[Avodah] Ramban - Love your fellow as yourself

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 06:24:36PM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: I am having difficulty understanding the Ramban's commentary to Vayirka
: (19:18). He starts out saying that the commandment cannot be understood
: literally because the heart can not love another as oneself. Then he
: concludes by saying that this commandment is to remove the jealousy
: from your heart so that there is no limitation on the love you have for
: another person. This seems to be a direct contradiction.

So that jealousy will not be a limitation. I would say that in the reisha
the Ramban says man hasn't enough koach to do literally love another
person equally to himself, and in the seifa he says that therefore the
chiyuv is to remove those things that get in the way of the koach we
do have.

With that, see this part of your translation again:
:                  But if he loves him completely, he will want his beloved
: friend to gain riches, properties, honor, knowledge and wisdom. However
: [because of human nature] he will still not want him to be his equal,
: for there will always be a desire in his heart that he should have more
: of these good things than his neighbor. Therefore Scripture commanded
: that this degrading jealousy should not exist in his heart, but 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.

You also gave me an excuse to quote from my translation of the haqdamah to
Shaarei Yosher <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/ShaareiYosher.pdf>. The Ramban,
as I'm explaining him, is also talking about the mitzvah in terms of
lowering the barrier between seld and other, even though self comes first.

    HOWEVER, what of a person who decides to submerge his nature,
    to reach a high level so that he has no thought or inclination in
    his soul for his own good, only a desire for the good of others? In
    this way he would have his desire reach the sanctity of the Creator,
    as His Desire in all of the creation and management of the world
    is only for the good of the created, and not for Himself at all. At
    first glance one might say that if a person reached this level, he
    would reach the epitome of being whole. But this is why our Sages of
    blessed memory teach us in this Midrash that it is not so. We cannot
    try to be similar to His Holiness in this respect. His Holiness is
    greater than ours. His Holiness is only for the created and not for
    Himself because nothing was ever added to or could ever be added to
    the Creator through the actions He did or does. Therefore all His
    Desire could only be to be good to the created.

    But what He wants from us is not like this. As Rabbi Aqiva taught us,
    "your life comes first." 6 [Our sages] left us a hint of it when
    they interpret the scripture "Love your neighbor as yourself" in
    a negative sense, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your
    peers." In terms of obligation, it is fitting for a person to place
    his own good first. There are also grounds for asserting that in
    the very foundation of the creation of Adam, the Creator planted in
    him a very great measure of propensity to love himself. The sages
    of truth 7 describe the purpose of all the work in this language,
    "The Infinite wanted to bestow complete good, that there wouldn't
    even be the embarrassment of receiving." This discussion reveals
    how far the power of loving oneself goes, that "a person is more
    content with one qav [a unit of measure] of his own making than
    [he would be of] two qavin that are given to him" -- even if from
    the Hand of the Holy One! -- if the present is unearned. From here
    it should be self-evident that love of oneself is desired by the
    Holy One, even though "the wise shall walk because of it and the
    foolish will stumble over it." 8...

    Although at first glance it seems that feelings of love for oneself
    and feelings of love for others are like competing co-wives 12 one
    to the other, we have the duty to try to delve into it, to find the
    means to unite them, since Hashem expects both from us. This means [a
    person must] explain and accept the truth of the quality of his "I",
    for with it the statures of [different] people are differentiated,
    each according to their level. The entire "I" of a coarse and lowly
    person is restricted only to his substance and body. Above him is
    someone who feels that his "I" is a synthesis of body and soul. And
    above him is someone who can include in his "I" all of his household
    and family. Someone who walks according to the way of the Torah, his
    "I" includes the whole Jewish people, since in truth every Jewish
    person is only like a limb of the body of the nation of Israel. And
    there are more levels in this of a person who is whole, who can
    connect his soul to feel that all of the world and worlds are his
    "I", and he himself is only one small limb in all of creation. Then,
    his self-love helps him love all of the Jewish people and [even] all
    of creation. In my opinion, this idea is hinted at in Hillel's words,
    as he used to say, "If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I
    am for myself, what am I?" 13 It is fitting for each person to strive
    to be concerned for himself. But with this, he must also strive to
    understand that "I for myself, what am I?" If he constricts his "I"
    to a narrow domain, limited to what the eye can see [is him], then
    his "I" -- what is it? Vanity and ignorable. But if his feelings are
    broader and include [all of] creation, that he is a great person and
    also like a small limb in this great body, then he is lofty and of
    great worth. In a great engine even the smallest screw is important
    if it even serves the smallest role in the engine. For the whole is
    made of parts, and no more than the sum of its parts.

    FOOTNOTES (mine):

    6 When faced by a moral dilemma in having to choose between two
    lives to save, one is not obligated to sacrifice one's own life for
    the sake of another. Rabbi Aqiva learns this from the verse "and your
    brother shall live with you" (Leviticus 25:36), which implies that the
    obligation to save another is only where he can then live "with you".

    7 i.e. the Kabbalists. Rav Shimon is quoting Pischei Chokhmah ch. 4

    8 A rabbinic idiom. The Torah occasionally says things that the
    wise can understand and grow from even though those less wise or
    with a foolish disposition are likely to misunderstand the verse
    and be lead further astray.
...
    12 The term used here is that used for two wives in a polygamous
    marriage arrangement. "Tzaros", literally, "troubles".

    13 Pirqei Avot 1:14


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Never must we think that the Jewish element
micha at aishdas.org        in us could exist without the human element
http://www.aishdas.org   or vice versa.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch