Pent. Lev. 16:1-20:27
We have reached the heart of the Torah! The sages taught that if the Book of Leviticus was the middle book among the 5 Books of Moses, Parashat Kedoshim, - this week’s Torah portion - is the center of the Levitical manual, to be acted out by all Israelites, the heart of Torah!
Within this Torah reading is what some have even considered to be the most important commandment in all of our Sacred Literature: “V’ahavta L’reachah ka-mocha! You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” (Lev,19:18)
Having marked the significance of this commandment we have opened Pandora’s box: Can love be commanded? What if you don’t love yourself? Who is your neighbor? These are just a few of the many questions that open up for discussion if the verse is going to have meaning beyond the mantra like nature of repetition which feels good but has no real effect on our lives or the lives of others.
Martin Buber, the greatest Jewish thinker of the 20th century tells the story, heartbroken, of someone who knocked on his office door seeking advice. Buber was busy and had no time for this fellow so he dismissed him. A few days later Buber learned that the man had committed suicide. The philosopher, who had tried so hard to live the content of our commandment now asked himself “what is the meaning?” if at the very moment when he could have shown it best, he had no time. That moment, Buber would say, became his greatest failure as a human being: Not having been there.
This week we commemorated Yom Ha-Shoah, in memory of the 6 million. We are always moved by the stories of those who kept faith and ritual in the face of hardship and the danger to life and spirit in the darkest moment of human history. I am personally moved more and more, as I grow older, by the deeds of those we today call ‘Righteous Gentiles,’ those who did not make believe nothing was happening, those who didn’t continue living their lives as if everything was normal, those who understood that the way they could embrace the commandment to love one’s neighbor was by supporting and protecting those who were in danger and by protesting evil against all odds.
Our tradition teaches that one who saves a single human life is considered as if s/he had saved the whole world.
I can only understand the commandment in its broadest sense: We need to take care of ourselves -have enough self esteem- in order to be able to love the ‘other.’ The ‘other’ cannot be limited to the one who is ‘like me’ In order to be meaningful it has to be the ‘other who is not like me’ (of course, tradition will teach that you are not obligated to love the evil does!) and finally, if one thinks that love cannot be commanded, acts of love can. And this is what the Torah teaches. You practice with those nearest to you and then you expand the circle.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Roberto D. Graetz
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