Ahavas Yisrael

Av/5781

Just a Little Background

Ahavas Yisrael

The Beis HaMikdash was destroyed because of Sina’as Chinum. We have heard this countless times, and we all know that the way to do full Teshuva, the way to rebuild the Beis Hamikdash is with AHAVAS CHINUM.
Now what does Ahavas Chinum even mean? Ahavas Chinum means loving your fellow Jew, because they are Jewish. We don’t need to have another reason. They might be different than you. But no two people are the same!
This happens every year: Chodesh Av. And every year we watch all the events on Tish’ah B’av, and everyone is talking about Ahavas Yisrael and Shmiras Halashon, and accepting each other. But how do we DO this? In what practical way can we increase our Ahavas Yisrael? We want it! We do!! But how?

Raise Your Bar

Practical Tips:

Go out of your way to talk to someone that you wouldn’t otherwise. No pressure to do it for a half hour! Just do it for a minute or two! And hey, you never know, you might actually learn something new!
Get this phrase into your lingo: “YUM, I LOVEEE BEING JEWISH!!” I personally feel the need to say it whenever someone makes me feel Jewish pride. If I notice a Kiddush Hashem at play, or an incredible chessed someone is doing for someone else that can only possibly happen between two Jews, or when someone is just showing incredible Middos, saying this really makes the Ahavas Yisrael real for you.
The following 2 sound similar but they are really different:

o Be less judgmental. This translates as: If someone is acting a certain way that might be weird.

o Accepting someone who is different than you. This translates as accepting different kinds of Jews. Someone from a different sect of Judaism than you;

There are Chassidish, Litvish, Sefardi, Ashkenaz Jews, and we all have different mehalchim.

Different than you doesn’t mean bad. Hashem created Klal Yisrael with 12 Shevatim. This teaches us a lesson. There are so many different kinds of Jews. Isn’t it beautiful, how each sect of Klal Yisrael has different minhagim and does things so differently, and they are all correct in Hashem’s eyes? It blows the mind how Hashem created so many different paths that all lead in the same direction, UP! This is how we can accept others: Hashem, Himself(!) created us differently!

§ If someone is more frum, less frum, more intense, less intense, just don’t judge, and love them! There is a girl who went to two__________ In Hashem’s eyes, both sides are diamonds, while in our eyes, the other side is wrong.

Read the book “Just Love Them”, by Rabbi Yisroel Besser about Rabbi Dovid Trenk, who epitomized Ahavas Yisrael.
Read the book “Living Legacy”, by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer about Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Grossman, who also epitomized Ahavas Yisrael.
Read the book “Emuna with Love and Chicken Soup”, by Sara Yocheved Rigler about Rebbetzin Henny Machlis who ALSO epitomized Ahavas Yisrael!
Your siblings are also part of Klal Yisrael!! No wayyyyy!! Enough said
Be dan likav zechus: when you see something, you are only seeing a screenshot, you can’t possibly know the whole picture, so when you find yourself in a situation when you think someone is doing something wrong, try to replace that thought with “I love them anyway, cuz I don’t really know what’s going on”.
Be extra friendly to people you pass in the street, smile say hi, acknowledge their existence.
If there is someone you know who needs an extra boost, give them a call.
Different ages, show Ahavas Yisrael to people you don’t usually interact with. Like elderly or young.
Learn about other types of Jews and their lifestyle, get to know them. Be more curious than judgmental.
Daven for someone else.
When you call someone on the phone, when you say “Hi, how are you”, add on, “I care!” Because if you think about it, almost all conversations start like this, “Hi, how are you?” “Baruch Hashem, how are you?” “Baruch Hashem!” … and then the conversation starts. Don’t you think that it’s funny how scripted we are? We just say it, like by rote! If someone would answer, “Terrible!” we would be struck dumb, we would just not know how to respond because they just went off script! It comes out of our mouth without us thinking about it, but don’t we care how the other person is doing? WE REALLY DO! So let us show that we do!
Give someone a compliment! It is so SO easy! NEWSFLASH!! WORDS. ARE. FREE! Crazy, no? But words carry such a power! Words can literally build or destroy worlds! Or a person! You know how if you save one person’s life, it’s like you saved the world? So if you help build a person with your words, you are BUILDING A WORLD!! OLAM CHESED YIBANEH! THIS IS NO JOKE!

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Loving Our Fellow Jews

When all of Klal Yisrael joins together for one goal, when everyone unites, and you feel an incredible sense of unity, Hashem is with us. “V’ohavta lireiacha kamocha, Ani Hashem Elokecha” There is a reason it says Hashem in that sentence. Because when we are together, Hashem joins us. For example, when Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach, were kidnapped in Israel in 2014 and were missing, who didn’t say Tehillim??? When Rabbi Bauman went missing after jumping into the water to save his student, we all did our part!! We were all part of something larger!! They are our brothers, of course we care, and we’ll stop whatever we are doing to help!!! No question!!

I was once on a frum bus, and a random woman sat down next to me. Now, usually, when there are strangers on a bus, everyone sits there minding their own business. All of a sudden, something occurred to me. We always stress that “Jews are all brothers” and “we share one heart” and “I am here for you” and “Ahavas Yisrael, love your fellow Jew”. But why do we have to all “be brothers” only when something bad happens?? If we are all “brothers”, then we are here for each other in the bad times and the good times!!! Why does something bad need to happen for us to be “brothers”??? So I am thinking this on the bus, and I am contemplating the fact that all my different “brothers” (Really sisters) on the bus don’t talk to each other on the bus. So I decided I’ll strike up a conversation, and you know what? We ended up schmoozing for a half hour! And it felt so good! She walked away happy, I walked away happy, we said “have a nice life” at the end, because we will probably never meet again, we are from 2 totally different circles, but “Hey, we’re both Jewish!” And that is all that really matters.

You have to have your love based off of something eternal. What is eternal? Your neshama. When you love someone for their neshama inside of them, which is a piece of Hashem. We are all a piece of Hashem, we all have a chelek Eloka Mimaal within us, so we are all one! When you love a neshama, you are unifying one being! If you are going to love someone based off an external factor, the love will not necessarily last, its not real.

Rebbetzin Henny Machlis a”h would host Jews of all stripes and types in her home, no matter their history, sect, religious level, behavior, looks and smell. How was she able to do this? What allowed her to see past a dirty and sometimes mean, loud external, to see the shining neshama that was just begging to be nurtured? What enabled her to do this? Rebbetzin Machlis, herself once shed light on this topic.

Rebbetzin Henny Machlis a”h said the following: “I don’t view the world as people who are good and people who are not good, people who are successful and people who are not successful, because in one minute they can turn around. I read somewhere that a person’s life is like a book. Each year of life is a chapter in the book. Let’s say you meet someone who is 20 years old and you think, “She’s uncouth. She’s a low-life.” Let’s say you take a book off the shelf and rip out the first nineteen chapters. You think you understand the story? You think you know anything about this person? Only when you start reading from the beginning do you know anything about this person. Once you start using this model, you can’t refer to the person as uncouth, as a low life, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Read the whole book. Everyone who walks into your home, who are these people? You don’t know them. You never read their book.”

(Reproduced from "Emunah with Love and Chicken Soup" by Sara Yoheved Rigler with permission of the copyright holders, Artscroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd.).

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