Acharei Mot-Kedoshim – Aryeh Ben David

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

Aryeh Ben David is a member of Senior Faculty at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem since 1987 and Director of Spiritual Education. He currently serves as Rabbinical Educational Consultant for Hillel International, is the founder and Director of Ayeka: Center for Jewish Spiritual Education, and author of Around the Shabbat Table, A Guide to fulfilling and meaningful Shabbat Table Conversations. He lives with his wife Sandra and their six children in Efrat, Gush Etzion.

We read in this week's parsha, "And you will love your neighbor as yourself." (Leviticus 19:18) Rabbi Akiva (Mishnaic period sage) said: "This is the major rule of all of the Torah."

But what about that student who is so annoying. How can I love him? How can I even care about him? All I want to do is to get away from him.

I can be compassionate with my family and friends. Even with strangers on a bus. But there is at least one student who presses my buttons. Let's call him Plony. He's not evil or malicious. He's just a pain, an exasperating socially inept personality. He's always accosting me with questions. He doesn't read my body language when I'm trying to convey to him that I want to go. How am I supposed to be compassionate with him? And Rabbi Akiva – are you really telling me that if I can't find some way to deal kindly with this nudnik then I've undermined the essence of the Torah?

Yes. Everything is at stake. We were created in the Image of God, and charged with both living in the Image of God and creating a world which lives in this Image. Says Rav Kook (first chief rabbi of modern Israel), anyone who becomes impatient, short-tempered, or intolerant has forgotten God, and thus undermined the essence of Torah.

How can I do it? Two approaches:

Maimonides (12th century scholar) suggests a psychological approach to dealing with Plony. What should I do? I should get to know him better, find out more about him. In fact, it would be great if I could learn about his parents and even his grandparents. I have to put him into a larger context. Once I begin to understand more about his whole life, I'll be able to have more compassion for his foibles.

The Hassidic Master, the S'fat Emmet (19th century), suggests a completely different approach. In fact, the solution does not lie with Plony at all. It's not about him, it's about me. After I've worked things out with him, there will inevitably be another Plony and then another. There will always be people who press my buttons. So what do I have to do to get along with him?

Writes the S'fat Emmet, I have to completely reframe the experience.

If the goal in my life is to care about other people (as the verse stated above implies), then I am continually trying to deepen my level of compassion. Rav Kook writes that all of Torah and Talmud learning, and all of the mitzvot, come to deepen my ability to care for others. So now I'm in a difficult predicament, struggling to somehow care for this Plony.

Writes the S'fat Emmet: this difficult student is not what we might refer to as "a student from Hell." Rather, he is "a student from Heaven." He is a messenger from God, an angel, coming to teach me an important lesson: I may have thought that I have become a caring, loving, and compassionate person, but this person comes to teach me that I can go even deeper. I can open up my heart even more. Instead of being frustrated by this person, I should be grateful. They are reminding me to open up my heart even more, and thus live even more in the Image of God. It's really all about my expanding my ability for compassion. The only one limiting me is myself.