What if noticing others’ wills makes you feel negatively towards them?

The only problem with noticing others’ retzonos (wills) is…

You also notice what’s wrong with their retzonos.

Like the people who seem to us to be too stingy with tzedakah – or too free-handed. Or the parents who seem to us to deal with their children too strictly – or too permissively. The people who seem so overly self-centered – or unhealthily selfless.

According to our judgement, these people’s retzonos are wrong. Do those retzonos still deserve respect?

In our story from last week, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky honored his visitor’s ratzon for a fancy car. But why? Surely he didn’t view expensive cars as a priority. Why support his visitor’s priority if it wasn’t right?

Rabi Akiva dubbed the mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael a “klal gadol baTorah,” “A great principle in Torah.” How can the Torah so emphasize a mitzvah that seems to ask us to honor ideals that don’t, to our minds, align with Torah?

Well, what if we need to expand our understanding of what the truth of Torah really means?

Rav Yisrael Salanter wrote in his 6th Letter about the correct course of action when a group of school leaders disagree as to the right path to take in running their school. Rav Yisrael ruled that the minority should be mivatel da’as, or concede, to the majority, even though the minority truly felt the majority was wrong.

Why? Because Torah includes even things we see as wrong.

What does that mean? First, let’s clarify what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t apply when the people we view as “wrong” are doing aveiros or snubbing the Torah. It also doesn’t mean we should be reconsidering our view.

What it does mean is that we can wholeheartedly feel we are right according to the Torah, and at the same time recognize that the Torah is larger than us and our minds. Torah defines absolute right and wrong, but our human brains can only comprehend its intent to a certain extent. And therefore, Torah can include perspectives we steadfastly see as wrong.

Ahavas Yisrael is quite literally a “klal gadol baTorah.” It opens our eyes to the reality that Torah is larger than we can perceive. And that realization pushes us to expand ourselves, our perspective, to allow for the views of others. Because Torah is bigger than our perception of it.

And it’s not just Torah that’s bigger than we can perceive. We, the humans who learn and keep it, are also larger and more expandable than we can comprehend.

Chazal point out that when rearranged, the letters of the Hebrew word “Adam,” or “man,” spell the word “mi’od,” or “very” – an unbounded description of vastness. We humans are “mi’od” – endlessly capable of stretching, expanding, growing.

Torah is bigger than we think. And so are we. And Ahavas Yisrael, the klal gadol baTorah, actualizes that bigness, that greatness. It signals to us how much larger the Torah is than we can comprehend. It reminds us that we too are more expandable than we think. And it compels us to activate our “mi’odness” – to extend ourselves bit by bit to relate to the worlds of Jews who are different.

So yes – your neighbor’s stubbornness or your brother’s permissiveness or your friend’s over-devotion might frustrate you. But don’t let the frustration deter you from your quest to discern others’ retzonos.

Because it’s that very frustration that allows you to start the work of expanding yourself and your appreciation of every Jew’s greatness.