GENESIS | 5:1 image — GEN536 When a person returns to Heaven, he is … a...
GEN536 When a person returns to Heaven, he is … asked if he placed his fellow Jew like a king over himself, or did he push and shove his way through life, taking out the Schulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law – AJL] and showing everyone that he has the right, that he comes first. Although it does not say in the Torah that you should love your friend more than yourself, and it does indicate that you come first, the willingness to waive that right might be included in Ben Azzai’s rule of [this verse]. This teaches you to honor your fellow for the reason that he is created in the image of Hashem. This dimension recognizes no limits, and should even cause you to sometimes place him first. When to place him first is an issue that should be determined by a combination of common sense and good character. One of the best times to place his interests before your own is when his need is greater than ours. This obviously cannot and should not always be the case, but sometimes we are supposed to act like that. If we never act like that, but choose to exclusively think of ourselves first, the world will become an awful place. Although you are not actually obliged to spend even one dollar to save your fellow’s millions, it is certainly the right thing to do, and it is a fulfillment of loving your fellow like yourself, even though you are not obliged to do it. There are certain exceptions to this rule, and sometimes you are absolutely obliged to perform a chesed. Bikur cholim, visiting the sick, and burying the dead are some of those exceptions. [The Gemara in Bava Metzia 30b learns from the verse in (Exodus 18:10): “And you shall inform them of the way in which they shall go in.” The word “they shall go” includes bikur cholim, and the word “in” includes burying the dead. The Gemara asks that these are already included in doing chesed which was learned from the words “of the way.”) The Gemara answers that bikur cholim includes even a person who is Ben Gilo (same age and mazel) which will cause him to take away and contract one sixtieth of the illness from him. Burying the dead includes that even a talmid chacham is obligated to bury the dead at the expense of the honor of his Torah. These are obligations that surpass the parameters of the general obligation to do chesed.] CASTLE 77-8
Source Key | CASTLE |
Verse | 5:1 |
Keyword(s) | image |
Source Page(s) | (See end of excerpt) |