Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

The rabbi of my home congregation (Temple Emanuel in Roanoke, Virginia), Kathy Cohen, would start every d'var Torah with, "This week's is my favorite Torah portion!"  So, I know I should be careful when I say that parashat Kedoshim really is one of my favorites.  In this sermon, I connect my favorite parashah to one of my favorite prophetic texts, Isaiah 56, emphasizing the importance of including non-Jews in the Jewish community in the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Look Around
These are Our Neighbors
Love Them as Yourself

My favorite part of studying Yiddish in Vilnius last summer was enjoying Shabbos dinner with our student community.  I have vivid memories of people from around the world— America, Canada, Israel, Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Britain, Finland, Holland, Switzerland— eating herring and farfel and relaxing after a long week of classes. 

We’d start by saying Kiddush and motzi and the evening would always turn to song as dozens of students  joined in Shabbos melodies in Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew.  Everyone was smiling as we created a new community together in this former Jewish capital of Eastern Europe.  Each week was a wonderful Jewish celebration, and as far as I could tell, this was the coming-together of a very special Jewish community.  

And yet, a significant percentage— perhaps even more than half— of the students at the Yiddish Program did not identify as Jewish.  Yes, they spoke Yiddish.  Yes, they celebrated Shabbat.  And yes, they felt part of this Jewish community. But they, themselves, are not Jewish. 

Nevertheless, we were in community together. If I knew nothing else, I knew that these individuals were my neighbors, living near me and studying with me. Clearly, it was to them that tonight’s Torah reading refers: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ (v’ahavta l’rei’echa kamocha), “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[1] 

The fact that I felt close to all these of students, regardless of their personal or ethnic background, is testament to the power of this verse.  Countless Jews and non-Jews alike read “Love your neighbor as yourself” as a call to universal camaraderie, and I was surely connected to the other members of my program in a unique and compelling way.  As the Vilnius Yiddish students sat at the Shabbos table, we heard the echoes of this ancient commandment: 

Look around.

These are our neighbors.

“Love [them] as yourself.”  

These words teach us to honor in every human being the divine spark that we recognize in ourselves.  This sentiment holds a central place in our common culture, for the Golden Rule, a sort of midrash on the biblical commandment, reshapes “Love your neighbor as yourself” as: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  From the Jewish tradition, the great sage, Hillel, similarly teaches:[2]

 דַעֲלָךְ סְנֵי, לְחַבְרָךְ לָּא תַּעֲבֵיד. זוֹ הִיא כָּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּה; וְאִידָךְ פֵּירוּשָׁהּ הוּא. זִיל גְּמוֹר! “That which is hateful to you do not do to your fellow. This is the entire Torah; the rest is interpretation.   Go and learn!”  In other words, the verse, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” can and should apply to everyone, and it is a strong Jewish value to spread love throughout the world in whatever ways we can.  

Look around.

These are our neighbors.

“Love [them] as yourself.”  

However, there is another reading of “Love your neighbor as yourself” that also speaks from the Jewish tradition.  Rabbis for centuries have struggled to know who exactly counts as a neighbor, and many of them have concluded that this verse refers only to fellow Jews. 

To understand this perspective, it’s important to remember that it wasn’t so long ago that questions about community in general, and the Jewish community in particular, were much simpler than they are today.  Jewish children came from Jewish parents, and these Jewish families made up the Jewish community.  Often, Jews from these communities felt bound together by the outside world, a world that feared the label “Jew” and sometimes hated those who bore the name Israel.  These Jews recognized one another not only because they ate the same food and observed the same holidays and spoke the same language but also because the majority population classified them as Other.  Centuries of Jewish history taught the same lesson: Jews are different from everyone else, and a Jew can only really be understood by another Jew.  It is thus with this mentality that many of our rabbis have interpreted “Love your neighbor as yourself” as referring only to the Jewish community.

Surely Jews have always lived among non-Jews, but one’s real “neighbors” were Jewish, “as yourself.”  Thus, when the famous Rabbi Akiva teaches[3] about “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the lesson זֶה כְּלָל גָּדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה (zeh k’lal gadol baTorah), “This is a great principle of the Torah,” his emphasis on this verse  is part of an ethic of protecting and preserving only fellow Jews.  Even today, when the ghetto walls have long since fallen and American Jews in particular live in unprecedented prosperity, many Jews still prefer to help out fellow Jews, especially those beset by unfavorable circumstances or combative aggressors. Thus, there is a long and understandable history of Jewish thought and community that urges Jews to look out for their own. 

Look around.

These are our neighbors.

“Love [them] as yourself.”  

How do we reconcile these two diverse readings of “Love your neighbor as yourself?” Are the words intended for everyone or only for the Jewish community?  The answer, I believe, lies in the introductory words of this week’s Torah portion. Leviticus 19 opens with: וַיְדַבֵּר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃ דַּבֵּר אֶל־כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃   “The Eternal spoke to Moses saying, ‘Speak to the whole community of the Children of Israel.’”[4]  This phrase, כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (kol adat b’nei Yisrael), the whole community of the Children of Israel, implies that the message that follows is meant for everyone[5] who can hear it.  Not just the Children of Israel, but their entire community. 

Who does that include? It includes all the Hebrew men and women who left Egypt during the Exodus.  It also includes the so-called “mixed multitude,”[6] the Egyptian women and men who joined the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt.  And it includes the גֵרִים (gerim), the non-Israelite strangers that accompany the People of Israel through their wanderings.  In other words, the community of Israel includes everyone— Hebrew and non-Hebrew alike— who is present to hear God’s word.

So while, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is intended specifically for the Jewish community, these words teach us that that community itself must be open to those who might not at first glance seem to fit the expected mold.  There have always been multiple ways to be part of the Jewish people, and individuals with  various connections to the community are just as present today as they were three thousand years ago.  Some people are born into the community and never choose it for themselves. Others convert into the community, professing their commitment to the ideals and the peoplehood of the Jews.  And some join the community without ever calling themselves Jewish.

These individuals may be spouses of Jews, such as Moses’ own wife as well as people sitting right here today.  These individuals may be parents, siblings, or children of Jews who, though they do not consider themselves Jewish, do consider themselves connected to the Jewish community.

All of these people—born Jews, converts, and non-Jewish members of our community—are our “neighbors,” and each one of them is commanded to love everyone in his or her own group as well as everyone in all the other groups.  Every person who wants to join a Jewish community should be welcome, whether that person is Jewish or not.  Anyone who attaches herself to the Jewish people and their practices is a part of כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, the entire community of the Children of Israel.   

Look around.

These are our neighbors.

“Love [them] as yourself.”  

The prophet Isaiah shares with us God’s vision for an inclusive Jewish community: 

As for foreigners
Who attach themselves to the Eternal,
To be God’s servants--
All who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it,
And who hold fast to my covenant--
I will bring them to my sacred mount
And let them rejoice in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
Shall be welcome on my altar;
For my house shall be called
A house of prayer for all peoples.
Thus declares the Eternal God,
Who gathers the dispersed of Israel:
“I will gather still more to those already gathered.”[7]  


Isaiah teaches us that God welcomes the worship of non-Jews and dreams of a day when “all peoples”shall unite in common community.  God defines Jewish commitment as something that can be successfully practiced by anyone with the passion to do so, regardless of birth or background, and God urges us today to accept as members of the Jewish community all who yearn to be a part of it.

I spent a summer studying Yiddish in Vilna, the former intellectual capital of Jewish Europe, delighting in a fresh, vibrant Jewish community.  And even though most of my classmates were not Jews, they, too, were part of that Jewish community. 

I grew up in a Jewish family.  And even though my father was not a Jew, he, too, was part of that Jewish family. 

It is a simple fact that there are non-Jewish members of the Jewish community, and so many of us here can identify personally with that. 

It is also a simple fact that there are members of the Jewish community who feel as if they don’t belong, and so many of us can identify personally with that as well. 

Moses instructs the whole community of the Children of Israel:

 קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי יהוה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם,  “You shall be holy, for I, the Eternal your God, am holy.”[8]

So we must ask ourselves:  What are we doing to ensure that this is a holy community for everyone who is in it? 

Let all who hold fast to God’s covenant be welcome in God’s house, and let all who make up כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל make themselves comfortable in this Jewish home.  

Look around.

These are our neighbors.

“Love [them] as yourself.”


[1] Leviticus 19:18.
[2] BT Shabbat 31a
[3] Sifra Kedoshim, parasha 2, perek 4:12.
[4] Leviticus 19:1-2
[5] Cf Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Vayikra 259.
[6] Exodus 12:38
[7] Isaiah 56:6-8.
[8] Leviticus 19:2.