(We have been granted permission to publish Yosef's private letters by his main guide and mentor. What follows is one of those letters.)
Dear
....,
I
found the following teaching in Rabbi Pliskin’s book, “Love Your
Neighbor” – a book which has teachings from each parshah on
loving and relating to others:
Regarding
the mitzvah, Love
your fellow as yourself,
the Baal Shem used to say: “You know that you have many faults,
nevertheless, you still love yourself. That is how you should feel
towards your friend. Despite his faults, love him.” (Likutei
Avraham, p. 221)
Just
as each individual has faults, so too, one can find faults in each
group, including the following fault that you mentioned: Each
group tends to think that it is better in some way than the other
group. This should not stop us, however, from loving the group, and I
will begin by discussing the tribes of Israel, or the modern
versions of the tribes today – the various group and subgroups of
Chassidim, Misnagdim, Sephardim, etc.
It
is natural that people feel closer to their own group, and it is
natural that they admire the special qualities and traits of
their own group. Although this awareness can lead to a
feeling that their group is the “best” of the groups, it
also encourages the members of each group to preserve its own
distinct nature and identity. In
fact, each “tribe” of Israel does have something special and
unique to contribute to Klall Yisrael. Hashem values this diversity;
thus, Hashem wants each tribe to be enthusiastic about its qualities
and to strive to preserve them. An allusion to this idea is found in
the following verse:
“The
Children of Israel shall encamp, each person by his flag according to
the insignia of his ancestor’s house, at a distance surrounding the
Tent of Meeting shall they encamp.” (Numbers 2:2)
“Each
person by his flag” – The flag of each tribe had a distinguishing
color and emblem representing the tribe. (Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch, based on Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah)
The
Tent of Meeting – the Sanctuary – contained the Ark of the
Covenant, and within the Ark of the Covenant were the Tablets of the
Covenant. After the Sanctuary was built, the Twelve Tribes of Israel
were commanded to encamp around the Sanctuary with their respective
flags.
Rabbi
Yaakov Kamenetsky raised the following question:
Why
did the Twelve Tribes have to wait to encamp with their respective
flags until “after” the Sanctuary was built?
He
answers that until the Children of Israel had the Sanctuary – the
unifying center – the differences between the tribes were a
potential source of conflict. If the tribes would have encamped with
their separate flags without a unifying center, there would have been
a surge of “nationalistic” feeling within each tribe, with each
tribe feeling superior to the other. The Sanctuary, however, provided
a central focus to communal life and revealed that, whatever their
differences, the tribes were united by their common service of
Hashem. Once the Sanctuary was built, it was no longer dangerous to
emphasize the unique nature of each tribe through their separate
flags.
Rabbi
Kamenetsky added a related idea: The diversity of the tribes has a
positive role within the Divine plan, and we were reminded of this
after the Exodus, when Hashem split the Sea into twelve different
paths – one for each tribe. This positive role can only be
fulfilled, however, when all the tribes are devoted to a common
spiritual goal, and when there is mutual respect for the unique role
of each tribe in the achievement of that goal.
In
my own life, I have gotten to know various “tribes” of Jews, and
I feel a love for all of them. They are all part of Klal Yisrael, and
I see the beauty in each tribe. I realize that group pride is
necessary in order for the group to function and maintain its
identity, and I am therefore usually forgiving and tolerant if it
leads many people in each group to feel that their group is the best,
for as I stated, there is some truth to this feeling. In a
certain way, each group is the best, which is why Hashem wants each
tribe to exist. It becomes a dangerous feeling, however, when it
leads to disdain for the members of the other tribe, and in such a
case, the problem has to be addressed through the right mussar and
education.
The
fact that the problem exists has never stopped me from loving the
diverse tribes of our people. And when I would visit various tribes
and doven with them, study Torah with them, eat and drink with them,
and sing and dance with them, I felt love for them; moreover, I also
felt loved by them!
I
came across a teaching of the Vilna Gaon in the book “Love Your
Neighbor” which helped me to understand why I felt loved by them.
According to the Vilna Gaon, the
following verse mentions a basic principle of how people react to one
another:
“As
water reflects a face back to a face, so one's heart is reflected
back to him by another.” (Proverbs 27:19).
Whatever
expression is on your face when you look into water, this is the
expression you will see staring back at you. So too, explains the
Vilna Gaon, if you feel positive about another person, that person
will feel positive towards you. But if inwardly you feel negative
towards someone, even if you do not verbally say anything bad to him,
he will have negative feelings toward you.
When
I am with other Jews, I see the good in them; I see the beauty in
them. This is my focus. I therefore feel love for them, and their
sense of my love causes them to increase their love for me, for, “As
water reflects a face back to a face, so one’s heart is reflected
back to him by another.”
There
are rare occasions when I had to speak out forcefully when
individuals within one tribe would speak in a derogatory way about
individuals in another tribe. There were occasions when these
comments were made in a public forum, such as an e-mail discussion
group, and I therefore went into battle to defend the honor and
dignity of the group that was being attacked. The fact that I had to
criticize the members of the group who were speaking in a harmful way
did not cause me lose my love for the group itself. A wrong needed to
be corrected, but the “tribe” is still worthy of my love. I may
not always feel the love when I am in the heat of the battle with the
nudnicks, but I notice that when the battle is over, I still love the
tribe.
May
Hashem help us to see the good within Klal Yisrael and within each of
our tribes.
Yosef
