Shalom! This is Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg of the Ezra Avenue Township Jewish Congregation. This week is actually a double Torah portion, we sometimes read two portions together, that is because there is 54 portions in the Torah and in a non-leap year there is 48 weeks and sometimes we have to combine them. This week, the middle two portions of Leviticus called Acharei Mot and Kedoshim. I want to focus this week on Kedoshim because it is really one of these central passages in all of literature. In fact, everybody should memorize most of Leviticus 19, it has got some of the most amazing laws of religion or philosophy and the center of it is Leviticus 19:18, everybody is for sure re-memorize these three simple words Viahafta Lireacha Kamocha, love thy neighbor as thyself, remember a while ago, a young fellow came o me and said “Rabbi, how come we do not have any good verses like they have in the New Testament like, love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Well, that was pretty funny since Jews had it first in Leviticus. In fact, if you read literature of any religion, just about, they have some version of that verse, and so God emanates God’s wisdom, not just the Jews and so clearly, those three words, Viahafta Lireacha Kamocha which means love thy neighbor as thyself is something deep in God’s center essence as a hope for us. Now, what does that mean exactly? Well, the great sage Hillel in the Talmud who is a contemporary of Jesus was asked by a Gentile to explain all of Judaism’s standing on one foot. That is an expression that comes from that passage, actually there is manuscripts which show us that there is an additional letter and if you add that letter, it means standing in one principle which makes much more sense but standing on one foot is a good idea, and what Hillel said to this fellow is “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor, all the rest is commentary, go and study.”
I go to our school on Fridays and talk about the Torah portion and when it comes to this week, I always ask them to stand on one foot as long as they can and say “What you hate, do not do to anybody else.” Standing on one foot, you can probably say that, even at four and five, you all can say that, and that is really the essence of so much of wisdom, if you hate it, you know that your neighbor is going to hate it too, do not do it to them, and then the world would be a much better place, just simply following that basic rule. Love thy neighbor as thyself, and so many cultures, as I mentioned have this basic idea. Now, there is lots of times in Jewish life and in our regular life where that issue comes to play, and one of the classic interpretations is, you have to love yourself at first suggests.
You cannot just be so self-effacing that in order to please everybody else, you deny yourself. So the verse has two parts, you have to love yourself and you have to love your neighbor as yourself, you have to love you and your neighbor because both are made in God’s image, you, as well as your neighbor, so both have to be loved. That easiest thing to do but definitely we need to have more in our world of not hating the stranger but embracing the stranger, not persecuting the stranger, but treating everyone with one law alike. That is why the Torah is such a great document, the greatest document there is because It teaches us dozens of times, in case we forget it the first few dozen, but there should be one law for Israelite and stranger alike and God gets furious if we mistreat the stranger and the orphan and the widow. And so, the word this week and it should be the word for all of our lives, we should staple into all of our material so we see it everywhere we look is we have to lave your neighbor as yourself.
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