BS’D
We search long and hard for the pathway towards Shalom; inner wholesomeness filled with love and acceptance. Yet Shalom implies peace within oneself and among the Jewish people. Within each of us lives inner conflicts as we yearn for inner harmony. The uniting factor is to find Hashem in everything.
In order to love another we must love ourselves. The Ba’al Shem Tov HaKadosh teaches that love of the Jewish people is identical to the love of Hashem. Being that we all carry a part of Hashem we are an extension of G-dliness and should love that part in another unconditionally.
We continuously seek to sustain our soul with love, understanding, acceptance, sympathy and other forms of positive validation. Yet when we run low and those around us cannot provide us with it we should ‘bypass’ (literally do spiritual bypass surgery) and run to Hashem for nourishment.
Love is a gift through which we bind one to another. We were taught the beautiful lesson of love when our soul lived on high. We witnessed how fire and water and other opposing forces lived in peace to sanctify Hashem’s name through complete self-sacrifice.
Jewish souls are intertwined with one another; in each soul there a component of every other soul. Therefore we are commanded to love one another to the fullest extent; the power of brotherly then multiplies and creates a world of love.
