圣经问答
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself in Jewish Ethics
Leviticus 19:18 commands love of neighbor as oneself, and the surrounding chapter shows this single principle governs every area of Jewish life—worship, justice, speech, and care for the vulnerable.
回答
Leviticus 19:18 anchors Jewish ethics by transforming holiness from an abstract command into concrete action toward other people. The verse says: 'Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am Jehovah.' This is the only place in the Torah where positive love of another human being is commanded as a duty, and the closing 'I am Jehovah' ties human relationships directly to God's own character.
What makes it central is that it is not a single rule but a summary principle. Hillel famously said 'the rest is commentary' when asked to teach the whole Torah while standing on one foot, and Rabbi Akiva called it the great principle (klal gadol) of the Torah. Every surrounding command—honoring parents, honest weights, leaving gleanings for the poor, not cursing the deaf, rebuking the wrongdoer—becomes an expression of this love.
The chapter pairs the command to love with its most demanding application in verse 34: 'the stranger that sojourneth with you... thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.' Neighbor-love extends beyond fellow Israelites to the foreigner, grounded in Israel's memory of its own vulnerability. Jewish ethics thus becomes inseparable from identity, memory, and the call to be holy as God is holy.
背景
Leviticus 19 is sometimes called the 'Holiness Code' because of its opening command: 'Ye shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy.' The chapter gathers a wide variety of laws—ritual (sabbath, peace offerings), ethical (no stealing, honest scales), and relational (no hatred in the heart, rebuke the neighbor)—and binds them all to the one identity: 'I am Jehovah your God.' Verse 18 sits at the structural heart of this collection, capping a series of commands against internal hatred, gossip, and standing idle while a neighbor's life is at stake.
The command's centrality was recognized early in Jewish tradition. Leviticus Rabbah (a midrashic work) connects 'love your neighbor' to peace, noting that the Torah's goal is to bring peace into the world. In rabbinic debate the verse became a measuring rod for all other commandments, and later Jewish philosophers from Philo to Maimonides treated it as the practical form of 'You shall love the Lord your God'—a love of God made visible in love of people.
相关经文
- Leviticus 19:18 The key verse: 'but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am Jehovah.' It binds love of neighbor to God's holiness and is later called the great principle of the Torah by Rabbi Akiva.
常见问题
Why is Leviticus 19:18 called the great principle of the Torah?
Rabbi Akiva called it the klal gadol, the great principle, because it sums up the Torah's ethical demand in one positive command to love. Since Jewish tradition treats every other interpersonal law as a working out of this love, the verse functions as the lens through which all others are read.
Who counts as 'neighbor' in this command?
Leviticus 19 begins with 'the children of thy people,' but verse 34 extends the same love to the stranger or sojourner: 'thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.' So neighbor-love crosses ethnic and national lines, rooted in Israel's memory of its own vulnerability.
How does the verse link love of neighbor to loving God?
Leviticus 19 ties the command to God's holiness ('Ye shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy') and ends each major section with 'I am Jehovah.' In later Jewish thought, this grounds the idea that love of God is not abstract—love of the unseen God becomes visible and tangible in love for the seen neighbor.