The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is considered by many to be the very heart of both Christianity and Judaism. Jesus himself declared it the greatest commandment alongside loving God. But what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?
Does it mean I should have the same feeling of goodwill and concern for my neighbor as I do for myself? Is love only an emotion?
Love can also be an action, though. How do we show love for our spouse, our children, our neighbor? Judaism commands “acts of loving kindness.” Is not love more than an emotion?
Noted Jewish rabbi, Rabbi Mecklenburg (1785-1865), taught that loving your neighbor as yourself begins by asking, what do I want and expect my neighbor to do for me? Then do the same for them, though recognizing their needs and wants may be different from our own. In this light, the Golden Rule might be thought of as, “Do to others as they would have you do to them.”
Whatever way we think of loving our neighbor as ourselves, the commandment does is puts us in relationship with others. It rejects the notion that I only must care about myself, my needs, my wants. When I love my neighbor with both heart (emotion) and hand (action), I join in God’s work of creating that beloved community where every person can live and thrive and become the person God made them to be.
May we strive each day to love our neighbor as ourselves.