OU TORAH YU TORAH and NAALEH.COM Loving Likeness By Shira Smiles

Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein Many of us are familiar with the verse, “Ve’ahavta lereyacha kamocha/Love your neighbor as yourself” and with Rabbi Akiva’s statement that this is klal gadol baTorah/a basic principle of the Torah. Two elementary questions immediately arise. First, what makes loving another so quintessential to the entire Torah, and second, how is it possible to love another as you would love yourself. One can further question, as Rabbi Goldwicht z”l does, whether loving oneself is inherently a good thing, and, as Rabbi Reiss verbalizes the common question of how can one command emotions, especially love which takes time to develop.