We are now in chapter one of the Chafetz Chaim’s Sefer Ahavat Yisrael. We mentioned yesterday that the Chafetz Chaim is of the opinion that if a person hates his friend in his heart, that is transgressing the negative commandment of Don't hate your friend in your heart, but if you tell him that you hate him, then you aren’t transgressing that negative command. To be clear, that is still something wrong. The Rambam says it’s an annulment of the positive commandment to love your friend like you love yourself because if you hate him, you don't love them. But there's a difference between not doing a positive, and doing a negative. They are two different things. If I don't eat matza , that doesn't mean I ate hametz . Not doing a positive doesn't mean you’ve automatically done a negative. So if you tell your friend, “I don't like you, ” you did not transgress hating your friend in your heart, because it’s not in your heart. On the other hand, you don't love him, so you are annulling the positive commandment of loving your friend. But what are you supposed to do when you don't like somebody? Keeping it inside your heart is no good, telling him you hate him is no good... So what should you do? The Rambam says clearly that keeping it inside is the worst thing to do. So what do you do? The Chafetz Chaim says you have to go and tell him quietly, in a soft way, “ Why'd you do this to me?” Without exploding or screaming or yelling. And then, he says, after you did that, erase it from your heart. You told him, you made your protest, you said what you had to say. It’s interesting that the Or HaSadikim, in Shaar Hasina, says that Even if the friend did not excuse himself and he did not apologize, don't hate him, because now that you told him, who knows, maybe he'll fix it. He'll think about it. But that's it. Your job is just to tell him your complaint. So, as we say, air your grievances and that's it. That's what you're supposed to do. The Rambam says that is what we call the regular responsibility. But there's something called Middat Hachasidut, a higher level, which the Rambam says ( in the laws of De’ot, Halacha 9), is that you don't even go over to him. In in your heart, you work on yourself and you forgive him, and you don't even tell him anything. That's Middat Hachasidut. You don't have to tell him. It’s not your job to fix it. It's your job to get the hatred out of your heart. Most people can't get the hatred out of their heart until they tell the person, and air it out. But if you are capable of doing that, then you're fine. And actually, this way of dealing with it is almost clear from the pasuk, because the pasuk says, Don't hate your friend in your heart, and the next words are, Hoche’ach Tocheach/ rather, rebuke him . Rav Wolbe says that the word Hochacha/rebuke really means to clarify, to make something clear. And sometimes (and this is an important lesson), you don't have all the information and he doesn't know all the information. So when you have a problem with somebody, the first thing to do is clarify. Like, Why didn't you invite me to your wedding ? I did invite you to our wedding. (This happened to me). Well, I didn't get an invitation … (Luckily we have Excel sheets) So just to make sure, I copied and paste from the Excel sheet and I sent it over. And he saw that I sent the invitation. Not that we were fighting about it, but I just wanted to make it clear. I wanted to get that off my chest. Now, of course I could have filled out the Excel sheet afterwards, but I don't know to what length we suspect people. The bottom line is, quite often there are misunderstandings. And if you don't air your grievances, you'll never come to clarity. That's what Hoheach Tocheach et Amitecha means. Clarify things with your friend and when we clarify things, the hate will hopefully disappear. Have a wonderful day.