I once had a rabbi who, whenever I began speaking disparagingly about myself, would stop me in my tracks. “You’re speaking lashon harah [evil speech]!” he would say to me.
The laws of lashon harah generally apply to speech made about others, but my rabbi also related them to speaking about ourselves. Through this, he impressed upon his students that just as it is important to love others, it is equally imperative to love ourselves and treat ourselves with kindness and respect.
Which Torah sources speak about the concept of self-love? Many look to the end of the teaching, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18), as a source for this directive.
Pay attention, we are commanded to love others, “as we love ourselves.” Clearly, the Torah assumes that we should love ourselves if it hinges the required love of others upon this positive relationship with self.
Another source that can inform us is Hashem’s abundant love for Am Yisrael. Yirmiyahu (31:2) offers a window into this love when he shares Hashem’s feelings for the Jewish people:
“And with an eternal love I have loved you.”
This verse forms the basis of the blessings that we recite each day, before the evening and morning Shema: the Ahavat Olam (evening) and Ahavah Rabbah (morning) blessings. These blessings speak about Hashem’s infinite love for us and how Hashem chose us from love.
If Hashem, who sees and knows all, loves each and every one of us, then we would be living a falsehood if we didn’t love ourselves as well.
But we don’t have to look that far. In the Shema prayer, we learn of the mitzvah to love Hashem: “You shall love Hashem your God with all of your heart.” (Devarim 6:5)
Now don’t we all house divine souls within us? Our love for the divine therefore should include this divine aspect as well. The famous verse in Bereishit (1:27) says, “In the image of God were humans created,” and the kabbalists speak about how each of us has within us a nitzotz Eloki — a divine spark, also known by some as the pintele yid.
If we do not love ourselves, in a way we are not loving Hashem, because we all have godliness inside of us!
Learning to love ourselves takes work. We have to sometimes search hard to find the good.
However, the rewards are endless. In the words of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov: “You must also find the good in yourself. … Search until you find some little good in you. … You must search and search until you find some good point inside yourself to give you new life and make you happy.” (Likutei Moharan 282)
It may take work, but as the popular 1985 Whitney Houston song goes, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”
From a Jewish perspective, loving ourselves is great because it is living life based on truth. Hashem loves us and we are worthy of love.
So let’s be easy on ourselves and show ourselves some love!
Rabbi Dr. Eli Yoggev serves Pikesville’s Beth Tfiloh Congregation.
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