Why did October 7 feel so personal?

“Rabbi, what’s the secret of Chabad?”
It’s a question I’m asked all the time.
The truth is, it’s not really a secret, and it’s certainly not new. It was written 3,337 years ago on a piece of parchment in the desert. We read it in this week’s Torah portion: “Love your fellow as yourself.” Rabbi Akiva called this the “great principle of the Torah.”
But here’s the challenge; how can love be commanded? The Torah is a book of commandments, not suggestions. And love is a feeling, not an action. Can we really be expected to feel love for someone else as we do for ourselves?
This question has sparked many interpretations. Some commentators suggest the mitzvah is about action, not emotion: treat others with the same care and dignity you’d want for yourself. As Hillel famously put it, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
Yet the Torah’s wording is precise and eternal. It doesn’t just tell us to treat others well. It says to love them. As yourself.
Chassidic philosophy sheds light on this. The difficulty in loving another comes from seeing them as a separate physical being. But if we look deeper, past the body, past the differences, and see the soul, the divine spark, we realize that we are not two. We are one. Spiritually, we are both expressions of the same G‑dly essence. To love another, then, is to love a part of ourselves, just as one limb naturally cares for another.
At first this might sound like a lofty ideal that reads well on paper but doesn’t hold up in real life. “This just isn’t the lived experience!” some might protest. But if we think about it a bit more deeply, we realize this actually isn't something new we need to learn or be taught. We already know it. We already feel it. And in many ways, we already live it.
Just think back to how we felt on October 7. It was as if our own brother or sister had been attacked. How is that possible? How can we feel such a strong connection to people we've never met?
The answer is simple: we are one people, bound by a shared soul. We shouldn’t need a crisis to remind us of that bond. Let’s find ways to embrace and celebrate it, especially during the good days.
As one scholar paraphrased: a healthy body is one where every part works in harmony. Likewise, a healthy Jewish people is one big, caring family where each individual loves the other like his or her own self. Where we hold each other in pain, and celebrate each other’s joy. Where we rush to help, and turn away from judgment and shame.
Love for those closest to home nurtures love for the extended family of humanity, and from there, love for all G‑d’s creatures. But if love doesn’t start at home, from where will it come?
Some three hundred years ago, in a small town in Russia, the Baal Shem Tov taught that “A soul enters this world for seventy or eighty years just to do a favor for another.” His successors, the Chabad Rebbe’s, spent seven generations living and teaching this. If we can live this today, just imagine how much better the world would be. Let’s look at our fellow for who they really are, the very essence of their soul, and then we can truly love the other, just as ourselves, as the Torah commands.