You Shall Love Your Neighbor...

The following d'var torah was delivered on Yom Kippur afternoon at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan.

In a few moments, we’re going to read what is sometimes referred to as the ethical core of the Torah. In one climatic chapter, God lays out God’s expectations for ethical living, including such maxims as “leave the corners of your field for the poor,” “do not place a stumbling block before the blind,” and famously, The Golden Rule: “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha—You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In the days leading up the High Holidays, I found myself wondering: What is it that gets in the way of achieving the Torah’s ethical standards? A person asks for money on the train, and we avert our eyes. A person sleeps under the awning by our corner store, and we walk past him every morning as if he wasn’t there. We hold grudges. We lie. What is it that keeps us from loving our neighbors as ourselves?

One answer—and I think a sound, but ultimately unsatisfying answer—comes from our ancient sage Rabbi Hillel. The Talmud records that once a non-Jew approached Rabbi Hillel and asked to be converted to Judaism, so long as Hillel could explain the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Rabbi Hillel accepted the challenge, balanced himself on one leg and said, “Do not do unto others that which is hurtful to you. The rest is commentary. Now go and study.”

Rabbi Hillel takes The Golden Rule and frames it in the negative: “Do not do unto others that which is hurtful to you.” And yes, this alleviates us of unrealistic responsibilities to perfect strangers. Would loving your neighbor as yourself mean that you have to love your neighbor’s children as much as your own children? This kind of expectation is unrealistic, and Rabbi Hillel provides a more nuanced framework in which to understand our ethical responsibilities. “Do not do unto others that which is hurtful to you.”

But Rabbi Hillel’s formulation can’t possibly relieve us of our responsibilities towards that person who sleeps under the awning at the corner store. Maybe something that isn’t hurtful to me will, unwittingly, be hurtful to someone else in ways I couldn’t even imagine. It doesn’t hurt me to stand under the shower for 30 minutes every morning, but it likely does hurt someone who doesn’t have access to clean water at all. It doesn’t hurt me to spend all my money exactly as I’d like, but it does contradict the command to “leave the corners of your field for the poor.” So while Rabbi Hillel’s maxim does help explain why it’s sometimes hard to live up to the Torah’s ethical standard, it does so only to a partially. And nevertheless, the Torah still says, “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha—Love your neighbor as yourself.” And I find, time and again, that that’s really hard to do.

The 18^th century German-Jewish philosopher Rabbi Naftali Herz Weisel offers the following solution. Rabbi Weisel examines a grammatical peculiarity in the phrasing of “v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha.” Perhaps you’ve heard that last word before, kamocha. It’s in one of our prayers—“Mi chamocha ba-eilim Adonai—Who, o God, is like you?” Who is “kamocha?” Who is “like you?” Using this insight, Rabbi Weisel retranslates “v’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha”—not “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but rather, “Love your neighbor, kamocha.” “Love your neighbor, like you.” “Love your neighbor, he is like you.” “Love your neighbor, because, like you, he is also a human being.”

The word kamocha, the word “like you,” doesn’t refer to how much we’re supposed to love our neighbor, but rather to the reason that we’re supposed to love our neighbor. “You should love your neighbor, because your neighbor is like you.” Because that person who asks for money on the subway is like you. Because that person who sleeps beneath the awning at the corner store is like you. You should let go of your grudges, because that person against whom you hold a grudge is like you. All 7 billion of us are just like you. That is to say, all 7 billion of us are human, like you. All 7 billion of us were created in the image of God, like you. All 7 billion of us have a spark of divinity inside of us, a light in our eyes, breath in our lungs, a mother, a father, a story of where we come from and a hope for where we going—just like you.

So I think I found an answer to my question. I think I know at least one thing that gets in the way of living up to the Torah’s ethical standards, and more importantly, of living up to my own. And it’s not what might you think. It’s not that I forgot that each one of us has a divine spark inside. It’s that I sometimes forget that I do.

My wish for all of us this Yom Kippur is that 5774 will be a year in which we keep our eye on the divine spark inside of us. Because if you can remember that you’re divine, that’s the first step in remembering that we’re all divine. That varied though we may be, each one of us is like you.