Rabbi Howard Morrison

This Shabbat, we reach the midpoint of the Torah with the double portion of Acharei Mot/Kedoshim. The first portion is familiar in that we read the beginning on Yom Kippur morning and the end on Yom Kippur afternoon. The second portion is very significant as the majority of the fundamental principles of the Torah are found in the single portion of Kedoshim, according to the Sages. One particular principle is also well known. Rabbi Akiva calls it the golden rule, "And you shall love your fellow as yourself."

While the golden rule is lofty, can it actually be fulfilled? What if you do not love yourself? How, then, can you love someone else as yourself?

What if the other fellow is evil? malicious? a terrorist? How can you love your fellow as yourself?

Elsewhere in rabbinic literature, the great sage, Hillel, understood the difficulty in observing the positive wording of the golden rule. Thus, he interpreted it by adjusting the language to a more passive or negative verbal formulation: "What is hateful to you, do not do to others." For Hillel, this statement is the golden rule of Judaism, from which everything else in our tradition evolves. In a famous narrative, a non-Jew asked Hillel to explain the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel responded while standing on one foot, "What is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn."

I pray for the day when it will be easier to observe the golden rule as it is stated in the Torah itself. In the meantime, let us try to live according to Hillel's reformulation as a starting point and go learn the rest of Judaism from that primary principle.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Howard Morrison