Yiddishe Mamme

The Salant Center THE AGADAH OF THE TALMUD Rabbi Akiva taught that the verse, "Love your friend, like you love yourself," is the primary axiomatic principle of the Torah. That is, love of others is the root of the Torah, from which all of its branches extend. Love of our fellow man is the core that powers every Mitzvah and its fulfillment. The Alter of Kelm, Rabbi Simcha Zissel, offers a beautiful explanation of this verse. The verse tells us to "Love your friend, like you love yourself." Therefore, in order to love others, you must love them in the same way that "you love yourself." A person naturally loves himself. He doesn't need the Torah to command him to love himself. Just as we naturally love ourselves, the Torah instructs us to love others "naturally." That is, he should not love them only because the Torah commands us to love them. No one wants to be "loved" by order of the Torah, because forced love is not sincere love. T...

INTERESTING THEORY - I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning - Ben Stein I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a cre...