Shmelke of Nikolsburg

“How do we deal with the wicked-the torturer, the rapist, the terrorist, the child molester?”
Question: “We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourself. How can I do this if my neighbor has wronged me?”
I think that this reading brings out one of the biggest questions that humanity has a question that according to this Rabbi has only one answer “Love your neighbor like something which you yourself are. For all souls are one.”
I am not sure that it can bee that black and white. I have heard of many people who have struggled with the concept of how can I love my neighbor when he has wronged me? No one really knows hoe they will react if someone wrongs them, their family or their children. Even the most religious people the law abiding citizens who have complete faith in God will sometimes take matters of justice into their own hands forgetting that “if you punish him, you only hurt yourself.” They forget their faith, their God and themselves.
But if people truly believed that it would hurt them to punish then would we have laws, jails and punishments at all? Could society function without these things? Would or could people really love and forgive the people who wronged them without man’s justice? Forgiveness is another extremely difficult process for people and I think that people in general need to know that the “evil” people will be punished in this life. Anyway this reading really brought up all of my questions about forgiveness and the whole concept of love thy neighbor. I know that this has always been a question, and that there will always be many different exceptions to the love thy neighbor rule.