LEV656 Even though the Torah ascribes no special significance to the verse "Love your neighbor as yourself," Jewish sources have long understood this commandment as having special --and in some ways preeminent--significance. Rabbi Akiva (second century) declared that the injunction to love your neighbor "is the major principle of the Torah"(Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9:4). More than a century before Akiva, Hillel presented a negative formulation of this law, "What is hateful to you, do not do your neighbor." He also declared this to be Judaism's central teaching: "This is the whole Torah! All the rest is commentary" (Shabbat 31a). Occasionally, I have heard people describing Hillel's formulation of the Golden Rule as representing a lower, more pragmatic ethic than the positive but vaguely phrased "Love your neighbor." But, in fact, Hillel was concerned with offering people practical guidance on how to make this law part of their daily behavior, and he understood that it is first necessary to teach people what not to do. ... In defining Judaism initially by what one shouldn't do, Hillel may have been emulating God's articulation of the Ten Commandments. Thus, my friend Dr. Isaac Herschkopf notes that "God did not command us to be honest, truthful, and faithful. Rather, He commanded us, 'Don't steal,' 'Don't bear false witness,' 'Don't commit adultery.' It might be less positive, but it is undeniably more effective."