Chumash-Rashi, a table for Shulchan Aruch; they learned Shulchan Aruch. Tables and tables all over the place. Everybody was studying. Before and after Ma’ariv. You have to love those people!
Go Back in Time
Now we have to work on that! It’s not enough for us to nod our heads, “Yes, I also agree with that.” No! We have to put it into our hearts; it should become part of our personalities. And without studying the subject, without thinking, you'll never become an oheiv amo Yisroel. You must learn who we once were in order to love your nation — in order to understand what the Jewish nation is, you must know our history.
Take some time. Go back as far as you can! Go back to your great-grandfathers! Go back to the Baal Shem Tov and the Vilna Gaon! Go back! Go back! Oh yes, go back to them. Go back to the Pnei Yehoshua! Go back to Rashi! Go back to the Rashba! Go back! Go back to the Rambam! To Rabi Yehuda Hachassid! Go back to the Chovos Halevovos! Go back to Rav Ashi! Go back to Rava and Abaye! Go back to Rabi Yehuda and Rav Huna! Go back to Rabi Yishmael! Go back to Rabbeinu Hakadosh! Go back to Rabi Meir and Rabi Yehoshua and Rabi Shimon! Go back to Rabi Akiva! Go back to Rabi Yochanan ben Zakkai! Go back!
Go back to all of the generations of ‘plain’ holy Jews, generations and generations of ovdei Hashem, and love them. If I could humbly recommend my own history books to read. I don’t say they’re the only ones — you can take better ones — but three volumes on history, Behold a People, Torah Nation and Exalted People. It’s something at least, and something you have to do. You have to study your people if you’re going to love them. And that’s how you’ll live successfully according to Hashem's model of loving His people.
Part III. Loving Each Beloved
The Next Step
Now, what we said until this point is in a certain sense not too difficult. It requires thinking, yes, but in a sense it’s quite easy because the Jews of our history don’t get on our nerves. Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov are easy to love. Moshe Rabbeinu is easy to love. Rashi is easy to love. Rashi doesn’t bother you after all. Even our great-great-grandparents in Europe, it’s not so difficult.
But the rub is, the big problem is that to love the Am Yisroel doesn’t mean only the Am Yisroel of our history. You have to love the Am Yisroel of today, the frummeh community of today. And if you don’t love the present Am Yisroel, all the frum kehillos, that man cannot really love Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And if he feels a certain feeling of looking down on any of them, then you have to know this man cannot be oheiv Hashem because Hakadosh Baruch Hu and His people Yisroel are really one — we cannot separate them. And anyone who is poresh min hatzibbur, if he separates from the Jewish community, if he doesn't participate in the interests and holds himself aloof, he cannot really become an oheiv Hashem.
The Love Project
And therefore, we should always try to work on this project of learning to love those whom Hashem loves. He loves the Jews who live in Crown Heights. He loves the Jews who live in Monsey. And so, when you walk in the frum streets, streets in Boro Park and Williamsburg, some Flatbush streets too, and you see on every house a big mezuzah on the outside and you know that inside they're very frum — the apartments are full of frum children, frum husbands and wives — so you have to practice loving them.
We’re talking about the plain people of the Am Hashem! Their middos tovos, their kindliness, and their loyalty! They give tzedakah. They daven. They learn. They’re Hashem’s beloved people. Hashem loves them very very much.
There’s a great deal of poison in our system that has seeped in from the outside world, and it can only be removed by applying ourselves to this great function. We should practice loving those frum blocks because Hashem loves them. With great derech eretz you walk in the Boro Park streets. The Shechinah hovers over them. Hashem is looking at them and loving them more than anything in the universe.
Of course He loves Lakewood Jews and Los Angeles Jews too. He loves Syrian Jews. He loves Yerushalmi Jews. He loves Bnei Brak Jews. If you can help them out when they come to America to marry off their children and give them some money, certainly you should do so. Or send money to them. That’s a good way to love them.
City Bus Love
And so when you see a Jew who demonstrates that he loves Hashem — now it might be externalities; it could be he's only putting on a show, but at least he's putting on a show. If somebody marches through the streets, let's say, carrying the American flag, waving it, it may be that he's a patriot. It could be he's not. But at least he's showing the flag. Suppose somebody marched in waving a communist flag, the hammer and the sickle or the black liberation flag, you know he's not a friend of America.
So if a Jew looks like a Jew and he walks in the street like a Jew, it could be that it’s superficialities, but at least this man is showing on whose side he is. The Jew who looks like a Jew deserves our true affection, our real love, and therefore we should go out of our way to show that we like him, we respect him.
That's why if you're sitting on a bus, a bus full of goyim, hard-faced, hardhearted goyim, and a Jew gets on, a Jew with a beard, and immediately you see that there is an atmosphere of hostility towards him on the whole bus. What do you do? You get up — you never saw him before but you walk over and you give him a big shalom aleichem. He’s your brother! In the presence of all the sonei Yisroel, you are greeting a fellow man who displays the same flag that you display. That's what we should do. We should love those who at least show that they love Hashem.
Love in Bensonhurst
It's a big mitzvah by the way. If you're walking in Bensonhurst and there's a meshulach. It's a hot day and he's walking with his portfolio; he’s trying to find at least one house where they'll open the door to him. There are a lot of doors that are Italian doors and he's looking for a door with a mezuzah — and even then it doesn't mean all the doors with a mezuzah will open up for him.
And here you see him on the street. Don't pass him by. Go over to him and give him a hand and say “Vus macht a Yid? How are things?” or something like that. You want to give him a dollar too? No harm. No harm at all. And you can be sure it will be a kosher dollar. It will be spent on twelve children that he has back home in Yerushalayim. A dollar divided twelve ways doesn't amount to much, by the way. But even if you won't give him anything, you've already given him something precious. You have demonstrated to Hakadosh Baruch Hu where your heart belongs by means of that one Jew.
And you're giving yourself something precious! Instead of grumbling, thinking, “Why is he doing it this way or that way, collecting?”, instead of finding things to criticize, no; you have to unload any feelings like that and start all over. You have to love him!
Hashem Loves Every Yid
Yes! One Jew! You know, we could think that only a case like Pharaoh who was an enemy of the whole Am Yisroel, only then is disliking the Jewish people an obstacle to loving Hashem. But actually it’s not so. The Chovos Halevavos tells us that if there's a dislike to even one Yisroel, it's going to be an obstruction in your path as you try to come close to love Hashem. It's actually a mechitzah, a barricade between you and Hashem when you have a certain dislike to even one of the Am Yisroel.
Oh, that's a big order. It makes it very difficult. Because when a man claims that he loves Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that is easy to say. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in heaven. He doesn't live next door to you. His children don't run out on your lawn and His cat doesn't climb into your backyard and make noise at night. It's easy to get along with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Same thing with the frum kehillos in other places. With Reb Moshe Feinstein, also. He's somewhere on the Lower East Side. You don't see him, you don't know him, it's easy to love him. But the test is what about the Jew who lives next door to you? Oh, that’s not as easy.
The Butcher at the Beach
And so you have to begin training yourself; it should be done with a program. I did it once. Years ago when I was in Europe and I used to work on mussar, I did this. I was staying in the country with a certain family. It was a butcher’s family, plain ordinary people and I made it my business to fall in love with the family. Every day as I walked behind the dunes on the beach, I was thinking of ways how I could love the husband, how I could love the children, how I could love everybody in the family. I was thinking about them.
And then when I came back in the evening to the house, I said certain words to make them feel good, to make them happy. I spent a lot of time going through the middah of loving them. That was in the olden days when I still had a shaychus to the mussar of Slabodka.
An Individualized Program
And so you should start out with a system because to love all people all of a sudden is not easy. Pick one Jew and make up your mind you’ll specialize on him. That Jew whom you see on the street from time to time, he’s a frum Jew. He’s a shomer mitzvos. He doesn’t have any especial love for you, but you ignore that. You’re worried about yourself now, so try to think about him in terms of the Torah.
Think, “After all Hashem loves him. He’s a shomer mitzvos. That’s what I love. I love a Jew who keeps Hashem’s mitzvos. He’s a man who keeps Shabbos. He has a family, he has children. His children love him, I suppose. He has a wife. He’s making a living, he’s paying tuition, he gives ma’aser maybe too. So I love him for all these things.”
And start thinking about that and little by little keep that man in mind every day, every day. And as you’re saying Shemoneh Esrei and you’re saying ... so some people think “Bless us” means me. Why does it say “us”? So he thinks it’s a majestic plural. Like you say, “We, the King of England.” No, it doesn’t mean that. “Bentch us with parnassah” means all of the Jews.
Now, are you thinking of all the Jews? No. Even if you’re thinking something at all you’re not thinking of all the Jews. So at least think of this one Jew across the street. Think about him. “Hashem should give him a raise.” Think about him in terms of affection and little by little, you’re machnis ahavah in your heart to that one Jew.
The Great Success
And so it’s a principle that a person should start with one. If you take hold of too much at one time you can’t do it. So pick one Jew and work on him. And little by little, it’ll begin to spread. It’s contagious. Once you learn to love one Jew intensely, after a while maybe the other one also. Why not? It’s a great career that you can begin now and it will last you a lifetime.
And that’s the big success of life, this career of being in love with the Am Yisroel. We love the Jewish nation. We love our people! But not merely in a patriotic way. We love our nation because Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves us! And because He loves us more than anything else in the universe we love our nation more than anything else.
And when you embark on such a career, you have to know that you're embarking on the career of perfection, of shleimus. By loving your fellow Jews, it’s ... you’re doing the very biggest favor to yourself. The biggest success is not what you do for other people, but what you achieve in the perfection of your own character; you’re gaining such greatness that you become tied up to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You’re a partner with Him — just like He loves, you are standing at His side and together with Him, you’re loving the Am Yisroel.
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
