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Kedoshim: Sweet Revenge?

One of the most difficult Mitzvos can be found in this weeks parsha. If somebody refuses to let you borrow their car, you cannot refuse to lend them your car in revenge. Not only that, but you’re not even allowed to comment on how you’re better than they are. How is this humanly possible?

The Chinuch explains that if we see the person in front of us as being the cause for our trouble yesterday, it will indeed be exceedingly difficult to be nice to him. But there’s another way of looking at things.

If we instead see our misfortune as being ultimately the decision of Hashem, we will not take the whole thing personally. We will see the person in front of us as somebody who as have done something wrong, but not as somebody who we need to get back at.

R’ Moshe Shapiro says that נקמה is from the root קם, to rise. If we feel somebody else has knocked us down, we feel a need to pick ourselves back up above them, usually by knocking them back down. But if we see any misfortune we suffer as being from Hashem, we will not feel this visceral need to lash out at somebody who has not been nice to us.

(Adapted from R’ Lopiansky’s Fundamentals on the Parsha)

לע״נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום