LEV734 THE GOLDEN COMMANDMENT AND THE GOLDEN RULE. No other moral principle is so direct and powerful as the golden rule. In the first century B.C.E., the sage Hillel stated the rule in its negative form, “What is hateful unto you, do not do unto thy neighbor.” (B. Shabbat 31a) A few decades later, Jesus gave it a positive formulation, “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” (Matthew 7:12) The Golden Commandment. A sentence found in verse eighteen of the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus is the source, for Jews and Christians, of the golden rule. J.H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, Soncino, p.502. The entire verse reads: “Thou shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.” This short Hebrew sentence,וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמֹ֑וךָ “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” is the source of the golden rule, and I call it the golden commandment. It dates back to at least the sixth century B.C.E. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament, Harper and Brothers, pp. 239 ff. What does the phrase “as thyself” in the golden commandment mean? Does it mean loving as much as you love yourself? Or does it mean loving as a person like yourself? A careful translation of the Hebrew text clarifies the issue. The word in question is כָּמֹ֑וךָ (kamokha). Leo Baeck pointed out that כָּמֹ֑וךָ (kamokha) despite the fact that it is usually translated “as thyself close” is not, as we might think, reflective. Baeck translated the phrase, “he is as thou.” Baeck, “The Interrelation of Judaism and Ethics,” Dr. Samuel Schulman Lectures at the Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati: 1949, p. 20. Sheldon Blank, Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, makes the same judgment. He understands כָּמֹ֑וךָ (kamokha) to be in a sort of appositive relationship with רעך (re’akha) your neighbor, a person like you. (Letter to Norman Hirsh, April 8, 1972). The comparable uses in the Bible of this prepositional form strongly favored the interpretations of Baeck and Blank. The recently published New English Bible also concurs. It translates the clause in question, “You shall love your neighbor as a man like yourself.” The New English Bible, The Old Testament, Oxford University Press, 1970, p. 156. In agreement with Baeck, Blank and the New English Bible, I would translate the golden commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as a person like yourself.” The golden rule with its assumption of humanity similarly thus follows directly from the golden commandment. Hillel and the Golden Rule. It is now clear what Hillel did when he formulated the golden rule: “What is hateful unto you, do not do unto thy neighbor.” Hillel’s rule leaves unsaid what is stated in the golden commandment. Hillel's golden rule does not express the command to love thy neighbor; nor does it state the conviction that the neighbor is a person like yourself. While these assertions remain part of the golden rule, they are unspoken. On the other hand, Hillel made explicit what was implicit in the golden commandment. For if we are commanded to love the neighbor, and, if the neighbor is a person similar to ourselves, then it follows that what is hateful to us will be hateful to him; and we should refrain from doing it. By restating the golden commandments so as to make its consequences explicit, Hillel made it more directly usable in the world of action.

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LEV735 The Torah commands us, "Love your neighbor as yourself". (This verse). Seemingly it would have been enough to command "Love your neighbor"; why "as yourself"? The Torah seems to be telling us that it is impossible to love someone else unless you first love and esteem yourself. Likewise, the love of our neighbor is a prerequisite for effective love and concern for others beyond my community. A person who recognizes his own worth is capable of loving others; someone who loves and cares for members of his own community is able to push out the envelope and extend that love onward. But if a person starts by deciding that he will love all human beings equally, he will find it difficult to love any human being effectively. Universal love is certainly the ideal, but this love is achieved by cultivating brighter and brighter concentric circles of concern.

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LEV729 In his essay about Kierkegaard, Buber notes that the biblical command to love God reads, "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5), and the command to love humans says, "Love your neighbor as one like yourself" [this verse]. The neighbor--the one encountered fairly regularly--is to be loved "as I wish it may be shown to me." Between Man and Man, Smith, trans. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1947) p.66. That this love given to the unique other is to a certain degree self-serving does not revert this I-Thou relationship back to an I-It relation automatically. Rather, this idiosyncratic expression of love expresses both the concrete uniqueness of the loved and lover. Love among humans thus differs in degree. Love between humans and God, however, is a different kind: it is to be done with all one's heart, soul, and might. (See Deuteronomy 6:5. This verse and the following five verses constitute the first of the three paragraphs of the Shema, the watchword of Jewish liturgy and faith). (By Jonathan K. Crane)

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LEV726 "Love your neighbor as yourself" The Torah obligate us to be equally considerate of the property and dignity of others as we are of our own (Rambam Daios 5:3). By speaking or listening to loshon hora a person shows that he does not love the subject, definitely not to the degree that he loves himself. Although a person might be aware of his own faults, he does not want anyone else to speak about them. If someone does relate his faults, he hopes that the listeners will reject what they hear. Anyone who speaks or accepts lashon hora violates this commandment.

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LEV731 One who speaks or believes lashon hara also transgresses the positive commandment of וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמֹ֑וךָ , “And you shall love your fellow as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18). This mitzvah requires one to be as concerned about another person's money as he is about his own; it also requires us to be sensitive to another person's honor, and to speak well of him, just as one is mindful of his own honor. Someone who speaks or believes lashon hara or rechilus about another person--even if the information is true--truly demonstrates that he does not love that other person at all, and is certainly not fulfilling the mitzvah of loving him as himself. The strongest proof of this is that every person knows his own faults, yet he still would not want anyone else to find out about even one thousandth of his faults under any circumstances. If by chance someone discovered a few of his shortcomings, and went around telling others about them, he would still hope that Hashem would cause the listeners not to believe the speaker's words. This is also so that others will not view him as a person who is not respectable--even though he knows he has committed many more sins than that which the other person revealed. Nevertheless, the great love that he has for himself overrides all that. This is precisely the approach that Torah requires one to take with regard to a fellow Jew’s honor; (Continued at [[GEN742]] Genesis 9:23 covered SEFER 51).

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LEV733 Self-esteem must include self-love. The Torah's most famous law, "Love your neighbor as yourself" [this verse] commands us to love the people among whom we live. But implicit in "as yourself" is the command to love ourselves. As a rule, if people don't like themselves, they will be less kind to others. For example, has there ever been an abusive parent with a decent self-image? People who despise themselves are more likely to mistreat others than are those with a positive self-image, particularly when their self image derives, at least in part, from seeing themselves as people of good character.

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LEV736 Those who speak negatively of others also violate [this] commandment. Since people do not want damaging information about themselves shared with others, gossips cannot claim to have even tried to fulfill this fundamental law. Gossips also violate the Torah's Golden Rule by revealing and discussing people's greatest areas of vulnerability. If we entered a room and heard people talking about us, what aspects of our lives would we least like to hear them discussing? It would probably be our character flaws and intimate details of our social life. Yet most of us, when gossiping, focus precisely on these two areas.

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LEV738 Most people who have studied the Torah or Judaism are aware of the key verse (mentioned above as possibly the very essence of Judaism) commanding Jews love their fellow as they love themselves- i.e., to treat others as they would want to be treated. But what is the verse that immediately follows these well-known and important words? God commands the Jew not to mate animals of different species, not to plant together seeds of different species, and not to wear a garment that contains wool (the symbol of the animal world) and flax (the symbol of the plant world) [this and preceding verse]. Why? What is the connection between these two verses? The second verse stresses that species and creations of God that are created as separate and different should remain separate and different. Thus, although God wants Jews to love others, he does not want everyone to become the same and homogenized as a result. A Jew should love others, even though they remain different or, perhaps, because they are different. Therefore, Judaism does not wish or attempt to change non-Jews and make them just like Jews. While conversion to Judaism is tolerated, it is not encouraged. Remaining different and still loving those who are different is at the heart of Judaism.

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LEV739 While Rashi states that these are commandments without logical reason, Nachmanides disagrees. He believes that God is telling man that there are limits to his ability and mandate to create and tamper with God's creation. Man may not make hybrids of plants and animals, because that kind of creation is beyond man's scope. Man can create in the world, but not create new species or new creations. Ibn Ezra also states that this prohibition limits man's ability to mix species in his creation (Nachmanides and Ibn Ezra commentaries on this verse]. These opinions seem to prohibit man's ability to manipulate genes or to even attempt cloning human beings, as this should remain in God's realm, not man's. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch also indicates that God wishes to limit man's ability to create through the prohibition of Shatnez, mixing wool and linen. He says that will represents the kingdom of animals (the source of wool) while linen represents the kingdom of plants (the source of linen) [Hirsch commentary on this verse]. Man may not mix them, in order to show symbolically that man may not interfere in the creation of any species or change of any creation by God. Thus, cloning would be a realm beyond man's mandate to create in the world.

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LEV737 In The Special Laws (3.46-50), Philo raises an argument which can be relevant in developing a Jewish bio-medical view "according to nature." Using the prohibition of (this verse) and Deuteronomy 22:9–11 against mixing diverse types of seeds/fabrics/animals as the basis for his discussion, Philo establishes the reason for this prohibition in three separate arguments. Each argument, however, is related to the basic "according to nature" view. First, one who mixes different species "will be punished as an offender against the decree of nature, who is careful to preserve the primary species without adulteration." Second, Philo relates this "mixing" as a biblical euphemism against "unlawful forms of intercourse" and to prohibit the introduction of "monsters of the kind that may be expected to spring from such abominations." Finally, Philo argues that "even people who care little for seemliness would not continue to use (these animals)… because they no longer will serve a purpose in life, their survival, even if it is turned to some account, is just a superfluity, 'cumbering the earth, as the poet puts it." Homer, The Odyssey, 20. 379. 46 This final reason unlike the first two raises a new consideration. To Philo nature has a purpose and creation is unique. Even if the purpose of the new "creation" is profit yielding, the creation must serve human life or be judged "clutter." Though Philo is speaking about a primitive bio-medical technique only vaguely similar to modern bio-medical technology, but (sic) the principle which he raises can be applied in bio-medical and modern scientific ethical consideration.

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