Appels à contributionsBibliographies/LiensCommunautés AfricainesCoopération Israel-AfriqueDossiers accessible à tousFiches biographiques

You shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am Hashem. Lev. 19:9

This Torah verse in Hebrew uses the term “Re’akha” for ‘your neighbor’. The word Re’a, ‘neighbor’, is written Reish Yod Ayin.
This is a word that denotes very close intimate friendship, the same root being used even for romantic love as in the Song of Songs “Re’ayati, Kallati” ‘my beloved, my bride’. It is also the same root we find in the word for Sheppard, Ro’eh, the same root in Aramaic is for desire “Ra’ava”.
In fact this Reish Yod Ain root is ancient Egyptian for G-d.
We find it in the name of one of the Princes of Israel as Ahira son of Einan.
Ahira would be the Egyptian equivalent to Ahiyah, with the meaning of Re’a as G-d.
What is interesting is that when we take the Yod out from the word Re’a we are left with the Hebrew word for Evil, used as early as Genesis about the loneliness of man, and the Tree of Good and Evil.
So the implicit Yod between the Reish and the ‘Ayin is very important.
We find a similar symmetry in the word for love Aleph Hey Beit.
If the Hey is changed to Yod it becomes enmity, the opposite of love.
Loving the other like yourself means to love G-d as your true close friend, who is inside your friend like He is inside of yourself.
As Rabbi Akiba was very knowledgeable in the languages of his time, these linguistic equivalences must have been obvious to him.
When he said that this verse is a great axis of Torah, he did not just mean that the moral dimension of love is what guides every religious aspect of life, as there are many other verses to make that point. What is unique and axiomatic in this verse is the presence of a tool of spiritual translation at work. The concept of G-d and man are explained in one idea. Friendship closeness sameness reveal the divine.
This is why the verse ends by “Ani Hashem” ‘I am G-d’, it is Me, this Yod between the Reish and the ‘Ain. I am in this world with you, giving you comfort from the hearts of your friends, and your own friendliness is Me.

No Comments Yet

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.