Timeless Torah

“If a man takes a wife…and it comes to pass that she does not find favor in his eyes because he discovers in her a promiscuous matter - he should write her a writ of divorce.” (3 opinions – Shammai, Hillel, Rabbi Akiva)
The legal laws of marriage are derived from hints within the verses of divorce!
Spiritual lesson: Torah teaches not how to be divorced, but how to be married.

Whatever is true for marriage is true for all relationships.
Premise: If the different components of our own personality are not in harmony, this will manifest in broken relationships with others.

I have a relationship with someone. Who is the I and who is the other person.
Example: How long will it take by car from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami?
Depends! The outskirts, downtown, etc.

Who am I? I is a very fluid word. I: the neighbor, the co-worker, the close friend, the husband.
Involvement with another (“I know him”).
What does that mean? You see them in the elevator. You’ve worked on projects together. etc.
Perhaps you’re mixing up the worker vs. the person. Don’t confuse your career with you are.

A person ultimately is not his appearance, job, habits, emotions, intellect.
There is a core, an inner person. The neshama, that is literally a piece of G-d. That doesn’t change.
Yet it is expressed in the all the outer layers.
Kabbala identifies the core of who we are.

Common response: To give as good as we get. Why should that be?
Is it effective? Does it solve the problem?
This defensive reaction comes from a layer that wants to protect.

A spiritual perspective: Recognize a common core, a common reality that we all share.
Verse: “As water reflects a face to a face, so does the heart of a human being to another heart.”
Why water? Why not a mirror?
When does water accurately reflect? When it is calm? When it is turbulent it does not.
Other person’s anger awakens that part of me that is bound to you. Hence it awakens my anger.
Solution: “A soft answer turns away anger.”
Show that common good that you share.
This only works if you allow the water to be still. Unlike the mirror here you have a choice. You can see the person as another (no reflection with roiled water), or you choose to recognize your shared roots and destiny.

The issue is not how do you relate to another? How do you view and relate to yourself.
“Love your fellow as yourself.” The key is yourself.

Whenever there is a difficulty look into yourself (even though other people have faults)
Change yourself: the way you react. That happens when you see yourself not as a separate entity.

Emotions have a propensity to grow on their own (yenika)
Negatives can draw energy from a positive thing.
Example: Child does something he shouldn’t do. You register shock, anger
Grows into I am angry at the child. (Or rather than helping a person, it grows into a moral superiority.)
Weeds grow when you put into fertilizer

Mishna: Any love that is dependant…will not last. Any love that is not dependant…
How is the latter possible?
That is not the basis of the love, though there is a perception of commonality…
Adam & Eve were originally one entity. Took a tzela=side (not a rib)

Unlike all other creations that were created in multiples, people were one. Teach that all future people are really part of one whole.
Reason: We are in the image of the ONE G-d.

A is chasing B. C can Kill A. “You can save him with his life.”
Potential murderer may be saved with his own life. Stop the murderer before the ultimate rejection of his commonality with other people, and you saved the murderer.

Midrash: “Choose a humane punishment” means that most people are not beyond salvation from the shared human family. You have to find the spark of humanity that connects that person to all others.
That can only happen if you look beyond the person’s outer layers to their intrinsic value, which is their core.
Bruriah’s advice to husband: Sins (not sinners) should leave the world.
No person can or should be identified with their actions: Though the only way for the potential core to be realized is thru their actions.

Certain plants emerge after 60 years, after there was a fire.
Don’t think you are as good as you imagine, and don’t believe the other is as bad as he seems.
Litmus test of how treat others is the real test of how in sync we are with our own inner core.

Mitzvah “Love your neighbor as yourself ”
Prophets added details. The word “neighbor” includes those who cannot afford your neighborhood too.
Talmud added dozens of scenarios.
Halachists measured the exact hows, whens and wheres of this mitzvah.
Each successive link claimed that no new laws were being imposed. All they did was to make explicit that which was already implied. As the simple became complex, the commandment became more difficult to follow.
Kabbala chartered a new course. Instead of adding new particulars, it turned inward towards the essence. Rather than extrapolating what the law was, it addressed the question of why the law was. Each Jew, it taught, is a part of one large spiritual organism. In effect, each Jew then is a part of you and vice-versa. Understanding this left you with no choice. You must love another - even as you love yourself - because you love yourself. Reject another and you reject yourself.
The mechanics are no longer an issue. Do you only love yourself? Or do you also respect, cherish, honor, overlook your faults and pamper yourself? Don't you know how, when and where to take care of yourself? Now there is no need to spell out the technicalities.

Don’t see the person from the outside in, but from the inside out.
Obstacle to overcome is centeredness which creates skewed perspective.