What’s the real purpose of a chabura—a close-knit group of friends committed to spiritual growth?

In the heartfelt and powerful final episode of the series exploring the mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael, Rav Shlomo Katz explores how true friendship isn’t just a bonus on the path of serving Hashem—it’s the foundation. Through Torah, stories, and the lived experience of his own community, Rav Shlomo unpacks the spiritual depth of sacred friendship: not just learning with each other, but growing for each other.

This episode is a journey into:

• Why a chabura isn’t a social circle—it’s a vessel for transformation.
• The difference between friendship, love, and deveikus (soul-attachment).
• Why we must not only share our pain with a friend, but also our holiness.
• How commitment and trust build the kind of inner circle where real growth becomes possible.
• The deeper meaning behind holding someone’s hand through their struggles.

With personal stories, teachings from the Piaseczna Rebbe and Chassidic masters, and a moving dedication to a lost friend, Rav Shlomo brings us into the heart of why we need each other, not just to get through life, but to elevate it.

What gives us the right to explain someone else’s suffering? In this emotionally charged and spiritually deep shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz opens a window into one of the most subtle yet critical aspects of Ahavat Yisrael: refusing to define someone by their pain, flaws, or current state.

With teachings from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Tanya, and the Torah itself, Rav Shlomo challenges us to see others—and ourselves—as works in progress, never final products. He reminds us that true love isn't about turning a blind eye, but knowing when to gently sweep things under the table and when to courageously show up with compassion.

This episode explores:

• Why you can look inward and reflect on your own suffering, but can never justify someone else’s.
• The difference between love that heals and judgment that wounds.
• How to be the kind of person whose presence radiates nonjudgmental love.
• When (and if) giving mussar can ever truly help, and the deep introspection required before doing so.

This is a shiur about the deepest kind of empathy, the holy restraint of not speaking, and the courage to simply sit beside a fellow Jew in their pain, without trying to explain it away.

We tend to be most agitated not when someone lies about us — but when they see something true about us that we’ve tried to keep hidden.

In this deeply honest shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz brings us into the inner world of a maamar that reframes what it really means to “love your fellow as yourself.” At the core is one of the most disarming truths in Chassidus:

Just as I see my flaws — and choose not to hold them against myself — so too, I must learn to look at you.

Real Ahavat Yisrael doesn’t mean being blind to another’s faults. It means choosing not to give them emotional weight. Just as we instinctively cloak our own shortcomings in compassion, we are asked to hold that same surrounding love (ahavah makif) toward others.

In this Shiur:

- Why we tolerate our own flaws — but resent others for noticing them
- The mystical role of “surrounding love” (ahavah makif)
- How to love someone without denying their reality
- What “don’t do to your friend what is hateful to you” really means
- The radical Chassidic view of compassion as a conscious override

If we can learn to hold others with the same soft hands we use to carry our own hearts, then we begin to fulfill the mitzvah not only with intention, but with integrity.

What does it actually mean to love another “like yourself”? In this honest and emotionally charged shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz unpacks the depth of the word “kamocha” — like yourself — in the mitzvah of Ve’ahavta l’rei’acha kamocha. This isn't about being nice or agreeable. It's about the raw inner work of learning how to treat others with the same nuance, patience, compassion, and depth that you (sometimes secretly) extend to yourself.

But what if you don’t love yourself? What if your internal dialogue is cold, angry, or disconnected? Then that becomes the ceiling for how much love you can give someone else. That’s where the work begins.

In this Shiur:

- Why we often feel alone even when surrounded by others
- How self-compassion is the key to unlocking real love for others
- What it means to "see the sign" hanging over every person: Work In Progress
- Why your inner world always leaks into your outer relationships
- How living as a soul — not as a performance — changes everything

This shiur is a gentle but urgent reminder: before you ask how much you love others… ask how you speak to yourself. Because the mitzvah doesn’t just say to love — it says to love like you love you.

What would life feel like if we stopped performing and started showing up — soul to soul?

In this refreshingly raw shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz guides us through the spiritual work of emotional honesty, vulnerability, and deep internal cheshbon hanefesh. We explore how Ahavat Yisrael demands that we not only tolerate each other, but truly see each other — beneath the layers, behind the roles, beyond the masks.

Drawing from Tanya and Chassidic thought, Rav Shlomo unpacks what it means to move from ego-based relationships to soul-based connections. It’s not just about loving others — it’s about having the courage to show up as you really are.

In this Shiur:

- What happens when we stop hiding behind religious or emotional armor
- Why being known is scarier — and holier — than being liked
- How to make space for someone else's perspective without judging it
- The spiritual trap of looking “put together” while feeling disconnected
- Why doing the mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael means doing inner work first

This shiur is a wake-up call to bring more realness, more softness, and more presence into our relationships — with others, and with ourselves. Because the deepest love begins not when you say “I love you,” but when you say “I see you… and I’m still here.”

How can we love another Jew if we don’t know, or like, who we are inside?

In this heart-opening shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz brings us into the deepest chambers of Ahavat Yisrael: not as a social mission, but as a spiritual mirror. Before you can fulfill the mitzvah of loving another, you must first come face-to-face with the essence of your own soul.

Drawing from the Tanya, Rav Shlomo explores how real love,  the kind that doesn’t depend on similarity, shared interests, or external traits, can only emerge from a life led by the nefesh Elokit (divine soul). When we stop identifying with our bodies, careers, or outer definitions and begin to see ourselves as precious, holy souls, we unlock the capacity to love anyone — simply because they are.

In this Shiur:

- Why most of us mistake self-acceptance for self-love
- How true happiness is born from identifying with the soul, not the body
- The difference between conditional love and soul-based connection
- What it means to look in the mirror and see not shame — but Shechinah
- The quiet joy of realizing: “It’s a pleasure to get to know myself — and to get to know you"

This shiur gently teaches that Ahavat Yisrael isn’t about fixing others. It’s about unearthing the divine spark within ourselves, and letting that love extend naturally outward. Once you begin living from the soul, every person becomes a new opportunity to say: “It’s a joy to get to know you.”

What if we had spiritual glasses that let us see the world not as fragmented, but as one unified soul-body?

In this powerful and vulnerable shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz guides us deeper into the mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael by exploring the metaphor of Klal Yisrael as a single, living organism — not just in theory, but in felt experience. Building on the teachings of the Tzemach Tzedek, the Baal HaTanya, and the Arizal, Rav Shlomo reveals how true love for another Jew begins with feeling your own soul. And once you do, you’ll inevitably feel someone else’s.

In this Shiur:

- Why Ahavat Yisrael demands emotional and spiritual reflexology
- The difference between seeing a Jew as “other” versus “another limb of my body”
- Why the Arizal would confess sins that weren’t his — and why that’s not extreme, but true
- The danger of thinking “they just don’t get it,” and what that says about our inner work
- What it really means to do teshuva for us, not just for me

This isn’t just theology, it’s group healing. Because if your soul hurts and mine doesn’t, feel it… maybe I’ve lost touch with my own neshama. But if we all started feeling each other again? That might be the beginning of real Geulah.

If we’re one soul, one body — then why do we keep hurting ourselves?

In this deeply moving shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz brings us face to face with the spiritual reality of Klal Yisrael as one living organism. Drawing from the Arizal, the Baal HaTanya, and Chassidic thought, we confront the spiritual absurdity — the insanity — of anger, revenge, and resentment toward another Jew.

What emerges is a vision of Am Yisrael where hurting another is no different than stabbing your own hand. If we are truly one soul, how could we ever justify separation, judgment, or division?

In this shiur:

- Why revenge and anger are signs of spiritual disconnection
- What it means that all Jewish souls are one literal spiritual body
- The power of visualizing others not as “other,” but as “me”
- Why even mitzvot between man and G-d don’t "land" properly without Ahavat Yisrael
- How the Arizal would do vidui (confession) on sins others committed — because he felt them as his own

This shiur doesn’t just inspire love — it rewires the way we see another Jew, and ultimately ourselves. Because if hurting you is hurting me… then healing you might just be what heals me, too.

What if hurting another Jew is no different than harming your own body? In this transformative shiur, Rav Shlomo Katz delves into the soul-stirring teaching of the Arizal — that all of Am Yisrael is one spiritual body. Drawing from the writings of the Baal HaTanya, Chabad, and Rav Kook, we explore the radical depth of Ahavat Yisrael as a spiritual prerequisite for authentic tefillah and divine connection.

Discover how unity isn’t a “nice” idea — it’s a halachic and emotional requirement to ascend spiritually. This episode invites us to ask: Can I truly pray, or grow, if I carry a grudge against another Jew? Can I bring a korban if part of me is still wounded?

In this shiur:
- The condition of wholeness (shleimut) in both the individual and the collective
- What it means to consciously take on the mitzvah of loving every Jew — as they are
- How our mitzvot affect not only us, but all of Klal Yisrael 
- Why your spiritual elevation depends on the way you see your fellow

Rav Shlomo guides us to a deeper, more honest version of ourselves — one where love is not a feeling, but a spiritual posture of responsibility and oneness.

“Love your fellow as yourself” is not just a Jewish value — it’s a mitzvah straight from the Torah.
But what does that really mean?

In this first episode of The Mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael, Rav Shlomo Katz takes us deep into the heart of one of Judaism’s most misunderstood commandments — loving fellow Jews. With passion, honesty, and sources from the Rambam, Chabad, Chazal, and Rav Kook, we begin to unravel what it means to work on love — not just feel it when it’s easy.

This isn’t about slogans. It’s about soul-work.

In this shiur:

• Why Ahavat Yisrael is an actual mitzvah — not optional
• How Chazal’s explanation of the churban gives us the blueprint for rebuilding
• Why love must be learned, trained, and earned — not just felt
• What Rav Kook and the Baal Shem Tov teach us about making love our profession

In a world where divisiveness is rampant — even among Jews — this series is an invitation to begin again. To become someone who truly loves Am Yisrael, and to make that love the foundation of your Yiddishkeit.