We quote from the Bet HaLevi that says that when someone hates his friend, he actually wants him to fail and mess up. And not only does he want him to mess up in business or family life, but he wants him to mess up in religion too.
If you don’t like somebody, you don’t want him to be successful in anything.
He ends with the words, “You end up hating the service of God.” Because you dislike this guy, you don’t want him to be successful in his religion. Rabbenu Yona in Shaare Teshuva (3rd gate, letter 160) says, “It’s possible to have people who are under the category of
Soneh Hashem/Haters of God. There are people who do mitzvot and are careful from all sins in action or speech,
(it sounds like we are talking about a pretty good guy, who does all of the mitzvot) yet they are still considered haters of God. How so? He says that if it bothers or hurts you when you see someone surpass you in religion
(we may not say it outright but we might feel it subconsciously), then you aren’t happy when the King gets honored, and that lies you someone who dislikes the King.
If we see people that are better than us, and it triggers a negative feeling, it could be called negative against God. Rabbenu Yona says that sometimes it’s not just a thought, but that people take action, because they can’t tolerate that someone else is better than them.
The Bet Halevi brings a pasuk from tehilim ( 38,21)
יִשְׂטְנוּנִי תַּחַת רָדְפִי טוֹב
They hate me, Rashi explains, because I am doing good. Because I am connecting to God. This is something that we must be aware of. It is possible that without realizing it, we can dislike people because they are better than us in religion.
So we have to be happy when we see somebody having success, because ultimately, that means our religion is successful.
The Sivteh Chaim, Rav Chaim Freedlander, brings down in his sefer that Rav Dessler told of a certain Rosh Yeshiva who went to visit another Rosh Yeshiva. The host excitedly showed his guest how all the students at his Yeshiva were learning late into the night. The guest Rosh Yeshiva, said, “Would you be as happy if you saw students learning like that in someone else’s Yeshiva?”
So it’s possible that somebody is excited about learning Torah, but it’s really about his ego and his own personal success.
We cannot allow our ego or our desire for success to interfere with our general love of God and love of religion. That is what the Bet HaLevi is telling us. It is possible that Sina/hate, which often comes from competition and ego, can actually cause us to end up indirectly having negative feelings towards religion, because we don’t want other people to be better than us. That feeling sometimes leads people to put down or or mock other people’s chumrot/stringencies.
These are the negative things that come from Sina/hate, which is what we are working on.