A CASE OF MISTAKEN ENMITY

Chazal teach that the Second Beis Hamikdash, whose loss we mourn intensely during these days, was destroyed due to the sinas chinam which existed in the generation in which it was destroyed. The term sinas chinam is usually translated to mean senseless hatred, which raises the obvious question: Is there in fact some form of hatred that is not senseless, but purposeful? The answer is yes, there is the hatred of which Dovid Hamelech says (Tehillim 139:21), “Halo misanecha Hashem esna — Behold, those who hate You, Hashem, I will hate.”

But perhaps there’s another way to understand the term, drawing on the axiom of human relations propounded by Shlomo Hamelech in Mishlei (27:19): K’mayim hapanim lapanim, kein leiv ha’adam la’adam — As water reflects the face shown it, so too is the heart of one man to another.” As Rashi there explains, our feelings toward another person are dictated by his feelings toward us. We reflect back to him the love, hatred, or other emotions we feel radiating from him toward us.

But what happens when we’re wrong? What if I mistakenly think you’re upset at me when you’re not? Despite my error, my emotional reflexes take over and I become angry at you too. When that happens, I have engaged in what we can accurately call sinas chinam, hatred over nothing. What moved me to feel negatively about you was a mistaken impression, an illusion.

Yet the hatred remains, and once the k’mayim hapanim cycle has been set in motion, there’s little to stop it from continuing on. You will now most likely reciprocate my misplaced negativity toward you with an unhealthy dose of the very same right back at me. Relief and rapprochement will come only when one of us says to himself, “Wait, maybe there’s been an unfortunate misunderstanding here, and he didn’t mean to project ill will toward me. We might both be acting on reflexes rooted in an initial misreading. Let me reach out to him and clarify this.”