Parashat: Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

Parashat: Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Torah Reading: Leviticus 16:1–20:27

“Love your neighbor as yourself: I am יהוה.”

— Leviticus 19:18

This Shabbat, attendees at our Adult Study Retreat are focusing on this verse from this week’s Torah portion, which lies at the center of the Torah. Rabbi Akiva taught that this command, to love your neighbor as yourself, represents the central tenet of the Torah, through which all of our mitzvot flow. Ramban (Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, 13th century Spain) teaches that while we are to understand this verse as hyperbole — one can cannot literally love ones neighbors in the same way as one loves themselves, but rather “one is to love one’s fellow-being in all matters, as one loves all good for oneself.” We must, Ramban teaches, work to overcome a natural desire to have more good things than our neighbor and instead “a person should love to do abundance of good for his fellow-being as he does for himself, and he should place no limitations upon his love for him.”

— Rachel Petroff Kessler