Love Amidst the Quarantine

We’re not in our Shuls, but we’re in Sefirah, where we’re working on the mitzvos between man and man. The foundational mitzvah between man and man is to “Love our Neighbors as Ourselves”.

A good friend, who runs a Dveikus Foundations WhatsApp group, recently taught that the Sefer Charedim, the author of Yedid Nefesh, and a contemporary of the Ari in Safed, lists eight components of this mitzvah:

1) To praise and compliment people
2) To be concerned about their finances
3) To desire that they get respect and honor
4) To love and have compassion for them
5) To proactively seek out their benefit
6) To be genuinely happy when good things happen to them
7) To be pained when they are in distress
8) To speak calmly to them with love and respect

Eight wonderful opportunities to Love our Neighbors as Ourselves.

This Thursday, many members of our Shul will share in the joy of a well-loved family, as they walk their daughter down the aisle in a quarantine-time wedding. We share their joy, and we feel the pain of their limited celebration. They express their love to us in so many ways, and we return that love in our hearts and in our souls on this day of brocha.

Mazal Tov to the S family. May we continue to share love, simchos, and nachas from all of our children, relatives and friends.