What Is Sinas Chinam?

I recently heard Rav Reuven Leuchter speak during the Three Weeks on the subject of sinas chinam, the sin for which the Second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed and for which our long exile continues.

The term sinas chinam, he noted, is a strange one. Even when we experience something close to hatred, we never think of it as causeless. We may be mistaken about the subject of our dislike, but at least we can usually identify a cause.

To properly define sinas chinam, Rav Leuchter suggested, we must first identify its opposite, the most fundamental love: the love one feels for oneself — as in, “love your friend as [you love] yourself.”

Sinas chinam is the rejection of another for no reason other than that he is not me and his way of serving the Borei Olam is different from mine. So long as one cannot accept that Hashem has created each of us different and with his or her unique path to Him, one is engaged in sinas chinam, not to mention denial of the Creator Himself.