There are two mitzvot in the Torah that, although we may not have the opportunity to perform them these days, we can still study them in order to learn important lessons. There is a mitzva in Parshat Ki Tzeitzei to help load an animal. If you see someone on the road who can not load their animal there is a positive commandment to help them load their animal. There is another mitzva in Parshat Mishpatim to help unload an animal which has fallen under its burden. If you happen upon someone with an animal that collapsed under its burden, there is a mitzva to help unload the animal and alleviate its pain.
The Gemarah in Baba Metzia discusses a case where you are presented with both of these mitzvot at the same time but adds a twist. The Gemarah asks what if you are presented with a situation of “אוהב לפרוק ושונא לטעון“ “a friend to unload and someone you hate to load”? This refers to happening upon two people at the same time, a friend who needs to have their donkey unloaded because the animal has collapsed under its burden and someone you hate who needs their donkey to be loaded. Which should come first? (The Gemarah asks elsewhere how it could be that you hate this person since the Torah says you aren’t allowed to hate anyone? The Gemarah explains that it is referring to someone who you have seen commit a sin after warning them not to, and they have still not done teshuva. Therefore you are allowed to hate them. More on this later). Seemingly the Halacha in this case should be that you should first unload the animal of your friend because the animal is in pain, since there is a Torah prohibition against causing an animal pain, and then after that help load the animal of your enemy. However, this is not the case. The Gemarah rules that first you should help your enemy to load their animal and override the prohibition of causing an animal pain. The reason given for this is to bend your will (so as not to hate him).
Tosfos asks on this that we learned that you are allowed to hate this person, so why do you need to bend your will? He answers by explaining that from the hatred you have towards this person for the sin they have committed you may begin to actually hate the person themselves. Tosfos quotes a pasuk in Mishlei “כמים הפנים לפנים כן לב־האדם לאדם” “just as the water reflects the face of a person, so too the heart of a person reflects your heart”. This means that a person’s attitude and feelings towards you will reflect your feelings and attitude towards them. Therefore since on some level you hate this person for the sin they have committed, they may come to hate you. You may reflect some of this hatred back at them in a way that is inappropriate and goes beyond what is allowed and this will further escalate to a full blown animosity. The Torah says that therefore we must go out of our way to do chessed to this person to make sure we don’t come to actual hatred and we must bend our will towards loving them.
We can learn many lessons from this Tosfos. First we see what it means when the Torah says to hate someone who sins. It means to hate their actions and the fact that they sinned against Hashem. This doesn’t mean we should have any hatred towards the person on a personal level or that we should treat them any differently. On the contrary, we are specifically commanded to go out of our way to help this person to make sure we don’t come to have any negative feelings towards them. The Torah went so far as to override other aveiros to make sure we don’t have any negative feelings directed at this person who has sinned.
We can also gain tremendous insight into the priorities of the Torah from this Gemarah. We see from here the severity with which the Torah views harboring hatred towards a fellow Jew. It is so severe that even the possibility of such a feeling prompted the Torah to allow us to transgress other prohibitions. The Alter of Slabodka explains why this is. He quotes a Medrash that says “לֹא נִתְּנוּ הַמִּצְווֹת אֶלָּא לְצָרֵף בָּהֶם אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת” “the mitzvot were only given to bring people together”. He goes on to explain that it therefore makes sense that the Torah sometimes allows us to transgress a commandment if it means bringing people closer together.
This idea isn’t just limited to people who have sinned or to those whom we have strong feelings of hatred. The feelings of hatred the Gemarah is discussing are very subtle. Someone on the level to hate someone for their sins would not easily come to hate another person inappropriately and if they did the feeling would be very subtle. Nevertheless we see that even in this case the Torah tells us it must be avoided at all costs. This means even if we just “don’t like that person” or if we have any negative feelings towards them we must make every effort to remove these feelings from our heart. Maybe they dress or talk differently so that there is a feeling of friction. Or perhaps you just never quite got along. In these situations as well the Gemarah rules that we must first help this person we” hate” in order to remove these feelings from our hearts. And if we are commanded to transgress other sins in order to avoid these more subtle feelings of hatred, surely we must make every effort to go out of our way to try to reconcile with those with whom we have real hatred. The Torah understood the slippery slope of hatred and realized that even if right now we just don’t like this person and can’t quite put our finger on why, the other person will pick up on that and return the same feeling towards us, thereby further escalating the tension and tearing Klal Yisroel apart.
It should be noted also that the antidote the Torah provides us to end this cycle of hatred is to do chessed for the other person and to do it with an open heart. By performing an act of chessed for this person to whom we feel negatively and by helping them when they are vulnerable, we are creating a connection with this person that will help us remove the hatred from our hearts. Since we rarely meet anyone with a donkey, it would be easy to think that these mitzvos are not relevant in our lives today. Yet we see that we must be vigilant in examining our feelings and motivations in any situation. The Torah is teaching us that taking a step back and trying to put our negative feelings aside for a moment in order to help this person will open our eyes to the insidious appearance and effect of hatred.