We tend to be most agitated not when someone lies about us — but when they see something true about us that we’ve tried to keep hidden.
In this deeply honest shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz brings us into the inner world of a maamar that reframes what it really means to “love your fellow as yourself.” At the core is one of the most disarming truths in Chassidus:
Just as I see my flaws — and choose not to hold them against myself — so too, I must learn to look at you.
Real Ahavat Yisrael doesn’t mean being blind to another’s faults. It means choosing not to give them emotional weight. Just as we instinctively cloak our own shortcomings in compassion, we are asked to hold that same surrounding love (ahavah makif) toward others.
In this Shiur:
- Why we tolerate our own flaws — but resent others for noticing them
- The mystical role of “surrounding love” (ahavah makif)
- How to love someone without denying their reality
- What “don’t do to your friend what is hateful to you” really means
- The radical Chassidic view of compassion as a conscious override
If we can learn to hold others with the same soft hands we use to carry our own hearts, then we begin to fulfill the mitzvah not only with intention, but with integrity.
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