At the beginning of the Bet Halevi’s essay on Ahavat Yisrael, Loving your fellow man, he says, “Love to everyone is a positive commandment, as it says, VeAhavta LeRe’echa Kamocha Love your friend like you love yourself. But there are some smart people who know some pesukim . They know that in Tehilim perek 139, pasuk 21, it says הֲלוֹא־מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ ה׳ אֶשְׂנָא Those that hate You, God, I hate. They even know Sefer Hinuch, Mitzvat 238, which says, when it comes to hating the wicked, there is no prohibition; what’s more, it’s actually a Mitzvah to hate them. So now the smart people among us have their excuse. They label people as wicked , and therefore they can exercise their trait of hatred. ( But, not so fast- there’s a happy ending). The Sefer Hinuch continues with a little caveat: It’s a mitzvah to hate the wicked only after we have rebuked them on their sin many times and they didn’t do Teshuva/return. So there is a condition. You can’t just hate any wicked person. It’s only after he doesn’t accept rebuke. The HaGaot Mamoniot, a Rishon, says the same thing. And the Chazon Ish, one of the great poskim of yesteryear, (and a very strict rabbi), says very clearly, in perek ו , halacha ג of Hilchot Deot, that you can only hate the person after you have rebuked him, but adds (quoting from a earlier source)- By us, we are always considered before rebuke, because we don’t know how to rebuke. Therefore, the wicked fellow is always considered before rebuke. So that excuse, that it’s a Mitzvah to hate some people, because they are wicked, is gone. Rebuke is not that simple. Even if you told him many times not to do a certain sin, you don’t really know how to rebuke. Two thousand years ago, the Gemarah said that very few people knew how to rebuke properly. It’s a talent and an art, with a science behind it, that we will discuss at a later date. For today, the lesson is that it’s not so simple to title someone as a wicked person and be allowed to hate them.