It is easy to “love” the war-ravaged Bosnians, the AIDS-stricken Zaireans or the bereaved of Oklahoma City. But what of the strangers in our midst, the vagrants on our sidewalks?
The commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) was declared the fundamental ethic in Christianity and Judaism by Jesus and Rabbi Akiva, respectively.1 The Hebrew original consists of only three words. I shall discuss them, for limitations of space, in summary form.
1. we’ahavta, “You shall love.” How can love be commanded? The answer simply is that this Hebrew word implies not only an attitude or emotion, but also deeds. This is especially true of Deuteronomy, which speaks of a covenantal love. One loves the stranger by providing him with food and shelter (Deuteronomy 10:18–19). One loves God by obeying his commandments (Deuteronomy 11:1), and God, in turn, loves Israel by subduing its enemies (Deuteronomy 7:8).
Covenantal love is found, and perhaps originates, in the suzerainty treaties of the ancient Near East. To select one example out of many, the closest one to our verse is, “You shall love Assurbanipal…as yourselves.”2 Surely the Assyrian monarch was not looking for an emotional response from his vassals. What he wanted was their loyalty, for them to fulfill their treaty obligations. This kind of love can be legislated.
The medieval exegetes came to the same conclusion by noting that in this verse the Hebrew verb “love” takes the preposition le, which they render “for, on behalf of,”3 that is, do good as you would do for yourself.4 Indeed, all four attestations of ‘ahav le in Scripture imply doing, not feeling.5 That love implies deeds was understood by both Rabbi Hillel and Jesus: the former, negatively, what is hateful to you do not do to others,6 and Jesus, positively, do unto others as you would do to yourselves.7 As paradoxical as it may sound, love implies obligation, responsibility, duty—to reach out and assist the other.
2. lere’aka, “your fellow.” Some commentators take this term to embrace everyone, including non-Israelites, a meaning it clearly possesses (for example, Exodus 11:2). There can be no doubt whatsoever that Jesus and the rabbis gave our verse a universal context. However, the love for the non-Israelite is reserved for another verse later in the same chapter, “You shall love him [the resident alien] as yourself for you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). This verse, I submit, is the true ethical summit of the Hebrew Bible. One feels a bond of shared values, loyalties and responsibility to other members of the same society, ethnic group or nation. But it is more difficult to engender the same feelings for a total stranger. Therefore, Israel is reminded (repeatedly) of the way they were treated as outsiders in the land of Egypt.8 As poignantly expressed in one of these verses, “You know the feeling [nephesh] of the resident alien” (Exodus 23:9).
Moreover, note that these verses speak of the resident alien (Hebrew, ger), not just any outsider. It is easy to “love” the war-ravaged Bosnians, the AIDS- or Ebola-stricken Zaireans or the bereaved of Oklahoma City. Thanks to TV we are witnesses to their suffering. And we can respond by writing out a check before moving absent-mindedly to another channel. But what of the strangers resident in our midst, the vagrants, for example, who populate the sidewalks of our shopping areas? Would just writing the same check turn them into respectable, self-fulfilling members of society?
3. kamoka, “as yourself.” Different interpretations of this word have been proposed, for example, “who is the like of you,”9 namely, as an Israelite; “who is like you,”10 since he too was created by God; “for he is yourself.”11 Like most commentators, I can understand this word adverbially, rendering the entire commandment “Love (the good) for your fellow as you (love the good for) yourself.”
An illuminating exposition of this injunction is recorded in the names of Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai:
“Rabbi Akiva says: ‘This is (the most) basic law in the Bible.’ Ben Azzai disagrees: ‘When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God’ (Genesis 5:1), so that you should not say: ‘Since I despise myself, let my fellow be despised with me; since I am cursed, let my fellow be cursed with me.’ This is a more basic law.”12
Ben Azzai, in my opinion, scores hands down over Rabbi Akiva (and Jesus). Suppose you don’t love yourself, asks Ben Azzai—how can you love someone else? A person may think his life is a failure: he may be a social misfit, have delinquent children, be mired in debt. Instead of extending love, he will only project his misery. What then should this person do? Let him remind himself, says Ben Azzai, that because he bears the likeness of God, he is of ultimate worth, that regardless of his present condition he has the divinely endowed potential for joy and fulfillment, and only then having learned to love himself, he will recover his self-esteem and be capable of loving others.
The commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) was declared the fundamental ethic in Christianity and Judaism by Jesus and Rabbi Akiva, respectively.1 The Hebrew original consists of only three words. I shall discuss them, for limitations of space, in summary form. 1. we’ahavta, “You shall love.” How can love be commanded? The answer simply is that this Hebrew word implies not only an attitude or emotion, but also deeds. This is especially true of Deuteronomy, which speaks of a covenantal love. One loves the stranger by providing him with food and shelter (Deuteronomy 10:18–19). One […]
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Matthew 22:37–40; Mark 12:20–31; Luke 20:27–28 Sipra Qedoshim 4:12, cited below.
2.
Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon, column 4:266–68, in James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), p. 537.
3.
For example, Ibn Ezra (second explanation), Ramban, Bekhor Shor.
4.
To be sure, the lamed is frequently the sign of a direct object (e.g., 2 Samuel 3:30), as prevalent in Aramaic (e.g., Ezra 5:9).
For example, Exodus 22:20; 23:9; Deuteronomy 10:19.
9.
See A. Ehrlish, Randglossen zur hebraischen Bibel, 7 volumes (Leipzig, 1908–14), on Leviticus 19:34.
10.
N.H. Wessely, Netivot Ha-Shalom, vol. 3, Leviticus, ed. M. Mendelssohn (Vienna, 1846), on Leviticus 19:18.
11.
E. Ullendorf, “Thought Comparisons in the Hebrew Bible,” in Studies in Rationalism, Judaism and Universalism in Memory of L. Roth, ed. R. Loewe (London, 1966), pp. 276–78.
