One well known and highly regarded Rabbi said publicly with no shame that he loves a certain Goy who is a world-renowned רשע מרושע. I understand that he was trying to display his openness and tolerance. Lovely. But why on such a vile-terrible-excuse-for-a-human-being??
We don't love Hitler. We hate him. We don't love Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Black Supremacists, anti-semites, terrorists, evil regimes, sex offenders, wife and child abusers etc. etc. We have to make a sharp demarcation between evil and good. If there is a Jew who doesn't know any better and sins, then the Chazon Ish says to be mekarev him with love. But the regular evil person is not worthy of our love.
You want to love? GREAT!! Love every talmid in the Mir Yeshiva. And in Brisk. And Lakewood. You already have over 15 thousand people to love. You should love their families, too. We start by loving Tzadikim. They deserve the most love [see the Rosh Yeshiva's (Rav Hutner) incredible eulogy of the Rosh Yeshiva (Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz)]. Then we move on to the mediocre Jews. When we get to the Reshaim, we love the good in them and hate the evil [as the Tanya explains - or Brachos 10 יתמו חטאים ולא חוטאים].
That is Klal Yisrael. Those who are outside of Klal Yisrael have to do more to deserve our love. We have compassion for all beings, as it says ורחמיו על כל מעשיו. We can love them b/c Hashem created them [as the Rav ztz"l writes beautifully in ערפלי טוהר, quoted on these pages in the past] and we love Hashem. But if they are evil we should hate them b/c we hate evil. It is DANGEROUS to feel love or even indifference to such people. Such feelings dull our sense of right and wrong.
Here was a very superficial overview of the topic which is much more subtle and nuanced than presented here. But the general rule is that we don't subscribe to the Christian perversion of turning the other cheek and loving our enemies. Do I love the Arab who went into the Fogel home and slaughtered the parents to death together with 3 of their children? I hate him.
I hope you do, too.
