WE FULLFILL OUR OBLIGATIONS WITH ACTIONS

“Behold I accept upon myself the commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' and behold I will strive to love every man and every woman with all my soul and with all my being.” 

"HOPE FOR YOUR NEIGHBOUR THE SAME THINGS THAT YOU HOPE FOR YOURSELF"

That is a decision I have to make for myself.  Love is in many respect an action.  

The things that we want for ourselves autonomy, security, freedom of speech, love, clean food and water ... all of that is what my neighbour wants as well.

Then we see it in our society when people treat each other with respect and compassion.

"The silver glass in which God's face shines"

The Holiness code

You shall be holy for I am Holy

Honour your Father and your mother

Gleaning a field and leaving some of the harvest for the poor

Not putting a stumbling block in front of the blind

The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is found in a section of Leviticus identified as the “Holiness Code”. In it are a variety of ethical mandates and show us how to live a holy life. To be holy is to treat others justly, humanely, with sensitivity. The laborer is to be promptly paid. The grocer is to keep honest weights and measures. The judge is to treat all who come before the bar fairly, regardless of wealth or station.

Many of these are straightforward behavioral directives. Not so with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. These three Hebrew words constitute a thicket of interpretation. V’ahavta: “You shall love”--What constitutes love? Can love be commanded? Would it be more accurate to say, “You shall care for?” L’reacha-“Your neighbor” Who is our neighbor—the member of our clan, the boy next door, the immigrant in East Palo Alto or the victim of the flood or tsunami whose pain enters into our living room? Kamocha-“As yourself” What are the boundaries of the self? For that matter, do we love ourselves? Perhaps we struggle with under-confidence or self-loathing; is that how we want to see others? What is the relationship between our neighbor and our self?

On the holiest days of the Jewish calendar, literally, the ritual gathering of the clan, Jews must include the pain of their enemies. In order to hear the call of redemption, they are asked also to hear the humanity of the other. If they do that they might hear their enemy’s mother gasping or they might hear her wailing, because both sounds are included in the Shofar calls. But no matter which one they understand to be her cries, if they listen carefully they will hear her pain and suffering in the sound of the Shofar.

Rabbi Feld writes, “The road not only to our own redemption but to the redemption of the "other" may lie in each side experiencing the pain of the other. If each could understand the other's suffering, if Palestinians could cry over the death of Jewish teenagers killed by a suicide bomber while they danced in a discotheque, and if Jews could feel the pain of the parents of an eight year old child killed by a scared Israeli soldier firing wildly at a checkpoint, then perhaps the redemption would be at hand or at least, then, a peaceful alternative would seem possible.”

Ritually, the rabbis are affirming that unless we hear the pain of our enemies in the blasts of the shofar, there can be no redemption.

“Vahavta l’reaacha kamocha” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. “ While these three words are powerful and challenging, they are not the end of the story, nor even the end of the sentence. The Bible says, “Vahavta l’reaacha kamocha, ani Adonai.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Eternal.”

The Eternal, who embodies holiness, who demonstrates compassion, who teaches us ethics, begins the Holiness Code with these words, “You shall be holy. For I, the Eternal, Your God, am holy.” When we strive for holiness, when we live with compassion, when we reach out to extend the boundaries of our neighborhood, we are imitating God and bringing God’s presence more visibly into our midst. When we are holy, what we extend is God’s holiness.

May each of us live our lives with open hearts and with outstretched hands. May we care for our neighbors as we care for ourselves. May our intentions be the gateway to true compassion, to heartfelt prayer and to generous community.