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LEVITICUS — 19:17 hate

LEV563 Spiritual welfare is a by-product of love and of consideration for all. It is born of a minimizing of the good done for another and a maximizing of the good done by another (Derekh Eretz Zuta; Abot d'R. Nathan, passim). It will express itself in altruistic friendship, ever ready to be the first to greet others (Abot iv. 20) and regarding the honor of another as equivalent to one's own (Abot 15). Rabbi Johanan b. Zakkai was always the first to greet a person, be he a non-Jew (Berachot 17a); to be polite to others is equivalent to being polite to the Shechinah (Erubin). If one has nothing to offer a poor man save courtesy and a smiling face, it is good enough; life has shown these things to be worth more than treasure (Abot d'R. Nathan). Nothing is more injurious to moral well-being then to hate another inwardly [this verse; Arakhin 16a], and to take vengeance is a boomerang; for both suffer. If we are to love another as ourselves, the logical inference is that to hurt another, is like cutting off our right-hand because it has injured our left (a striking thought of the Yerushalmi Ned. ix).

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LEVITICUS — 19:17 hate

LEV557 Maimonides summarizes various Talmudic passages and shows all the deleterious effects of someone who displays his or her anger. He says that the angry person [who] appears to be worshiping a different "God" loses his learning and wisdom at the moment of anger (if he is a prophet, he loses his prophecy), and loses his quality of life itself. Therefore, Maimonides strongly recommends that a person should constantly work on himself not to feel anger and not to react to those things that normally would generate anger. In this way, he becomes a righteous individual by accepting personal attacks without responding at all. In addition, he should strive to react to suffering with joy (Maimonides, Hilchot De'ot 2:3). Nevertheless, the Torah clearly says that a person should not hate another person "in his heart," to which the commentaries (such as Nachmanides) explain that if a person feels wronged and angry, he or she should not harbor that anger and hate inwardly, but rather confront the person (in a courteous manner) asking the offender to explain his or her behavior and letting the person know why one feels wronged [this verse with Nachmanides commentary]. This will ultimately engender more love, peace, and understanding, and remove anger (See chapter "Hatred in Judaism" for an expanded discussion of this issue). Thus, in this case we see that, if done in a civil manner, it is good for a person to express his or her feelings of anger to the one who is the object of that anger, and it is beneficial not to deny or hold these feelings inside of oneself. The Torah then understands that it is sometimes better to express one's angry feelings, but not in an angry way, if the goal is to dissipate them. That is why the Mishna, in describing four types of people, says that the best kind of person is someone who takes a very long time to become angry and then dissipates that anger quickly (and the worst is the opposite-someone who is very easily angered, who takes a very long time to calm down and forget his anger) (Mishna Avot 5:11). Thus, in Judaism, a person is judged by his or her reaction to anger and how he or she displays or does not display it, and not by the feeling itself.

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LEVITICUS — 19:18 love

LEV646 "One should consider well, in communing with the soul, whether he has made the best use of any wealth that he may possess. Has he always done good with it? One should meditate constantly on the many ways in which one man can help another, only doing unto others that which he loves others to do for him. Man should rejoice in the happiness of others and grieve in their sorrow. At all times he should be full of compassion for them, warding off from them to the utmost of his power anything that may injure them. Has it not been said: 'and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself'?" [this verse. Quotation is from Duties of the Heart (Hovot Ha'levavot, Bahyah Ibn Pakuda]

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LEVITICUS — 19:18 love

LEV652 A man should be as soft as a reed when it comes to reconciliation, not hard as a cedar (Taan. 20b). "To forgive him who caused me distress", was the prayer to God of many of our noblest characters. The Abot d'R. Nathan (xli, in the edition of Schechter). has excellent advice on the subject: "If you have done your fellow a little wrong, let it be in your eyes great; if you have done him much good, let it be in your eyes a little. If he has done you a little good, let it be in your eyes great; if he has done you a great wrong, let it be in your eyes little." The man who declines to forgive, transgresses an express command of the Torah [this verse]. He will receive the rod of chastisement (Yoma 23a), because he has incurred Divine displeasure by preserving enmity and being glad when misfortune befalls another. If to forgive is God's metier, as Heine said on his death-bed (Dieu me pardonnera; c'est son metier". God will forgive me; this is His business".) how much more should it be the predominating characteristic of frail and impulsive man?

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LEVITICUS — 19:18 love

LEV665 In this vein spoke also Ben Azzai: "The Torah, by beginning with 'This is the book of the generations of Adam' (Gen v. I), makes it clear that the command' 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself [this verse], refers to all people who must be included as 'thy neighbor'. (Gen R. xxiv (end)). "All righteous people, not only Jews," says another sage, "shall enter the eternal Kingdom." The Psalmist (cxviii. 20) did not specify the Jew, when he said: "This is the Gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter into it." All citizens, irrespective of belief, are entitled to a share in the amenities of a township on which the maintenance of concord depends. All the poor of the town must be supported; all their dead given a decent burial; all their mourners comforted; and all their sick visited (Gittin 64a). No Jew can be called righteous who is not good unto all (Kiddushin 40a). So important is the respect we must pay to all our fellow-pilgrims on earth that most of the Biblical prohibitions may be transgressed on its account (Kidd. 40a; Ber. 19b; Abot iv. 3; Bezah 32b).

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LEVITICUS — 19:18 love

LEV648 (Continued from [[DEUT829]] Deut. 16:11 rejoice LEHRMAN 28-29). ... Judaism seeks to store the mind with a knowledge of the great in fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations. It seeks to create a being who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire; whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience (cf. Abot iv. I.) The perfect Jew is one who has learnt to love all beauty and to hate all vileness; who respects the feelings and the possessions of others as if they were his own; who loves his neighbor not only like himself but because he is part of himself [this verse; Cf. Jer. Tal. Nedarim ix, where is this command is illustrated by the fact that the whole body quivers with pain even when only the finger is cut]-- the real meaning of Leviticus xix.18. This never-ceasing emphasis on moral perfection is the core of Judaism. The practical sense of our faith looks askance at metaphysical discussions of God and the Universe. Its counsel of perfection is "to know Him in all thy ways" (Prov. iii 6), to obey His commandments and become God-like in the process. Life is given to man by God, and it is his task to shape it after the divine pattern revealed on Sinai. To choose life and to shape it -- this is the demand of Judaism.

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LEVITICUS — 20:26 apart

LEV862 To the Sifra (93:2), we turn again for a most striking ethical observation. Commenting on [this verse], the sages add: "Whence do we derive that one should not say: I do not like to wear Shatnez (a web mixture of wool and explained in Kil. Ix. 8 as an acrostic. I do not like to eat the flesh of the pig ..." Rather: "I do like to do these things; but what can I do since my Heavenly Father has decreed in His Torah: "And I have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be Mine?" Discipline manifests greater obedience and self-sacrifice. (Continued at [[DEUT1111]] Deut. 22:3 indifferent LEHRMAN 66-7)

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LEVITICUS — 25:11 jubilee

LEV960 This cry for social justice is heard throughout the prophetic writings. It was the demand of Isaiah (v. 8) and the lack of it was condemned by Amos (viii. 4). The Book of Proverbs (xi. 26) imposes curses upon him who withholds the corn from the people in need. Judaism laid the foundations of a higher justice not satisfied with the mitigation of misery by pittances but insisted on a readjustment of the social conditions that create poverty. If the rest of the world has become more philosophically-minded, it is due in great measure to the "Poor Laws" of the Torah, to its institutions of Shemitah (Deut. xv. 1-6) and Yovel [this verse], and to its provisions for the release of debts in the restoration of fields and houses to those forced to sell what had once been their patrimony. These human regulations aimed at preventing the tyranny of wealth from becoming a permanent source of oppression. From them arose all efforts in modern times to alleviate the lot of the poor and check the causes of corruption in the social organism. Jewish Social Ethics seek not only to alleviate but to cure; not only to serve as a panacea for many ills but as a prophylactic; not only to add to the happiness of mankind but to arm the good instincts inherent in society and in man that they may overcome the evil rampant in the world. Justice demands a consciousness of individual responsibility and an interdependence of one man on another. In Jewish ethics, virtue is not a sedative, but a stimulus; not a dope, but a dynamic.

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LEVITICUS — 25:35 straits

LEV1040 As an example of the ethics of our Halachah, take the laws governing Charity (Hilchot Tsedakah). The word Tsedakah teaches us that Judaism does not consider it a favor for the poor to have their condition improved but an inalienable right. The Rabbis were so advanced in their views of Social Justice that they were convinced that indiscriminate almsgiving aggravates the misery of the recipient besides preventing other measures from being used that would be more beneficial to all concerned. It is the duty, as well as the prerogative, of him who has some of the blessings of this world not to rest content so long as others suffer for want of those very things he can spare. The Torah [this verse, Deut. xv. 8] anticipated the maxim of the text-books of the Communists and Socialists -- "To each according to his needs; from each according to his powers." Epigrammatic as this advice may sound, we prefer the warmth of the Biblical command: [Deut. xv. 7-11]. From this extract was the giving of alms amplified by the Rabbis, and later reduced to a fine art by Maimonides in the chapters on Tsedakah in his Mishneh Torah. It is apparent that Talmudic ethics proceed upon the principle that whosoever is alive has a right to be alive to be kept alive.

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