Is 'loving your neighbor' a realistic expectation?"

Parshat Kedoshim contains one of the most famous, oft-quoted commands. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” On the surface, this seems so simple. No complicated details to remember. Just…love. That’s easy enough, right?  

Well…not so much. It might be easy to love your friends and family, but when you think about someone who annoys you, someone who frustrates you, maybe even someone who has wronged you…and then you see that the Torah tells you to “love” that person…this seemingly simple commandment feels incredibly difficult. Can you really be expected to love everyone that way? How can the Torah command this? How can we possibly be expected to fulfill this commandment? It seems like an impossible task. 

A Path Toward Love

Rabbi David Fohrman, the lead scholar at Aleph Beta,  suggests in this video that it IS possible to fulfill this command, and the Torah in Leviticus 19 provides us with guidance that makes it achievable.  The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” when read by itself, may seem impossible. But when you look at the surrounding verses, you can start appreciating that this commandment is part of a longer speech that functions as a how-to guide to developing love. 

So let’s take a look at the verse that come right before the commandment to“love your neighbor as yourself” and see if can find information that can help us understand the path to developing love: 

1. Verse 17  “Do not hate your brother in your heart” 
2. Verse 17 “Reprove your fellow” 
3. Verse 18  “Do not take revenge”
4. Verse 18  “Do not bear a grudge” 
5. And the conclusion, in Verse 18: “ Love your neighbor as yourself” 

Even from a cursory first glance, it’s easy to see a common theme. The commandments right before “love your neighbor as yourself” all seem to be related to acting kindly toward others. But what Rabbi Fohrman suggests is that these statements are more than just ways to be nice. Together, these statements are the building blocks of developing and maintaining loving relationships. 

So how does this work? How can these commandments lead us toward developing love? Let’s focus on the very first commandment  in the list, “Do not hate your brother in your heart.” 

At first glance, “Do not hate your brother in your heart” seems obvious. Of course, hatred is a bad thing. Of course, the Torah says it’s not okay to hate. But when you look more carefully at the verses, the commandment is worded in an interesting way.  Rabbi Fohrman notes that the Torah could have said “Don’t hate your brother.” But instead, the Torah emphasizes not to  hate him “in your heart.”  Those three little words, “in your heart,” suggest a key idea. 

We all experience moments of frustration, annoyance, and bursts of anger at others. How do you react in those moments? Do you bury those feelings and develop hatred “in your heart?”  Or do you have honest communication around issues?  As verse 17 continues to suggest, maybe a more productive expression for your annoyance would be to “reprove your fellow” and share your concerns, instead of bottling it up inside. 

Rabbi Fohrman explains that the first step to building love is how we react when we feel the urge to hate.  In this video on Parshat Kedoshim, Rabbi Fohrman demonstrates that the Torah provides us a blueprint for how to deal with frustrations with others, to be able to develop real affection for others to truly fulfill the commandment of “love your neighbor as yourself.”