We have now completed the high holiday season, and discussed the many connections between our holidays and the Mitzvah of Ve’Ahavta LeRe’echa Kamocha/Loving your friend like you love yourself.
Now, as we start off the regular year, I would like to share a beautiful thought from the Pele Yoetz, on the topic of Ahavat Reyim/loving your friends.
Over the course of the high holiday season at our Shul, almost everyone bought something. The Aliyot were for sale, the Hakafot were for sale, the meals in the Succah were for sale… everything was for sale. People spent a lot of money.
In the words of the Pele Yoetz, “Fortunate are the Jewish people; How much effort they put forth, how much exertion they put forth, how much money they spend for Mitzvot! Lulav etrog and Arba Minim… Succah…meat and wine for the holiday…there are endless expenses.
The Jewish people are wonderful. But, he says, what is painful is that there are great Mitzvot that people are not chasing after, because they don’t realize that they are mitzvot. As it says, ‘Chase after a light Mitzvah just like a heavy Mitzvah,’ which means that we should chase after the Mitzvot that are seemingly light, because we don’t know what the reward is for those.
For example, do we know what the reward is for building a fence around a roof ?
That is a Mitzvat Aseh/positive commandment , that people don’t necessarily chase after, and may not be as diligent in. People build homes with porches, and before the contractor has the chance to order the iron, they leave their porches fenceless for a short while. That is a lack of a positive commandment, and it may even be a negative commandment. But people may not look at that as a mitzvah, or not a great Mitzvah. So that is on the unknown, he says.
But a great Mitzvah, such as loving your friends, has so much in it, we should be chasing it. We don’t, because the yetzer hara knows what a great Mitzvah it is, and tries to take it away from us. Therefore, a God-fearing man has to work on this.
So, as we end our holiday season, and we have no more things to buy, there are mitzvot out there that are as great as the great things that we buy for the holidays. One of these is the mitzvah of VeAhavta LeRe’echa Kamocha.
B’ezrat Hashem, we will all rededicate ourselves to this Mitzvah.