Furthermore], even those whom one is enjoined to hate - for they are close to him, and he has rebuked them but they still have not repented of their sins - one is obliged to love them too.

[But is it possible to love a person and hate him at the same time?

The Alter Rebbe explains that since the love and the hatred stem from two different causes, they do not conflict].

And both [the love and the hatred] are truthful [emotions in this case, since] the hatred is on account of the evil within them, while the love is on account of the good hidden in them, which is the divine spark within them that animates their divine soul.

[For this spark of G-dliness is present even in the most wicked of one's fellow Jews; it is merely hidden.

One may now be faced with the anomaly of a fellow-Jew whom he must both love and hate. But what attitude should he adopt toward the person as a whole who possesses both these aspects of good and evil?

When, for example, the sinner requests a favor of him, should his hatred dictate his response, or his love?

The Alter Rebbe goes on to say that one's relationship with the sinner as a whole should be guided by love. By arousing one's compassion for him, one restricts one's own hatred so that it is directed solely at the evil within the sinner, not at the person himself].

One must also arouse compassion on [the divine soul of the sinner], for in the case of the wicked it is in exile within the evil of the sitra achra which dominates it.

Compassion banishes hatred and arouses love - as is known from the verse, [12] "Jacob, who redeemed Abraham."

["Jacob" represents compassion, and "Abraham", love.

When "Abraham", love, must be "redeemed", i.e., brought out of concealment, it is "Jacob", compassion, that accomplishes this redemption; for as said, compassion banishes hatred and arouses love].

( [13] As for the statement by King David, peace upon him: [14] "I hate them with a consummate hatred," [reserving no love for them whatsoever], this refers only to [Jewish] heretics and atheists who have no part in the G-d of Israel, as stated in the Talmud, beginning of chapter 16 of Tractate Shabbat.)

[Any sinner who is not, however, a heretic, must not be hated with "a consummate hatred," for the mitzvah of ahavat Yisrael embraces him as well.

   

Notes:

12. (Back to text) Yeshayahu 29:22.

13. (Back to text) Parentheses are in the original text.

14. (Back to text) Tehillim 139:22.