Teshuva

Regarding the verse (in Vayikra 19:18) "and you shall love your fellow as yourself: I am Hashem," Rabbi Akiva (Talmud Yerushalmi, Nedarim 9:4) said that is a great principle of Torah. The Hebrew original of the verse is:

וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ: אֲנִי, יְהוָה

Rabbi Akiva was following Hillel, who taught: {Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 31a}

What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the entire Torah. The rest is Perush. Go and learn it.

This is a rather famous dictum, expounding on the above verse in a negative way to make it more practical. Hillel has a point, the verse is asking for a modification. The following is mine:

וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹ שאהבתיךָ, אֲנִי, יְהוָה

In translation:

And you shall love your fellow as I have loved you, I am Hashem!

In other words, we read כָּמוֹךָ {as yourself} as shorthand for כָּמו שאהבתיךָֹ {as I have loved you}. After all, the verse starts with וְאָהַבְתָּ, and ends with אֲנִי, יְהוָה. Who, then, is רֵעֲךָ?

There are two interpretations, leading to two Mishpatim. One רֵעֲךָ is Hashem, the subject of the subordinate clause. Interestingly, Rashi indicates this interpretation in his commentary to the saying of Hillel. It follows that

You shall love Hashem, just as Hashem has loved you!

and makes eminent sense. Of course, the down to earth meaning of רֵעֲךָ, your fellow human being, the human being who wants to be רֵעֲךָ, remains and leads indeed to a great principle of Torah:

You shall love your fellow human being, just as Hashem has loved you!

I would venture to say that the two Mishpatim together span the entire Torah. The rest is Perush. Go and learn it.

תַּחַת, כִּי-שָׂנְאוּ דָעַת; וְיִרְאַת יְהוָה, לֹא בָחָרוּ

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