Loving One's Neighbor: Torah Sages Who Walked the Talk

Two true stories of Torah sages who embodied the mitzvah of “ve’ahavta le’re’acha kamocha—loving your fellow as yourself” — by helping others with humility.

A Humble Act of Kindness

Rabbi Eliyahu Roth lived in the famous Meah Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem. Not far from his home, across the street, lived Rabbi Moshe Rosenblatt, who ran a large gemach (acronym for gemilut chasadim, a free-loan fund for those in need) out of his house.

One day, when Rabbi Eliyahu was already very elderly, a young Torah scholar who had come specially to the neighborhood approached him in the street and asked him:

“Where is the Rosenblatt family’s gemach?”

This gemach was well known and, as mentioned, was just across the street from Rabbi Eliyahu's home, outside which he was standing. Its door was a distinctive green color. Rabbi Eliyahu could easily have answered simply, telling the visitor, “It’s the green door across the street.”

But instead, he picked up the cane he relied on for walking and set out with the young man. The two of them crossed the road together, with Rabbi Eliyahu personally leading the visitor all the way to the entrance of the Rosenblatt home.

The young man thanked Rabbi Eliyahu warmly and asked him:

“Why did you trouble yourself so much for me? You could have just said it’s the green door across the street!”

Rabbi Eliyahu answered with disarming simplicity:

“It is written in the holy Torah that when a Jew performs a mitzvah in order to do the will of God, his Creator, he attaches himself to the Shechinah (Divine Presence). When you asked me how to get to the gemach, I wanted to exert myself physically so that I could be a vehicle for the Divine Presence that much longer!”

Caring for a Young Child

A similar story is told about Rabbi Yisrael Yaakov Fisher, the rabbi of Yerushalayim's chareidi community.

One Shabbat evening,  Rabbi Fisher was returning from a shalom zachar—the traditional gathering to celebrate the birth of a baby boy—held at the home of the Zilberman family.

Rabbi Fisher had nearly reached his own house when a small child, no more than eight years old, innocently asked him:

“Where is the Zilberman shalom zachar?”

Rabbi Fisher seemed to forget his seventy years, his frailty, and his exhaustion. He turned right around and walked the entire long route back with the child, personally accompanying him all the way to the door of the Zilberman home.

“Ve’ahavta Le’re’acha Kamocha” in Action

This is how one fulfills the mitzvah of loving one's neighbor as oneself, by helping another Jew without calculations or excuses.

Adapted from material courtesy of the Dirshu website