The Impossible Commandment: A Path to True Love

"Love your fellow as yourself" – a commandment that seems impossible to fulfill in fact reveals the deepest secret of our existence.

When we encounter the commandment "ve'ahavta lere'acha kamocha" – "love your fellow as yourself" – the first reaction of many is bewilderment. How can one love another as strongly as oneself? It seems impossible, contrary to human nature.

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, known as the Baal HaSulam, one of the greatest kabbalists of the twentieth century, offers a revolutionary view of this commandment. In his famous work "Matan Torah" (The Giving of the Torah) he writes:

"The whole Torah was given only in order to bring us to the state of 'love your fellow as yourself.' But how is this possible? After all, human nature is such that a person loves himself first of all, and all his movements stem from self-love."

The key to understanding this commandment, in the view of the Baal HaSulam, lies in recognizing our true nature. In the essay "Ma'amar LeSiyum HaZohar" he writes:

"The soul of a person is a part of the Divine light, and in their true essence all souls are joined into a single whole. Our sense of ourselves as separate beings is an illusion created by egoism. When we overcome egoism, we begin to sense the unity of all souls."

It turns out that the commandment to love your fellow as yourself is not a contradiction of nature but, on the contrary, a return to our true nature, to a state in which there is no division between "I" and "you."

In the work "Shlavei HaSulam" the Baal HaSulam explains:

"The path to fulfilling the commandment 'love your fellow' passes through a gradual expansion of consciousness. First a person must learn to see the good of another as his own, then to feel another's pain as his own, and ultimately to realize that there is no difference at all between himself and the other, for all souls are parts of one whole."

This explanation echoes the teaching of other sages. The Rambam wrote that true love of one's fellow is expressed in concrete actions: caring for his property as for one's own, wishing for him what one wishes for oneself.

Rav Ashlag adds one more important aspect. In the work "The Giving of the Torah" he writes:

"The commandment to love one's fellow is not merely a moral demand, but a law of spiritual reality. When we join with others in love, we join with the Source of all souls – with the Almighty."

Thus the "impossible commandment" turns out to be the key to the deepest understanding of how the world is structured and of our place in it. It does not contradict our nature, but returns us to our true essence – the unity of all souls in the Divine light.