mitzvah in the Torah is "don't hate
your brother in your heart." If I hit someone, God forbid,
am I violating the law of hating? Maimonides says you are not
permitted to hit, but not because of the mitzvah against hatred.
Not being permitted to hit is another law.
The law we're talking about is that you're not permitted
to hate in your heart. If I hit someone and I hate him at
the same time, I am violating 2 laws. You are not permitted
to hate, and you are not permitted to hit, but one has nothing
to do with the other.
There were a few people who wrote down all 613 commandments.
Maimonides was one. Another was "Chinuch" who was
in Spain later on, and he says hatred in the heart is the
cause of a lot of evil things between people. This is the
cause of the "sword between man and his brother."
In those days people would tell on each other to the police,
give each other to the government. He says this is the lowest
and ugliest and most repulsive emotion there can be in anyone
who has a little bit of sense.
The Talmud says an evil eye, evil spirits, and hatred of
people can really kill you. That can mean two things. If I
fight with people there might be a whole war, and I might
be killed, but that is not the real point. It is possible
to die from hatred. Who is the strongest of the strong? The
strongest of the strong is someone who can love someone who
hates him. Turning the other cheek means I walk up to you
and say, "You hit me once, thank you, so hit me again."
According to my theory, if someone hits you, say, "Will
you please take your paws off." I'll tell you, if a little
man hates me, should I hate him back, because he hates me?
He should cut me down to his size?
The Talmud says something even stronger. When you hate somebody
you are really killing. You don't have to use a knife, you
know. According to Maimonides, I transgress whenever I hate
somebody. If I hate five times a day, I transgress five times
a day.
Here is another interpretation of this mitzvah. Since the
Torah says 'love your neighbor as yourself,' naturally you
cannot hate. You shouldn't have to say it, so why does the
Torah say 'don't hate your brother?' The contradiction probably
didn't bother Maimonides very much. Because there is one law
of loving, and another against hating.
The Yad HaK'tana, was another little holy man who wrote down
all 613 mitzvah, about four hundred years ago. He says anything
which you keep in your heart grows in a very deep way. If
you hate someone in your heart and you don't tell him, and
you don't try somehow to salve it, it will grow until it will
eat you up. If you tell the person, even if you still hate
him, at least the hatred won't grow, won't become stronger.
If you tell him, "I hate you," at least there is
contact between you. Then he says, "What do you do if
you hate people for no reason, and you can't get out of it?"
The only way out is loving people for no reason. Just love,
because love is a very holy fire that will drag out all the
darkness of hatred.
mitzvah in the Torah is "don't hate
your brother in your heart." If I hit someone, God forbid,
am I violating the law of hating? Maimonides says you are not
permitted to hit, but not because of the mitzvah against hatred.
Not being permitted to hit is another law.
