Is It Really Possible to Love Another Person “As Yourself”?
What can “love your fellow as yourself” realistically demand from an ordinary person?
This Hagut Yosef essay follows Ramban and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in asking whether the Torah demands identical feelings toward oneself and another person. The source shifts the focus toward willing another person’s good: caring about their welfare, avoiding what we ourselves would hate, and strengthening the power of giving over the power of taking.