One Foot? 🌀 or Two?

From the pages of the Talmud, we learn a short story of a pagan inquirer and Rabbi Hillel. The inquirer offers to convert to Judaism if the Rabbi Hillel is able to teach him the "whole of Torah," limited only to the time that he could "stand on one foot."

In the context of Leviticus 19:18 where we are commanded to "... love your neighbour as yourself..." Not to be taken literally, Rabbi Hillel responds to the pagan with the words;

"What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary. Go and study it." (Talmud Shabbat 31a)

These weeks present a great opportunity to develop and achieve this state in all of our attributes. Everyone of us has components of our character that are slaves to various desires. It is perhaps paradoxical, but according to the Sages, there is only 1 way out of this slavery; a process of learning to love...

I don't say this to you because I have learned, or have achieved it. On the contrary, I have dozens of slaves in me, some of whom expressed themselves today even... But I say it to remind myself, and to be thankful B"H, to acknowledge and share the tools we have been given, and to set my own desire firmly on this path because if I say it out loud, I can't ever (without hypocrisy,) deny it again...

Please enjoy this :)

Let's make it easier on each other and all try together!!

(Foot giphy. Video is from LiveKabbalahTV.)

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