LEV710 The popular use of the phrase "thy neighbor" in many of the translations of the Golden Rule is misleading. It creates an incorrect impression that only neighbors, with whom one is acquainted, are entitled to man's love. This, of course, is absurd in view of the specific instruction to love the stranger (Leviticus 19:34). The root meaning of the Hebrew re-a is "one who is joined in love or friendship." In the course of time the term re-a has assumed a comprehensive connotation, embracing any member of the human race. In a moral sense all men are friends. The ninth commandment, "Thou shall not bear false witness against the neighbor" (as most translators render the Hebrew re-a-cha), surely did not limit the prohibition to friends and neighbors only. The correct rendition of the term re-a-cha in the Golden Rule, "your fellowman," presents a problem. Love, in the sense of an emotional attachment to an individual or idea, cannot develop without the existence of a specific object to which the love is directed. How can one love an individual whose existence is unknown to him? Yet the broad injunction "Love thy fellowman" appears to enjoin such sweeping love. The second half of the Golden Rule, "as thyself," is equally in need of clarification. Does the average individual love himself? Even if we leave out the remote narcissistic implications, most people would deny the charge that they love themselves. Human beings naturally crave the joys and pleasures of life and abhor pain and suffering, but that does not amount to self-love. What then is the intent of the Golden Rule, which enjoins man to love his fellow man as he loves himself? There is another question relating to the Golden Rule which requires attention. Is an order to love someone, based on religious or social considerations, feasible? Subjective emotions, such as love and hate, are spawned in one's heart and mind and are not amenable to external discipline. The Golden Rule, basic as it is, was not included in the Ten Commandments because technically it is not the proper subject of a command. Yet how effective can it be if it does not appear within the framework of the Decalogue? Nachmanides (13th cent.) argues that it is unrealistic to expect a man to love his fellow man as himself. Furthermore, he questions the ethicality of such an expectation and in view of Judaic morality, which permits man to give precedence to his own life or the lives of other people. The selfsame Rabbi Akiva who declared the Golden Rule a fundamental principle of the Torah also asserted man's right to look to his own life first. Nachmanides took note of the syntax of the Golden Rule, which is inconsistent with the traditional rendition of that verse. "Love" is a transitive verb which takes a direct object. In the Hebrew text of the Golden rule, "thy fellowman" is the indirect object of "love." It differs from the Deuteronomic verse (11:1), in which God is the direct object of man's love. In effect, the Golden Rule does not command one to love his fellowman but merely to have as loving an attitude toward other people as he has toward himself. This means according to Nachmanides, that one should rejoice as much when another person has cause to be happy as he would if he himself had cause to celebrate (on this verse).
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