And All The People I Love (An Eikev Thought)

We are commanded to love G-d. This is in last week's parsha - Eikev. I posed the question at a meal - How can we be commanded to love G-d? How do we do that? Someone said, "By cleaving to talmidei chachamim". Someone else said, By keeping mitzvot," someone else said, "By emulating G-d." My contribution was from the Rambam. He says that we come to love G-d by counting up and appreciating the positive things about Him, by looking at the good He does. Rav Noach Weinberg said that the Rambam is providing us a model of how to love other people. If you look at all the good in a person, you can come to love them. I'd like to add that we need to do this with our selves as well.

When we're told to love G-d and to fear G-d there is an extra word -"et," which always comes to add and include something to what is is being proscribed. We're taught that the "et" comes to include talmidei chachamim.

We are commanded to eat, be satisfied, and then bless G-d. Many rabbis (Tosafot Shantz, Beit Yisrael in the name of The Rokeach) say that here the word "et" comes to include the ba'al habayit. Just as we must be grateful to G-d for the food we eat, so too we must be thankful to the host of our meal.

The Shemen HaTov turns both of these ideas on their head. He cites sefarim who say that the inclusion of talmidei chachamim means that they too must fear and love G-d (and should not be arrogant and think of themselves as gods). He adds that the "et" which includes the host of a meal also mandates that he must be grateful. To whom must he be grateful. We already know that he must be grateful to G-d. Rabbi Bernard Weinberger, author of Shemen HaTov, says that a host is a host should bless G-d for having merited taking a guest into his home, having the honor of having someone at his table!