[Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to
me, so I am sharing here.

H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed)
http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/

As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would
R' Aryeh Levine do?

(Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.)

-Micha

    Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew
    By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

    Loving Your Fellow Jew

    Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the
    issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth,
    searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other.
    This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat
    Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat
    Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is
    because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow
    Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that
    Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go
    or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you
    have to take.

    There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to
    speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what
    you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's
    true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have
    to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at
    first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align
    yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural.

    Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of
    and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate
    you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found
    her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have
    to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your
    praise doesn't do more harm than good.

    The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with
    your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah
    ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see
    she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with
    her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver
    after four." Help her.

    Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club:
    the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you
    become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get
    hot. You both need help carrying heavy things.

    In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency
    network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers
    are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often
    have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are
    not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming
    part of the people whom they help.

    In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children
    recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to
    take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim
    and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture
    an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the
    gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me
    asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As
    different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them
    through caring for their physical needs.

    Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their
    physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat
    Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the
    "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree
    with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You
    can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of
    the good you see within them.

    Reb Aryeh Levin

    A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in
    Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved
    for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his
    tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly
    with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular
    Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s,
    Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited
    and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time
    went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned
    for Zionist activities. They too loved him.

    Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs):
    "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know
    how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old,
    and what does it do? It smiles back.

    It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became
    ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't
    look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to
    lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading),
    he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want
    to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for
    the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach,
    a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the
    person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't
    have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a
    month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were
    real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them.

    Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of
    the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of
    the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed
    strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin
    of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting
    desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the
    ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not
    let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to
    his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood
    his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned.

    And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for
    him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his
    community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally,
    they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day.
    Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket
    pockets and went.

    When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of
    gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I
    don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with
    the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what
    they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put
    the food down and quietly left.

    Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was
    very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb
    Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly
    just because I brought him food. He's so principled."

    If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If
    you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond.

    At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh
    actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car
    to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't
    necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him.

    So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find
    what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it.

    This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just
    some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people
    from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95%
    of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what
    to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I
    like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my
    interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really
    looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem?

    Self-Expansion

    Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger.

    Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into
    a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said,
    "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to
    live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's
    not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not
    supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to
    speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's
    so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel
    like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't
    read. I have nothing in common with them."

    Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the
    apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said.
    "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The
    apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh,
    did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians
    who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she
    liked them so much.

    She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she
    saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She
    asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The
    old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said,
    "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of
    rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back."

    Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was
    there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said,
    "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody
    buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli
    rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So
    the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went
    into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick
    metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you
    put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of
    rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You
    cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on
    it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those
    times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask,
    "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice.

    So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it
    came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph
    album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional
    photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It
    was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she
    came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat
    morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson
    when he was home from the army, which was their first experience
    talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers
    tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I
    didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This
    lady expanded my universe."

    That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different
    from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons:
    One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could
    have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we
    are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling
    to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations,
    you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give
    honor to your fellow Jew.

    Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard.
    Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him.
    Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my
    time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my
    own views. Why should I be different?"

    I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is
    idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's
    idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy
    for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy
    minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my
    ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself,
    you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form
    of all idol worship.