LEV666 It is a positive commandment to bear affection for everyone in Jewry as for oneself as Scripture says, and you shall love your fellow as yourself [this verse]. It is therefore necessary to have as much protective concern for another person's physical self, his items of monetary value and his esteem, as for one's own. If someone derives honor from another's disgrace, he has no share in the world-to-come. Included in this positive commandment is [the religious duty of] making peace between a man and his friend.

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LEV670 Love your fellow Jew. Feel love and concern for your fellow Jew. Show mercy on him. Be concerned about him and his belongings as much as you are concerned about yourself and your belongings. … as a person treats his neighbor, so, too, his neighbor will treat him. Mutual good will leads to peaceful co-existence.

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LEV689 The Essenes, according to Philo, taught a threefold doctrine: love of God, love of virtue and the love of mankind. Philo Judaeus, ed. Yonge, III, On the Virtuous Being also Free, ch. 12. See Secrets of Enoch, 50:3-4. A Hasidic work of the first pre-Christian century contains the monition: "Love the Lord through all thy life, and one another with a true heart." The entire work is filled with the spirit. Love of God and the neighbor, compassion for the poor and the weak and even for the beasts are urged as the duty of man. Man must be compassionate, "because even as men doeth to his neighbor, even so also will the Lord do unto him." Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Dan. 5:3; Issachar 5:1; also 7:6; Test. Zeb. 5:1-3; also 7:2, 8:1; Test Benj. 3:3; 10:3. Jesus, therefore, followed well-established Jewish teaching when he combined the commands to love God and to love one's neighbor. Matt. 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27. In Luke the combination is made by a Pharisee. So, too, R. Akiba regarded the command "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" [this verse] as the leading principle of the Torah. Sifra to Lev. 19:18; Rashi, ad loc. (Numerous additional citations omitted-AJL). This view is probably related to his emphasis on man as created in the Divine image. By loving one's fellow man, love is shown to his Creator.

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LEV691 The Golden Rule. Hillel, while teaching the duty of man to "love his fellow creatures and to bring them near unto the Torah," Avot 1:12 also summarized the intent of the entire Torah in the words: "What is hateful into thee, do not to thy fellow man." Shabbat 31a. (Lengthy note omitted-AJL). Jewish and Christian scholars have sought to find in Hillel's negative formulation of the golden rule the tendency of Judaism toward justice in contradistinction to its positive statement by Jesus (Matthew 7:12 and in briefer form in Luke 6:31), typical of the Christian emphasis on love. The contrast drawn between Jewish and Christian ethics on the basis of the different formulations of the golden rule ignores the fact that both versions derive from the command of (this verse), "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." W.A. Spooner, art., "Golden Rule, " H.E.R.E. VI;310-312. G.B. King, the Golden Rule, Journ. Rel. VIII, 168-79. Furthermore, both forms appear indiscriminately in the literature of the Synagogue and the Church.

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LEV682 See [[GEN111]] Genesis 1:27 image DORFF-RUTTENBERGSOC 141

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LEV677 See [[DEUT341]] Deuteronomy 7:9 steadfast DORFFDRAG 124-5

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LEV667 It is forbidden to be obdurate and not allowing self to be appeased. On the contrary, one should be easily pacified and difficult to anger. Moreover, when asked by an offender for forgiveness, when should forgive with a sincere mind and a willing spirit. Even if one had been much vexed and grievously wrong, he is not to avenge nor bear a grudge (this verse).

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LEV685 See [[LEV478]] Leviticus 19:16 idly DORFFLOV 234-5

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LEV644 … it is not only the poor whom God commands us to help. In what is one of the most famous verses of the Torah, the one that Rabbi Akiva calls the fundamental principle of the Torah [Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12], God commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself; I am Adonai” (Leviticus 19:18). The Rabbis of the Midrash and Talmud, interpreting this verse, determined that it requires us not really to love everyone, which they knew was impossible, but to have concern for others and, more important, to act out of that sense of commitment and loyalty to others. So, for example, they used this verse to explain a man's duty to marry a woman who is fitting for him [T. Sotah 5:6; B. Kiddushin 41a], to forbid a man from having sexual intercourse with his wife during the day lest he sees something loathsome in her [B. Niddah 17a], to permit a child to draw blood from his or her parents in an effort to heal him or her [B. Sanhedrin 84b] despite the Torah’s prohibition of injuring one’s parents (Exodus 21:15), and to require that a person who is to be executed be killed in the least offensive way possible [T. Sanhedrin 9:3; B. Pesachim 75a; J. Sotah 1:5 (6a); J. Sanhedrin 6:4 (28a). Maimonides (1135-1204) uses this verse as the basis for yet other laws: that one must tell the praises of others, avoid self-aggrandizement through defaming others, and concern oneself with other people's money as one would take care of one's own [M.T. Laws of Ethics (Hilkhot De’ot) 6:3]. Furthermore, Maimonides maintains that loving one's neighbor as oneself is one of the grounds for the demand that we rescue captives [M.T. Laws of Gifts to the Poor 8:10]. He asserts that although the commands to visit the sick, bury the dead, comfort mourners, and help a bride and groom celebrate their wedding are of rabbinic rather than biblical status, they are rooted in this biblical command [M.T. Laws of Mourning 14:1].

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LEV680 See [[EXOD572]] Exodus 21:19 heal DORFFWITO 150-2

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