We continue in our study of Ahavat Yisrael/Loving your fellow Jew with the Avot D’Rebi Natan that explains the verse, Veahavta LeRe’echa Kamocha Ani Hashem/Love your friend like you love yourself, I am Hashem.
It says I am Hashem because Hashem created that person.
The Bet HaLevi adds that this explains the strictness of the sin. If Hashem created him, that means Hashem loves him.
He’s Hashem’s child. So how can a person have the audacity to hate the son, the beloved one, of God Himself?
It’s like hating God Himself.
He quotes a Gemara in Maesechet Sanhedrin (נח,ב) that says that someone who slaps a Jewish person across the face, it’s as if he’s giving God Himself a slap.
The Maharsha explains that Adam HaRishon was made in the image of God, and Yaakov Avinu ended up in the image of Adam HaRishon; he perfected himself to the extent that he is the picture of man on the Kiseh HaKavod.
Therefore, when someone slaps a Jewish person, he is slapping a picture of the Shechina.
There is a halacha that says that a person that kills or is Mehallel Shabbat is deserving of the death penalty, and is hung up, but one is not allowed to leave the body hanging overnight. He is hung up on a pole only moments before sunset, he stays up a minute and then they take him down.
Rashi gives a mashal to explain why they can’t leave the body hanging: There were twin brothers, one was a king and the other was a thief. The thief got caught, but to leave him out in public would be a disgrace to his brother, the king.
So too, when a person sins and is hanging on a pole, it’s a disgrace to God, because that person was created in God’s image.
We have to think about that whenever we look at any person.
One of Rabbi Miller’s secrets to greatness is that when you look at a Jewish face, you should think, ‘This person was created in the image of God; I have to to love; God loves him.’
And if I hate him, I am really hating God.
That’s a very heavy concept.
It says Love your friend like you love yourself, Ani Hashem/I am Hashem-I created him, I love him, because that is part of the equation. Hashem is saying, I created him, so how dare you hate someone that I love?