Priorities

Love thy neighbor as thyself. This Biblical commandment comes from this weeks Torah portion. Perhaps the hardest of all the commandments, hence Hillel’s statement, “this is the entire Torah and the rest is commentary”.

But how indeed does one achieve this very difficult Mitzvah?

Like all other Mitzvos and like life itself it’s a journey with the journey itself the purpose not necessarily the destination.

Loving another can only happen when one appreciates the essential and eternal dimensions of the other person. The external things that generally attract us to love and friendship eventually pass. Good looks, money, sense of humor, wisdom, etc. all of these change over time. So real love can’t be based on superficialities or temporal causes.

Essential dimensions – i.e. the value of every human being, their having been created by the Almighty G-d, their having a Divine purpose for being on this earth and the Eternal dimensions – i.e. the soul, these are things that don’t change regardless of time.

If we work on prioritizing in our own lives the things that are eternal and essential, we will eventually begin to look at the world around us and the people we interact with in a similar light.

(On occasion when we can’t find the love inside of ourselves for a particular individual we can work on mercy and compassion as a means to arriving at that love.)