Rebuilding Series: Loving Overpowers Disliking. By Marshall Lestz

Rebuilding Series: Loving Overpowers Disliking. By Marshall Lestz

Good Morning Everybody,

We don’t have a mitzvah to like everything about our fellow Jews… each of their traits, habits, choices, opinions, idiosyncrasies. No, that’s not the mitzvah.

The mitzvah is to love the PERSON, despite all the things we don’t like.

Which, when you think about it, is actually probably EASIER than trying to like everything about them.

Isn’t that what we do with family members? We don’t necessarily like every little thing they say, do, or don’t do. But we love them anyway. 

Let that sink in for a second… There are people in our lives, people living under our roof, who do things, say things and think things that we don’t like, on a REGULAR BASIS… and we love them anyway. This proves that we can dislike certain qualities or actions of a person and still LOVE them.

And if you want to say, “Well, come on, that’s just because they’re family; we have to love them.” Well, we Jews are family too, aren’t we? 

When you look at it this way, perhaps that whole worldwide Jewish unity and harmony thing isn’t as far-fetched as it seems….

Maybe, just maybe, the more we see each other as family, then those things that we don’t like about each other won’t be grounds for turning away or disconnecting from each other. Because we’ll still love each other and we’ll always stick together. 

After all, that’s what families do.

Have a heartfelt and joyful day everybody, and a super Shalom-filled Shabbos!

Marshall

Keep on Building!