This week's TORAH GEMS were prepared by KI Rabbinic Resident Chaim Koritzinsky
BE HOLY, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR-BUT HOW???
This week's parasha contains one of the most famous passages in all of Torah: "Love your neighbor as yourself- I am the Lord." "V'ahavta Le'Reicha Kamocha, Ani Adonai" (Leviticus 19:18). In fact, this passage is so well known that it has become known as the Golden Rule and a variation of this passage can be found in almost all faiths.
This passage is quoted so often that it's easy to forget that it is actually a mitzvah, a commandment. After all, how can a person be commanded to love another person? What does it mean to love someone kamocha, like yourself? Isn't the commandment then dependant on how much one loves oneself? And what does God have to do with this commandment? Why does God need to remind us that Ani Adonai (I am God) in the same breath as commanding us to love our neighbor?
Contextually, we read this passage as part of a larger parasha that begins Kedoshim Tehiyu (Be Holy). The parasha goes on to describe all the mitzvot that one must follow in order to live up to this standard of holiness. Loving one's neighbor is one piece of this larger Holiness Code.
This week, we also read this parasha and this passage v'ahavta le'reicha kamocha, Ani Adonai (Love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord) with the backdrop of Yom Ha'shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). As my classmate Shayna Rhodes pointed out, the combination of last week's parasha "Achrei Mot" (After Death) with this week's parasha "Kedoshim Tehiyu" (You shall be holy), spells out a way that we can honor the memory of those who perished as well as inspire each of us today in fulfilling this commandment anew.
In this spirit, I offer various interpretations of this passage followed by a beautiful essay by one of my teachers and the founder of the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, Rabbi Arthur Green:
Hillel on One Foot
Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai, and said to him: Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a
Maimonides
It is a mitzvah for every human to love each and everyone from Israel as he loves his own body. As it is written, "Love your neighbor as yourself", therefore one must sing his praises, and show concern for his financial well-being, as he would for his own well-being and as he would for his own honor. Anyone who aggrandizes himself at the expense of another person has no portion in the world to come.
From Hilchot Deot: Laws of Counsel
Nachmanides
The reason behind, "be loving to your neighbor like yourself" is in fact an overstatement for no human heart can accept loving a command to love one's neighbor as oneself. And furthermore Rabbi Akiva already taught that "your own life comes before the life of your friend." Why is the passage written LE'reicha , meaning "to" or "towards" your neighbor (as opposed to the use of et, indicating a simple direct object)? For sometimes a person will love his neighbor in certain matters, such as doing good to him in material wealth but not with wisdom and similar matters. But if he loves him completely, he will want his beloved friend to gain riches, properties, honor, knowledge and wisdom. However [because of human nature] he will still not want him to be his equal, for there will always be a desire in his heart that he should have more of these good things than his neighbor. Therefore, the Torah commanded that this degrading jealousy should not exist in his heart, but instead a person should love to do abundance of good for his fellow-being as he does for himself, and he should place no limitations upon his love for him. It is for this reason that it is said of Jonathan's [love for David}, for he loved him as he loved his own soul (Samuel I 20:17)
Debate between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Azzai
"Love your neighbor as yourself." Rabbi Akiva said: this is the most important principle in the Torah. Ben Azzai said: More important is the principle: "this is the book of the generations of Adam; on the day when God made humans they were fashioned in the image of God" (Genesis 5:1).
From Midrash- Sifra Kedoshim 45
Rabbi Tanchuma brings in the Divine
Rabbi Akiva said: "Love your neighbor as yourself" is the most important principle in the Torah. Lest you say: because I was cursed so let my fellow be cursed, because I was despised, so let my fellow be despised, Rabbi Tanhuma said: If you behave in this manner, know whom you are despising for you were created in God's image.
From Midrash Genesis Rabba 24:7
A Christian Take
"He (one of the scribes) asked him (Jesus), which commandment is the most important of all? The most important is 'Hear O Israel the Lord our god, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There are no commandments greater than these."
From Mark 12:28
A Contemporary View
A short essay from Rabbi Arthur Green who picks up on the debate quoted above between Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai as to what is the most central precept in the Torah.
IN GOD'S IMAGE
The second mitzvah of Creation is that of treating every human being as the image of God. The very core of our self-understanding as Jews and as persons calls upon us to see each man and woman as a lens through which the Divine is reflected. This simple statement is the basis for all Jewish interpersonal ethics.
When Rabbi Akiva claimed that "Love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord" (Lev. 19:18) was the basis of the entire Torah, his colleague Ben Azai replied that "This is the book of the generations of Adam; on the day when God made humans they were fashioned in the image of God" (Genesis 5:1) was a more basic principle than that.
The discussion is a crucial one for understanding the place of ethical conduct within Judaism. Akiva is the great believer in love, both human and divine. Akiva sees the Song of Songs as the central metaphor for the relationship between God and Israel; he is willing to allow human ethics to base themselves on the commandment to love. Ben Azai is more realistic. Even where there is no love, he tells us, there is still the divine image. Every person is the bearer of that image and is entitled to the esteem and reverence in which we hold the face of God.
All the decisions we make in the interpersonal realm need to bear this principle in mind. The decision to open ourselves to another in love is one of sharing that divine spark within us, that of seeking out the face of God within the other. The realization that every human being is God's image makes an unambiguous demand upon us. Each person has the right to be known and loved for that divine image that is his or her most profound and often hidden self.
Each image of God in the world also has the right to exist in dignity, to engage in meaningful labor, and to live at peace. The role of governments and political parties is to see that this happens; it is to this standard of our religious respect for human dignity that they are to be held up.
In our individual lives as well, we constantly face the question, "Am I treating human beings- myself as well as others- as the image of God?" This demand will shape and restrict our actions rather clearly in attempts at the "use" of other human beings- whether as sexual objects, as tools to help us gain money on political power, or as fulfillment of some other need we have. We even ignore the divine image when we place people in depersonalized categories, relating to them only professionally, as "clients" of our therapeutic practice, or as "congregants" of our synagogue.
When applied to the way we treat ourselves, it will restrict both those activities that harm the human body, and those that lead us into situations of personal degradation. It is the basis of that hard-to-define term menschlichkeyt, or decent humanity, that sets the agenda for the instinctive ethics of many Jews, even those cut off from the theological moorings of their own values. The value of tselem Elohim, seeing humans as God's image, is also key to some of the most wrenching and difficult decisions we face in our lives. Some of these decisions, such as those involving abortion and euthanasia, are still difficult and morally ambiguous, even where we do seek full regard for God's image. Consideration of the human as divine image does not necessarily tell us which way to turn in such situations. Even there, however, it is a principle that guides us away from steps that might otherwise be undertaken too lightly.
But the matter of treating each person as the image of God extends beyond all these examples of moral demand. If we really live as though each person were God's image, we necessarily find every human being to be of interest to us. "There is no person who does not have his hour"- every human life has something unique and valuable about it, a contribution to be offered that can be fulfilled by no other. Each messenger brings back a unique portrait of the king, one that only he or she could paint. To take seriously our faith that each person is God's image is to treat every person with a spiritual dignity and caring that would transform all of our lives. Surely none of us lives this mitzvah to the fullest, but there can be no Judaism that does not constantly attempt to make it a reality.
From Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jewish Theology (Jason Aaronson, 1992)
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