Rabbi Noach Weinberg, whose memory is a blessing, identified a very interesting idiosyncrasy in human nature. There are some people whom we dislike because of certain faults and yet some of our close friends have those very same faults. If we were to ask ourselves how can we like our friends ‘don’t they have those same faults?’ we would answer ‘just because they have this fault, that is not who they really are’. The reverse is also true. We like our friends because
they have certain qualities, even though the people we dislike also share those same qualities. When we ask ourselves how can we dislike those folks ‘don’t they also have those qualities?’ we would respond ‘just because they have qualities does not mean that they are good people.’

Reb Noach explained that we all like qualities and dislike faults. When we like a person we associate them with their qualities and disassociate them from their faults. We are able to compartmentalize. Their qualities define them and their faults just happen to be in their knapsack – it is not who they are. We may say that it is not their fault, they had a difficult childhood or give some other reason for why those faults exist.

If we dig a bit deeper we will concede that so often we have the very faults of those whom we dislike and nevertheless we still like ourselves. We may even love ourselves in spite of those faults. The way we accomplish this is by defining ourselves by the qualities that we possess and dismiss the faults as being something that just happened to be placed in our knapsack.

When the Torah gives us the reason not to insult the convert because we also share that blemish the implication is that there is a distinction between a blemish that we share and one that we do not share. If we do not share that blemish we might be justified for recognizing the fault. We may, nevertheless, not insult anyone based on that. However, when we share that blemish, we have no right to even recognize it as being a fault worth insulting. If we share that blemish we have already compartmentalized it as being a fault that happened to be placed in our knapsack and therefore we have no basis whatsoever to hold the other person in any lesser standing than ourselves.

As we continue along our journey to Shavuous, the moment when HaShem brought us all so close to Him, we are taught how to be able to see how every Jew is filled with qualities and his faults are just in his something he schleps around in his knapsack.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.