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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
Welcome back everybody to way number 32. Way number 32 is Ohevet HaBriyot, Love Humanity. We have several more loves that were commanded in this Mishnah to maximize life. We have Ohevet HaTzakot, Love Righteousness. We have Ohevet HaMesharim, Love the Straight Path. We have Ohevet HaTochachot, Love Criticism. It's important to use our love in the right ways. Love could be expansive and people could be misguided and misdirected in how to use their love.
The Mishnah is guiding us to how to use that love in the proper way. Love humanity. Love your friend like yourself. The verse in the Torah teaches us, it's not Christian Bible. The Torah tells us, Love your fellow like yourself. How much do you love yourself? Quite a bit. Love your fellow like you love yourself. Love is seeing the virtue in others, we've said. In order to realize your own potential, you have to love humanity. Their success is your success too.
When you're able to go beyond yourself, to be bigger than yourself, to be magnanimous, to be kind and loving with others, you're the one who becomes greater. You open yourself up to a whole world of opportunity. In order to realize your own potential, you have to love humanity. The more you have love in your life, the more happy and efficient you'll be. A person who has love in their life, everything is chirping, everything is singing, everything is happy, everything is dancing. When you have love.
When someone doesn't have love, everything is depressing, everything is down, everything is dark. We want to be people who live lives that are filled with love. And you know what? Yeah, there are times that are difficult. There are times that are stressful. There are times that are not exactly ideal, particularly people who are in a relationship. Any relationship is not always a great day. But if we understand the power of love, a disagreement shouldn't take away from any relationship of love. That's fine.
You can disagree. You don't have to agree. A husband and wife don't have to agree on everything. You can argue. However, the love can continue to grow even through those arguments. You can use an argument to elevate a relationship. You can use a disagreement and, quote, a fight to make the relationship greater. Because you learn to improve. You learn to overcome those misunderstandings and now take your relationship to the next level.
If you don't appreciate the phenomenon of human beings, you're missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. Human beings are fascinating creatures. Sit and talk to people and you'll see that everyone is their own unique, special, beautiful world. And you know what? It most likely is not like yours. It's not like your life. It's not like your way of seeing things. But that's part of the beauty of this world, is that we have however many billions of people in this world and that many opinions.
That's the beauty of it. You don't all have to see everything the same way. But when we talk about loving others, we have to start with loving ourselves. If we don't love ourselves, it's impossible to love others. The Torah teaches us that by telling us, Be'ahav to le'ryacha kamocha. Love your fellow like yourself. That means you're obligated to love yourself. You're obligated to get to know yourself. You're obligated to spend some good quality time with yourself. Have that conversation with yourself. Who am I?
What am I? What am I here for? What do I want to accomplish? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Get to know yourself. On a very, very basic, very basic level, we know ourself pretty well. We know when we're hungry. We know when we're thirsty. We know when we're tired. We know when we want to go someplace, when we want to leave someplace, when we need the restroom. We know everything about ourselves on a very minimal level.
That's an instinctive knowledge. But do we really know our traits? Do we really know if the comment we made was a comment because of jealousy, or if it was from anger, or if it was from kindness? That we have to look into ourselves and get to know ourselves. If we don't know ourselves, it's very difficult to know others. My son asked my rabbi. My son now is in Israel, and I told him, he had some questions, so I said, go talk to my rabbi.
So he went to Eish Atorah, and he went to visit my rabbi. And he asked him, when do I know that I'm ready to get married? He said, do you know that you're ready to get married when you know yourself? Till you don't know yourself, you're not ready to get married. A person needs to know who they are, because if you don't know yourself, there's no way in the world you're going to get to know someone else.
Love helps you get out of the confines of me, and into the expanse of we. I tell this to young men, they get married. I say, stop thinking like one. Think like two. You used to go to the restaurant and buy yourself dinner for one. Now you've got to start thinking in twos, in everything. You have to start thinking beyond yourself. You have to start thinking, I can't come home empty handed. I tell this to young guys, never, ever come home empty handed.
Buy your wife a bar of chocolate, buy your wife a card, buy your wife a balloon, buy your wife a small gift, something, it could be 50 cents. Don't come home empty handed. Now this is more in the beginning of the marriage, and later in the marriage, it's important as well. But when they're young, and they're just putting down the foundations of a new home, it's important for her to feel that security, and that solid foundation. Prioritize your love, appreciate relative value of each virtue.
Realize that all human beings are God's children, every single creature. They don't have to look like you, they don't have to talk like you, and they don't have to think or vote like you. They're all God's children. Aaron, Moses's oldest brother, taught us what it means to love every Jew. He was ohev shalom, v'rodav shalom. He loved peace and he pursued peace. It's not enough to just say, oh, I love peace. Peace is very important.
No, he went out of his way when it wasn't his business to go make peace. He didn't say, I'm just staying out of it, it's not my fight, I'm staying out of it. No. If you really love people, you want to see the peace that people have together, and you go out of your way to make peace with them, to make peace among them. If loving one person is a pleasure, then how great it would be to love all mankind. Don't be stingy, love everyone.