Bais HaLevi #27 - Ahavas Yisroel

"In his brilliant essay on ahavas Yisrael, the Beis HaLevi, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, beautifully explains the mitzvah of loving your fellow Jew. Who does the mitzvah apply to? When does it apply? What do I need to do to fulfill it properly? The Beis HaLevi also provides incentives to help us do the mitzvah in the best possible way." -ArtScroll Bais HaLevi on Ahavas Yisroel

Chapters

• 0:29 Introduction to Beis Alevi Study
• 0:47 Concept of Opposing Human Natures
• 1:30 Conflicting Character Traits Explained
• 3:29 Positive Traits Uniting in Righteous People
• 4:19 David HaMelech: Master of Opposing Virtues

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:15

Okay, everybody, welcome back to the Lech Dei Chumotzer podcast. We continue with the Beis Alevi and Ahav Lassi Srel, and we are in the middle with the droshes of the Pesukim about Sineschinom. We continue on page 62 in the article pamphlet which is in the middle of deep in the middle of Perik Yer Aleph, chapter 11. V'yan ki amides, m'nugadim zelazeh. We're talking about how two people, two human beings, could be so distinct, almost like two briyas, as you saw from the Rabbam, one from another. And we're talking, really specifically, honing in on the whole idea of Haychacha, of how one person can have the ability to have clarity that he should give Haychacha, he should give rebuke to his friend. Where's his friend? Why doesn't his friend know? Why doesn't his friend process the mitzvah or the? So the answer is, as we're talking about over here, there's a mitzvah. That's where Hashem made it that people, mankind, are so different one from another, so distinct, and that's why everyone has different processors, different ways of thinking about things, different ways of understanding. So we're going to get more into that, since character traits are contrary one to another. Therefore, every character trait conflicts with its fellow and rejects it, and the two opposites cannot be found in one person.

Speaker 0: 1:34

We find that the nature of the miser, a stingy person, is very far from one who is gluttonous, one who shows off and would never be among those who gorge on meat and take in lots of wine. Why? Because a person who's stingy, a person who's a Compton, he's never going to just go all out and just kick it back and be called shtel or maybe ball out, if you know what that means. They don't do these things. They don't have, they don't possess that need, that understanding. And vice versa, a person who goes all out, this person, he, this person, he's never going to be stingy, he's not going to understand. Or a person can hoard and be worried and nervous and not be giving to everyone at any time. Right, these people are so different, yet we all come from the same place. So how can it be, how can it be so all these different Midrash not just by one who is gluttonous and a person who is stingy?

Speaker 0: 2:37

But this applies to all Midas out there, and the two distinct Midas say, stingy or Gluttonous, they cannot reside together in one person. Only positive character traits and righteousness can unite together to be in one man, each one functioning at the time that is needed and for the purpose it is needed. As we find with righteous people that, with the magnitude of their compassion on the poor and the oppressed, as we find with righteous people that, with the magnitude of their rahmatus, their compassion on the poor and the oppressed and their humility toward other upright people, likewise great is their fortitude and courage against the wicked. And that is the same idea that we find in the Gemara by David the Malach, that David, the same idea that we find in the Gemara by David the King, that David the King says he says, which means he would sit and study Torah, he would humble himself like a worm and when he would go out to battle, he would harden himself like wood, Affecting 800 casualties in one battle. He was a tremendous gibber.

Speaker 0: 4:07

What's the point of this? Which means that he possessed in his body these two extremes, each one available to him when needed, even though it would seem that each trait is naturally opposed to the other. So what we're saying is that, when it comes to Midas Tovis, it's possible that a person works on himself to have both Midas that are going to manifest at different times, at the right times, like we see by David HaMalik for war, for learning in the Bais Medrash. But when it comes to bad midos, different people possess different midos, but one person can't have the midos being giving but being stingy at the same time. So although they both have a good side to it and they both have a bad side to it, but one person can't really possess both of those midos. And as we're going to develop this further, we're going to see how.