m truly worthy in His sight… I mean more than anyone else to the world”).
A Chassidic teacher used to remark, “A person should have two pockets, so that he can dip into one or the other as the need arises.
“When he feels low and depressed, he should dip into the first pocket, which contains a piece of paper with the words, ‘For my sake was the world created!’
“But when he finds he has become too high and mighty, that is the time for the other pocket, in which there is a piece of paper with the words, ‘I am just earth and ashes’.”
