Love Your Neshama | Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer

One of the most universally recognized Psukim in the entire world is Love your neighbor like yourself, I am God, I am Hashem. The Mefarshim grapple, the commentaries all ask, Why does it refer to a person here as רעך, as your friend, when previously it says, לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך it calls him your brother, הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך it calls him someone from your nation. Why over here is it רעך? Says the heiliger Modzitzer, the Divrei Yisroel, something unbelievable. He says: Because רעך doesn't only mean your friend. He references a Pasuk in Tehillim 139 that רעך means your mind, your thoughts. And, therefore, the Torah is telling you here ואהבת לרעך כמוך the same way you cherish your body and you don't forsake your physical needs, love your mind, your thoughts. Don't contaminate, don't pollute, don't allow your mind to go to waste. Because after 120 years, you're going to die, and when you die, your body decomposes, it disintegrates, it decays, but there's one thing that's forever, and that is your Neshama. When you put on your Tefillin every morning, you say, נשמה שבמוחי על הראש נגד המוח I'm putting the Tefillin on my head so it should be opposite my mind, my thoughts, because the Neshama actually rests in your mind, and the Neshama is eternal, it's enduring, it's everlasting, and it will be your testimony in Shomayim that God, Ribono shel Olam, will scrutinize every thought and everything you've seen and taken in. And that is you. The body is not you. And therefore, says the Modzitzer, ואהבת לרעך, you love yourself, you got to love the part that's really you, that's with you forever. Your mind. I had a student from BJX who told me, very shamefaced, he says: Listen, Rebbe, I've been everywhere and I've done everything. I've seen everything. I don't want to die with what's on my mind. And he says: Slowly but surely, I'm giving up every piece of technology. I said: Wow! That's a huge, huge, huge sacrifice. I'm not telling anybody to give up technology. All I'm asking is When you're faced with that Vayimaen moment, remember, ואהבת לרעך love the kop, the mind, the Neshama, that's yours forever.