Getting to Know Your People - 004 Loving A Convert: Achieving Universal Love

The Mitzvah To Love A Convert

The Rambam^[1] writes that there is a mitzvah to love a ger (a convert), and that this is included in the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisrael.

Loving a ger is a novel concept to Ahavas Yisrael. A ger doesn’t come from Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov, yet there is still a mitzvah to love him. It expands our mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael. We would assume that ahavas Yisrael is only to those who descended from the Avos, yet the mitzvah applies to even those who annex themselves onto the Jewish people, those who are not originally descendant from the Avos.

In certain aspects, a ger retains his status as a gentile. He has no yichus (lineage to his past).^[2] In spite of this, we are still commanded to love him. This concept, then, needs to be understood well.

“Ahavas Yisrael” Isn’t Everything

The Sefer Toldos writes that everything that exists in Creation can either purify the impure, or it can contaminate that which was previously pure; this is personified by the law of parah adumah (the red heifer; its blood and ashes is sprinkled onto a person contaminated from a corpse, in order for him to become purified). The parah adumah purifies the impure that it is sprinkled upon, but it contaminates the Kohen who sprinkles it, who had been previously pure. It is a chok (law) of the Torah that cannot be understood logically.

Taking this further: when someone is “above” a certain matter because he is on a higher spiritual plane, if he descends from his level, it is impurity, on his level. And if someone is “below” a certain spiritual level, if he connects himself to the level above, that is what purifies him.

Any spiritual descent is a degree of spiritual impurity. Thus, the parah adumah purifies those who are impure, because they are “below” a certain spiritual level due to their contamination; while those who use the parah adumah to purify others are contaminated through it, for they were previously “above” it, and they lowered their spiritual level in involving themselves with it.

The above concept has applications to all areas of Avodas Hashem as well, according to sefer Toldos. So it can also apply to ahavas Yisrael.

Ahavas Yisrael can purify the impure, and this is what we discussed until now, that someone who previously did not love can achieve love, through gaining Ahavas Yisrael. When there is an absence of love for other Jews (or even worse, when there is actual hatred for another Jew), this is like a spiritual impurity, for it is disparity. Ahavas Yisrael creates unity, which takes the impure out of their situation of disparity, and purifies them.

That is all one side of the coin: ahavas Yisrael “purifies the impure”. But there is also another side of the coin, as the Toldos writes: that it can also “contaminate the pure”. ahavas Yisrael is not just about “purifying the impure” – it is not just about revealing love to other Jews in situations that there was previously no love. If a person thinks that this is all there is to ahavas Yisrael, his ahavas Yisrael will be detrimental in the long run. He will become misguided in all his ahavas Yisrael and he will act inappropriately with it.

On a deep note, one needs to learn how to be a little “above” the level of Ahavas Yisrael – if not, he will always be “below” the point of Ahavas Yisrael, and then his Ahavas Yisrael will have too much of a hold him and cause him to act improperly. And because this person can’t go “above” Ahavas Yisrael, he will always remain “below” it - and he will never really acquire it at all.

So a person has to see how ahavas Yisrael can “purify” him as well as how it can “contaminate” him. Practically speaking, one has to reveal more ahavas Yisrael to others [as was discussed in the previous chapters], but on the other side of the coin, a person has to understand that if his ahavas Yisrael is misguided, it will “contaminate” him [in other words, one’s ahavas Yisrael can be detrimental to him if he does not see the two sides of the coin to ahavas Yisrael].

This is the outline of the concept, and now will try to make this concept more practical.

Ahavas Yisrael/Love of Jews and Achdus/Universal Unity

Ahavas Yisrael can be detrimental if the focus is just on love of Jews alone and there is no aspiration to love the other nations. This prevents the all-inclusive achdus, the unity of Creation, which is the ultimate purpose and goal of Hashem’s Creation.

If there would only be Jews in the world, there would be nothing wrong with only having Ahavas Yisrael, and in fact, it would be wonderful, if that was the situation. But the fact is that there are gentiles in the world as well.  In the future, the entire world – all of Creation - will declare Hashem’s Name as one, thus, there will be a universal unity. Thus, the goal of ahavas Yisrael does not end with ahavas Yisrael. The ultimate purpose of ahavas Yisrael is to reach achdus (unity), and ahavas Yisrael should be viewed as the “tool” to get there.

So if a person remains with just ahavas Yisrael, he has actually created more disparity, because he never reached the goal of it all, which is to unify with the world. There is an even deeper goal of the avodah, which is to unify with all of Creation – even plants and rocks. And finally, the deepest level of the avodah is to unify with the Creator, after all of this has been achieved.

In our current 6000 year era, our focus has always been on Ahavas Yisrael, and this is actually what caused sinas chinam (baseless hatred), which destroyed the Beis HaMikdash.[3] But in the future, there will be unity with the world. The third Beis HaMikdash will be on a higher level than the first two temples, which will be all-inclusive, where all of the nations in the world can come serve Hashem. And on a more subtle note, we see that even in the first and second Beis HaMikdash, gentiles were allowed to donate korbonos, so we see that there is already a concept of universal unity even within the current 6000 year era. In the future, all gentiles will be allowed to ascend the Temple Mount, because they will have a connection with the Beis HaMikdash.

A Long History of Disparity In Creation

When Hashem gave us the Torah at Har Sinai, the Sages said that it was at that moment that the gentiles began to hate us, for “sinai” is from the word “sinah” (hatred), which hints to the hatred of gentile towards Jew, which descended onto the world at that time.   When Hashem gave us the Torah, it is written, “I am Hashem your G-d, Who took you out of Egypt.” The giving of the Torah made the Jewish people unique, and that caused the gentiles to hate us.

There was unity in the Jewish people when we stood at Sinai, but at the same time, there was disparity between the Jewish people and the nation. There was ahavas Yisrael, for each Jew stood at Har Sinai “with one heart”, unified with each other, but there was not yet achdus in Creation, for now there was a separation between Jews and gentiles.

The disparity between Jews and the other nations really started way before this; it merely became intensified at Har Sinai when we received the Torah and were officially deemed apart from the other nations.

The disparity really began as soon as Avraham Avinu asked Hashem for a sign that his descendants will be protected by Hashem. The Ramban says that because he questioned Hashem, he was punished for lacking total emunah in Hashem, and now, history would become altered. Now his descendants would have to endure a 400 year exile in Egypt before they would go out of it. This already created a separation between Jews and gentiles, because after Avraham’s request for a sign, Hashem told him that now that he had said this, only Yitzchok is the real offspring of Avraham, while Yishmael was disregarded. This was the first disparity that started among Avraham’s descendants, in which Yitzchok and Yishmael were given different status.

Just as a person loves himself, so did all souls love each other, when we are contained in Adam’s soul at the start of Creation. In our original state, there was a love between all soul, and this was not just ahavas Yisrael, but a more complete level, which is the universal achdus. It was the state in which all souls, Jew and gentile alike, were unified into one unit. The concept of ahavas Yisrael did not yet exist. Ahavas Yisrael only started with Avraham Avinu, of whom Hashem chose his descendants to become His chosen people to receive the Torah. This disparity between the Jews and the gentile nations was even more magnified with Yaakov Avinu, whose descendants are entirely the Jewish people, apart from the descendants of Esav and Yishmael.

The Head and the Rest of the Body

The Jewish people are called “raishis”, the beginning. Hashem created the world knowing that they would become the chosen people; they were His “first thoughts.” They were always considered the most prominent. They are like the head on a body, which is the most prominent part of the body. But in a body, there are also feet and hands. The other nations are the like feet and hands of the body, while the Jewish people are like the head.

Imagine a body with a head, but with feet and hands that are severed from each other. While we can definitely say that the main part of the body is here, still, it’s incomplete. The body can survive with just the head and with the other parts of the body being severed from each other, but, it’s not complete. The ideal kind of body is a body in which all the parts of the body are connected together.

The lesson is: ahavas Yisrael alone is not a complete unity in the world. Only when there is complete unity between all parts is there a complete unity. Of course, the head is the head; it is the most prominent. But it’s just not the same when the body is missing the other parts.

Thus, for one to desire ahavas Yisrael alone, without knowing the greater goal of it, is a superficial perspective. The Leshem writes that the inner perspective towards Creation is not ahavas Yisrael/love of Jews, but “echad”, oneness – the universal unity that will be achieved in the future.

The Torah forbids intermarrying with the nations. In our current era, there is disparity and separation between Jew and gentile, and that is how it must be, for now. That is also the depth of  exile. But in the future, all will be unified, and it will be revealed a love for the entire Creation – Jew and gentile will be unified. (In the future, it will be revealed that the entire “body” is connected with the “head”.)

The Connection Between Converts and Moshiach

This is the secret behind converts.

In the future, Moshiach will rule the world. Moshiach descends from Dovid HaMelech, who was considered “lowly”; the lowly will then be considered uplifted and prominent. This is a deep fundamental to know about. Converts are therefore not just annexed onto the Jewish people – for we see that Moshiach will come from converts. Moshiach will come from Lot, who lived in the wicked city of Sodom, whom Avraham Avinu separated from. Moshiach has embarrassing roots; Lot’s daughters cohabited with their father and that is where his lineage descends from. Avraham Avinu separated from Lot, which formed a disparity between him and Lot; Lot was deemed lowly for choosing to go his own separate ways. That disparity continues until Moshiach comes. The redemption will return the “relationship” between Avraham and Lot, because it will reveal that although Lot was lowly, greatness can still come from the lowliest beginnings.

Exile – Disparity Between Jews and Gentiles

The common theme that runs throughout our exile is always disparity and separation. Sarah Imeinu had Yishmael expelled from Avraham Avinu’s home, and Hashem told Avraham to listen to her. This is because the disparity in Creation, which is the concept behind our whole exile, is ultimately the will of Hashem during the current 6,000 year era. The sons of Keturah received powers of impurity, which furthered the disparity. There was even more disparity with the separation that was made between Yaakov and Esav.

Esav wanted to wage war with Yaakov, but they met each other and left in peace. This shows us a deep, inner matter. On the outside, “Esav hates Yaakov”, but on the inside, they are “brothers”. In the future, we will enter the higher dimension of reality, the inner dimension, in which Yaakov and Esav will be “brothers” again. Esav kissed Yaakov “with all his heart”, and this hints to their inner unity. In the future, the inner perspective of unity between them will be revealed, and it will end the separation between Jew and gentile that began with Avraham and Yitzchok.

Ultimately, Jew and gentile must be returned to their “raishis”, to the beginning state of Creation in which they were unified together, even though they had gone their separate ways during the 6000 year era.

The Connecting Point

How indeed can we all return to our raishis, to our universal beginning?

There is always a middle point that connects two opposite points. For example, a husband and wife are opposites, but they can be connected together through a middle point that bridges the gap, the Shechinah.

At our beginning, we were all in Adam’s soul. There was disparity created by Avraham’s question and with Yitzchok’s children, and the disparity was magnified by Har Sinai, when anti-semitism began. But eventually, we must all return to the unity, Jew and gentile alike. How? There must be a connecting point that can unify together the two opposite points. It is through the converts.  The convert serves as the connecting point between the Jews and the gentiles.

 At our root, we are all one, for all souls were once unified in Adam’s soul; every Jew and gentile were one unit. The Beis HaMikdash was destroyed by sinas chinam, but as we are nearing the end of the 6000 year era, we are currently in a time in which we can return to the original achdus that we used to have at the beginning of Creation.

We were exiled for this very reason: so that we can achieve achdus with the nations. Exile made us surrounded by the nations, and there is a purpose to this. It is because we are supposed to unify with the gentiles so that we can come to our ultimate goal of achdus with Creation.

Of course, this always presents a danger to us, because we can be influenced by them. In Egypt, the Jewish people didn’t change their names or clothing or language, but in Persia, however, the Jews enjoyed the party of Achashveirosh and therefore felt very connected to him. They forgot their Jewish identity and the entire generation was deserving of destruction. This has always been our difficulty in exile, where we face the evil influences of the gentile nations that surround us.

In our actual behavior, we must separate from them and we must not imitate how they act. But on a more ultimate level, we also need to achieve unity with the gentiles, now that we live amongst them. But how do we unify them, if we must separate from their behaviors?

Chazal state the purpose of exile is to gain converts. In other words, it is the convert who is the bridge that can connect together the Jewish people with the other nations - and that is how we will achieve unity with them.

The Convert: The Paradoxical Existence of Jew and Gentile At Once

There are essentially three groups of people in the world – the Jewish people, the nations, and the converts. The Jewish nation come from Avraham Avinu, and all of their souls stood at Har Sinai; (there is a discussion if it is possible for a Jew to cut himself off from the Jewish people, however). And there are the gentiles (who can convert into our people, all except for Amalek; according to the view of the Rambam and most Rishonim). And there is a third group of people, who serve to connect Jew and gentile together: the souls who are born into gentile families who choose on their accord to convert into the Jewish people.

The convert is the bridge that connects the Jew and gentile. He is born a gentile, and he chooses to come into the Jewish people, willing to accept all the mitzvos, even after he is told about how hard it will be.He undergoes much hardship to enter the Jewish people, and thus he makes great use of his free will in doing so.

But he is not totally part of the Jewish people when it comes to all aspects. Chazal say that for ten generations after he converts, he still retains his genes, so he is still connected with his past, and can easily fall back to into his old behaviors that he has inherited from his gentile ancestors. A convert is not just missing some Jewish holiness - he still has an aspect of totally gentile status in himself. For that reason, he retains some “gentile” aspect in himself, but he is also a Jew – and so only he can be the bridging aspect between the Jewish people and the gentile nations.

Loving A Convert: The Key To Achieving Unity With The World

So our ultimate goal to strive for is achieve achdus with the world. How indeed can we reach it?

The first part of this that we need to go through is the avodah of ahavas Yisrael. First, we need to unify with other Jews, because if we don’t unify within our own ranks, how will we connect to the rest of the world on the outside? The inside must first be secure, and then we can build upon that and connect outward to the rest of the world.

Until now [in the last three chapters], we addressed the first stage, ahavas Yisrael. The second step is to strive for universal achdus, to unify with the outside. How? It is only through the converts, for only the convert can be the connecting point, the bridge, between Jew and gentile.

The Gemara ^[4] says that Biblically, a gentile does not inherit his father, but the Rabbis enacted that he should inherit. The depth of this is that he is still connected with his past, therefore he can inherit his father, according to the Sages. Sometimes the Rabbis revealed aspects that the written Torah did not reveal, and this is one of them: the convert has lineage with his parents. There are additional ramifications of this concept that he is still connected to his past, but we won’t get into this here.

We mentioned before the concept of how two points are always connected together through a third point in the middle that serves as the bridge between them and connects them. The Vilna Gaon explains that this “bridging point” is always above the two points that it connects. For example, a man and woman are connected to the Shechinah, which is above them. So the connecting point is always above the two points it connects. The “bridging point” is therefore the root of the two points that are being connected.

Based on this concept, converts, who are the connecting point between Jew and gentile, are really the root point of both Jews and gentiles. Therefore, when we are connected with the rest of the world through connecting to a converts, we are not ‘mixed’ with them through the connecting point. That would be harmful to us and it would merely mix us up with them, causing us to receive all of their harmful influences to us. Rather, we are connected to that other side through a ‘bridge’, in a way that doesn’t mix us up with the other side but still allows us to be considered unified and connected with them. 

This is also the depth of why Moshiach comes from converts. He will connect the whole world together, because he will be above the rest of the world, for the connecting point is always above the two points that it is connecting together. Moshiach will return the world to its unity, the state of all souls when they were originally in Adam’s soul, when there was no differentiation between Jew and gentile.

This is the secret of the concept that Adam stands for “Adam, Dovid, Moshiach” - it is because all were inside Adam. Dovid is the root of Moshiach, who connects everyone back to the original point of Adam, in which the entire world was one.

Ahavas Yisrael is thus only a step in a greater, more all-inclusive process, and that is how we should view it. The goal, after reaching Ahavas Yisrael, is to come to love the whole world. To love the whole world can only happen through the converts.

The Future – A New Perspective

One of our 13 basic beliefs is, “The Torah will never be exchanged.” Chazal say that mitzvos will be “erased” in the future^[5], however, which seems to contradict this basic belief that Torah will never change. The Rishonim answer that the mitzvos will not simply get “erased”; rather, new depth will be revealed to the mitzvos, and in that sense, the original perception towards the mitzvos will disappear.

Thus, the Torah is achdus in its essence, and the garments on top of it are many, but in the future, the essence of the Torah will be revealed, which is achdus. This perspective of achdus in the Torah will give new depth to all of the mitzvos and “erase” the previous meaning of them.

At Har Sinai, hatred entered the nations for the Jewish people. That is on the external dimension. The inner dimension of Creation, is, that our root, we are all one, Jew and gentile. Therefore, we need to reveal an inner love for the entire Creation.

Chazal say that the souls of converts stood by Har Sinai. All converts today are really souls who stood at Har Sinai. The depth of this is that at Har Sinai, there was already achdus between Jew and gentile, even though there was hatred on the surface of things.

Loving A Convert: Remember Your Own Beginnings

The Torah tells us to love converts “because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” All Jews, originally, felt like strangers, in Egypt. Since we all knew what it felt like to be a stranger in a strange land, the Torah wants us to be sensitive to converts, who feel like strangers to the Jewish people when they come in.

The convert is born anew, but he feels like a stranger. The word “ger” means “convert”, and it also means “stranger”. Hashem tells us in the Torah that you should love the convert because you, too, were once a “stranger” in Egypt, thus, in a sense, we are all like converts. All of the four exiles we went through (we are currently in the “exile of Yishmael”) were all rooted in Egypt, and the purpose of exile is to gain converts, as the Sages said; and Egypt, the root of all exiles, is when we were like strangers/converts.

The Connection of Gentiles To Torah

The Ramchal writes that when a person asks about something, it shows that he has some connection to it, or else it wouldn’t interest him.

When Hashem asked the nations if they want the Torah, they refused when they heard about what it entails, but Hashem still offered it to them. This shows that the gentiles do have some connection to the Torah, and the reason for this is because the Torah is the root of all nations. The Torah can be explained in 70 languages, because each of the 70 nations can connect to it. “Hashem looked into the Torah and created the world.”

A gentile was created from the Torah as well. At Har Sinai, when Hashem gave the Torah to the Jewish people, He also offered it to all of the nations, because in essence, the nations have a connection with Torah.

This concept has the following ramification. If the unity in the world will only be achieved in the future, what do we have to do with this now? It is because the light of the future is already here – only that it is hidden.

The Inner Perspective Towards A Convert

Thus, the convert is the way to unify with the other nations. We tend to think that converts are somewhat of lowly status, such as that we see that there are certain halachos of a gentile that apply to a convert, such as the fact that he doesn’t inherit (Biblically). We have a superficial perspective towards converts, when we analyze it from a purely halachic perspective. But if we look at the depth into the matter, converts are the root of Moshiach, for Moshiach comes from converts.

There is an argument amongst Chazal if Yisro converted either before or after the giving of the Torah. The depth of this is that are two perspective towards converts. The view that he converted after the giving of the Torah shows us the inner perspective towards converts, which is that a convert stood at Har Sinai, because he serves to connect Jew and gentile together.

Why The Beis HaMikdash Is On Har HaMoriah and not Har Sinai

The Beis HaMikash was built on Har HaMoriah. There is a question why it wasn’t built on Har Sinai instead. There are many answers to this question, but here will present the following deep answer.

Har HaMoriah is for all Creations, while Har Sinai is only for Jews. The future Beis HaMikdash will serve to unify all of Creations together, thus it has to be on Har HaMoriah. By contrast, Har Sinai is where hatred entered the nations for the Jews.

By the akeidas Yitzchak (the binding of Yitzchok on the altar), which was on Har HaMoriah, what was taking place? The akeidah represents a possibility to return Yitzchok back to his root state of universal unity, to end the unique status of the chosen people, which represents how all of Creation will return to Avraham. Yitzchok and Yishmael were divided from each other, but this is regarding the perspective of the current 6000 year era. In the future, when Creation will return to its root, there will be no more disparity between Yitzchok and Yishmael.

Thus, the akeidah represents the return of the entire Creation to its original unity. When Avraham was afraid of the akeidah, it was not simply because he had fatherly compassion on his son. The depth of his test was because it represented the return to a connection between Yitzchok and Yishmael, which he did not think was appropriate, for he had been told by Hashem that only Yitzchok is the chosen offspring, not Yishmael; and the akeidah represented a return of Yishmael being the only son, which would mean that Yitzchok and Yishmael are being returned to their root of being one.

Thus, Har Sinai does not represent achdus (although there was some achdus revealed there), while Har HaMoriah represents achdus, for it was there that the achdus between all of Creation was reignited. For this reason, Har HaMoriah is the site of the future Beis HaMikdash, where even gentiles will come to, because Creation will be unified again.

The Third Beis HaMikash Is For Everyone    

The second Beis HaMikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam (baseless hatred). Our avodah now is not to rebuild the second Beis HaMikdash, but rather the third Beis HaMikdash, which is different than the previous two temples we had.

Chazal say that the third Beis HaMikdash will not be built by human hands, and that it will descend from Heaven. Because it will come from Heaven, it will be for everyone. 

In Conclusion

Thus, ahavas Yisrael is only a path to get to a more inner goal, which is: to achieve unity with the entire Creation, which is otherwise known as the concept of “achdus haberiah” - the unified level of Creation.[6]

In actuality, it is unfeasible for us in our current situation to connect with gentiles without getting influenced by them, and in addition, their hatred for us doesn’t allow it. The converts, however, are the connecting point between Jew and gentile, for he retains both aspects of Jew and gentile at once.

Through loving a convert, we connect ourselves to the convert, to the bridge, which enables the connection between Jew and gentile without causing us to spiritually harmed by their behavior. And from that point onward, we can then come to reach the deepest level of unity - to unify all of our souls with the Creator.