by: Chanie Gourarie

Long ago lived a sage of great fame,
Hillel the elder, was his name,
Once a man tried to put him to the test,
The entire Torah on one foot, was his request.

While the man stood on one foot that day,
This is what Hillel the sage did say,
“Love your fellow as yourself, is the Torah in its entirety,
All the rest in commentary.”

“Love your fellow as yourself,” seems like a nice ideal,
Is love something we can be commanded to feel?
On our perspective it does depend,
When we look at the essence, everyone is a friend.

To a candle each one of us does compare,
Candles can be found everywhere,
Candles come in every size, and shape,
There are many different scents like lemon, berry and grape.

Although candles come in every color of the rainbow,
There is one thing we all know,
In essence all candles are the same,
What they have in common is their flame.

On the outside our differences appear,
We have different opinions to share,
Each one of us is special and unique,
Some like blue while others prefer pink.

But on the Inside, we are all the same,
We all have a Neshama, flame,
For every Jew, we can feel love,
Because every Jew is a child of Hashem above.

When the layers we uncover,
We are one family, we discover,
To put the soul first is the key,
The soul is the #1 priority!

To love your fellow as yourself, in this Torah portion we see,
The other 612 Mitzvot are commentary,
Because all the Mitzvot were given,
To reveal the G-dliness that is hidden.