Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]

“Love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)

Rabbi Akiva says, “This is a great Klal [collective/rule] in the Torah” (Beresheet Rabbah, Chapter 24).

1) This statement of our sages demands explanation. The word Klal [collective/rule] indicates a sum of details that, when put together, form that collective. Thus, when he says about the Mitzva [commandment] “love your friend as yourself,” that it is a great Klal in the Torah, we must understand that the rest of the 612 Mitzvot [commandments] in the Torah, with all their interpretations, are no more and no less than the sum of the details inserted and contained in that single Mitzva, “love your friend as yourself.”

This is quite perplexing because you can say this regarding Mitzvot between man and man, but how can that single Mitzva contain all the Mitzvot between man and God, which are the essence and the vast majority of the laws?

2) If we can still strain to find some way to reconcile their words, there comes before us a second saying, even more conspicuous, about a convert who came to Hillel (Shabbat 31a) and told him, “Teach me the whole of the Torah while I am standing on one leg.” And he replied, “Anything that you hate, do not do to your friend” (the translation of “love your friend as yourself”), “and the rest is its commentary; go study.”

Here before us is a clear law, that in all 612 Mitzvot and in all the writings in the Torah there is none that is preferred to the Mitzva, “love your friend as yourself.” This is because they only aim to interpret and allow us to observe the Mitzva of loving others properly, since he specifically says—“the rest is its commentary; go study.” This means that the rest of the Torah is interpretations of that one Mitzva, that the Mitzva to love your friend as yourself could not be completed were it not for them.